Leadership isn't just for CEOs and presidents. We ALL can lead. Because leadership's mostly a mindset and a way of doing things.
Taxi drivers can lead and street sweepers can lead and teachers can lead as can managers, artists and salespeople.
And please — do your part. Be the leader you wish the people around you would be. As Mother Teresa said: “If each of us would sweep our own doorstep, the whole world would be clean.
As the world changes you need to adapt—then prosper—by learning new driving principles and daily tactics.
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The old model of leadership really said, you need a title to be a leader. You need to be a president. You need to be a prime minister. You need to be a CEO. You need to be a billionaire. You need to go to Harvard. You need to have this incredible background that justifies you being a leader.
Well, the old model of leadership is absolutely obsolete. We are in a completely new time, not only in business, but in humanity. There is so much disruption, not only of technology, but of society, of geography, of the environment, and a new time calls for a new way of thinking about leadership.
And so I want to invite you and challenge you a little bit with great affection and respect to think about we are now in Leadership 2.0. We are now experiencing what I call the
democratization of leadership. So no matter what you do, you might not even have a title. No matter where you live, no matter if you drive a taxi or if you're a middle manager, or if you are a student, or if you work in a large corporation or if you're a startup entrepreneur, no matter what you do, no matter where you are, you have the
opportunity starting today to start thinking like a leader.
And I guess what I'm really saying is leadership is not about a title. Leadership is not about a position. Leadership is not about authority. Leadership is not about what's written on your business card.
Leadership is not about the size of your office. Leadership is not about your net-worth. Leadership is much more a mindset. It's a way of thinking about your work. It's about thinking about your performance. It's an approach to working and it's an approach to living.
And I guess what I'm really challenging you right now here with me to think about and really own is every single time you give away your power by saying, "I don't have a title so that's not my job," or, "The change is too strong, and I'm not the manager here or the CEO, so I'm not going to embrace the change." Every single time you say, "Well, that's an unhappy customer, but I'm not in customer service so that's not my responsibility," every single time you give away your power to make a change, you play victim.
And what I really want to invite you to think about is you have a choice every single day at work and every single day you walk out in the world, you can either be a victim or you can be a leader. You can be a victim, or you can be a leader. You can spend your days making excuses because that's what victims do. Or you can spend your hours delivering results.
Victims are frightened by change. A leader without a title gets inspired by change. Victims love entertainment. Leaders love education. Victims are busy. They're busy being busy. Peter Drucker said it really well. He said, "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." Confucius said it even more elegantly. He said, "The person who chases two rabbits catches neither."
But victims are busy. They're busy being busy. You'll look at them and they say, "No, no, I can't do that. I'm so busy." But you say, "Why are you so busy?" They say, "I don't know, but I'm really, really busy." And that's really easy to do in this age of dramatic distraction. But leaders without titles, they shift from busyness to delivering results. They don't do fake work. They do real work.