As I prepared to write this article, I conducted a Google search and posed the question, what is the key ingredient to leadership? Over twenty pages of results returned listing qualities such as integrity, trust, honesty, etc. True, those are important and necessary qualities, and I have written about them in the past. However, as important as those characteristics are, they are not the key ingredient to leadership.
This is the same question I pose to attendees during the leadership classes I teach and without fail, people begin to list characteristics and qualities of good leadership. It is not a trick question and so far, no one has identified the key ingredient to leadership. The key ingredient is people. Without people there is no leadership.
You can drive a fire engine, but you cannot lead it. You can raise a ladder, but you cannot lead it. You can advance a hose line, but you cannot lead it. Those are all things that we can oversee and manage but not lead.
Leadership is all about people and if we forget that crucial point, then there is a danger of treating people like things and not like human beings. Strive to be a leader of people and treat them as human beings and not human doings.
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