To Make the World a Better Place, Be a Leader!

There are many definitions of "leader". But not all of them fit if you are wanting to create real change, positive change. One definition is that a leader is someone who has followers. Broad and literal and doesn't involve a plan and a goal. You can call fans "followers", but  having fans doesn't give the fan any power or plan to follow to achieve a positive goal.

You may be a "fan" of social justice or of saving the environment. But until you influence others to act toward achieving those goals, not a whole lot will change, at lease as a result of your concern.

So what does it mean to lead? What is leadership? According to Kevin Kruse*, creator of an eLearning program for managers, and author of Employee Engagement 2.0, it is "the process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal."

He points out that the key elements of this definition are:

• Leadership stems from social influence, not authority or power

• Leadership requires others, and that implies they don’t need to be “direct reports”

• No mention of personality traits, attributes, or even a title; there are many styles, many paths, to effective leadership

• It includes a goal, not influence with no intended outcome

Does this sound to lofty an ideal for you? It's not really. You can use it to achieve even less lofty, more mundane goals. You probably use it every day to achieve family goals or community goals. The idea here is to use it to achieve goals that make the world better, even the world where you live and work.

Identify your goal and determine who and how you want to work toward the goal with you. It doesn't matter what style of leadership that fits you. The important thing is the goal.

In my next post I'll look at what makes a good leader.

*Kevin Kruse is the creator of the Leading for Employee Engagement eLearning program for managers. and author of the bestselling book, Employee Engagement 2.0.