It’s tempting. To believe that freedom, power, and wealth are at the pinnacle of leadership. But leadership – real leadership – is not about position. It is not about perks nor about power.
Leadership is all about sacrifice. And the more you go up, the more you must give up.
Because leadership always requires sacrifice.
For People
Culture-shaping leaders place the success of others, the team, and the organization above their own well-being. Often at great personal cost.
They understand that there’s far more value and fulfillment in sacrifice than in self-preservation. So they consistently choose to serve people in a way that makes them more successful.
Leaders invest their time in teachable people – because they’re valuable and worth developing. They’re worth the sacrifice.
For Vision
Many organizations are all about protocol. The corporate environment is about protocol. Religion is about protocol. Education is about protocol.
But culture-shaping leadership is about selfless sacrifice. Sacrificing for living and working with purpose. Sacrificing for huge, compelling vision, and sacrificing for specific plans to accomplish the vision. It’s about sacrificing to effectively manage priorities and decisions. It’s about fanatical sacrifice for developing people. And it is about sacrifice that goes WAY out on a limb for the team and for the organization. Sacrifice that gives everything for others.
If you want to lead, sacrifice is often the only thing that stands between you and your miracle. And once you experience the miracle, you’ll crave the sacrifice that leadership demands. And those moments of discomfort – of sacrifice – become defining moments in your life, in your work, in your team, and in your organization.
Your vision – your dream – isn’t just some vision of someday in a distant future. It’s not found somewhere out there. It’s not something you hope for. Vision is something you create and pursue every day. Something you hold on tightly to. You fanatically focus on it. You selflessly sacrifice routine, comfort, and ordinary for it.
Here’s why
Because it’s worth doing. And because people are worth developing.
Only when people find the courage to sacrifice are they able to lead.
And sacrifice isn’t something a leader does once. It is an ongoing sacrifice. And the higher you go, the more it will cost you.
Because leadership always requires sacrifice.
I’d throw persistence on the list. Leadership is an every day action, requiring a consistency that does not depend on whether or not you’re in the mood or having a good day.
Good thought, Doug. I agree!