Hard Truths about Leadership

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Effective leaders do a few simple things. The hard part is doing them consistently day after day. If leadership is right for you, you won’t mind that. But too many people wind up in leadership roles who don’t like the work. So before you decide that leadership is for you, consider these hard truths.

Effective leaders are accountable for their team’s results. The great ones hand out credit and absorb blame. If you can’t handle that, leadership isn’t for you.

Creating a vision and a strategy are the easy parts. Communicating them over and over every day and turning them into reality are the hard parts. If you can’t handle that, leadership isn’t for you.

Human nature hasn’t changed for millennia and it’s not going to change for you. People are going to bring their emotions to work with them. They won’t leave the rest of their life at the door either. If you can’t handle that, leadership isn’t for you.

Most of the people who will come to work with you are intelligent and resourceful and want to do good work. Your best bet is to make sure they have the training and resources they need and then get out of their way. If you can’t handle that, leadership isn’t for you.

Some of the people who will come to work with you can’t or won’t put in the effort or do acceptable work. When that happens, your job is to help them find a better place so that they and the team will be better. If you can’t handle that, leadership isn’t for you.

There is no magic stone, incantation, or ritual that will make it all easy. You have to do a few basic things over and over, day after day, even when it’s difficult, even when it doesn’t seem to matter. If you can’t handle that, leadership isn’t for you.

No matter how good a job you do, the time will come when you must have a difficult conversation about behavior or performance with someone on your team. You job is to be fair to everyone and to have the conversation as soon as possible. If you can’t handle that, leadership isn’t for you.

You have two jobs. One is to accomplish the mission through the team. The other is to care for the team members. Sometimes those jobs will conflict. Sometimes you will have to sacrifice one for the other. If you can’t handle that, leadership isn’t for you.

Leading others can be a rewarding life choice, but only if you enjoy the work. If you don’t, leadership isn’t for you.

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