Many organizations are failing because they are bloated with leaders who are doing what they can do. Some leaders don’t lead anymore; they’re repeating what they know and are comfortable in. They are managing their comfort and familiarity.
In such instances the role of leadership is misunderstood and undermined. Leadership is about moving forward. Managing systems and what is already established is, well, management. Ensuring everything fits into the cutter and that everyone is coloring in the lines… That is not leadership.
Moving forward means that you see, meet or create something new. It means the ground you cover is not the ground you’ve covered before. Leadership about innovation. It is about creating new things.
If there is nothing new being created leadership there is no leadership but management. Leaders are vision guardians. Vision is a picture of the preferred future. That future is created by steps forward.
Vision is something that is walked into and not waited to arrive [Click to Tweet]
This is why leaders don’t do what they can do. Leaders show others you can’t do what they can do, to focus on doing things that they cannot. This is the foundation of innovation.
Leaders who do only what they can do are mere status quo managers [Click to Tweet]
Part of challenging the status quo is challenging one’s present abilities against the backdrop of vision. It is doing whatever it takes, a going beyond one’s present abilities.
Leaders that don’t stretch themselves cannot stretch their teams and organizations. That is the substance of innovation.
Leadership is not well-defined if innovation in not at the core of its definition [Click to Tweet]
Innovation produces new things, new ways, new perspectives, new paradigms, new possibilities, new hope. New.
When there is no innovation, or new way of doing things leaders are failing. Leadership is not taking place.
Again, when leaders are doing what they can already do, they do not create room for innovation. They are not leading. That is why; great leaders don’t do what they can do. Be bold. Be /ˈherətik/. Leader’s don’t…