What makes a good leader? Do any of you guys think you're good leaders?
Here's my cynical answer: you don't call yourself a leader, first and foremost. You do, you don't label. And you don't elevate yourself above others.
Leadership is still creaking from top-down, coercive, command-and-control, I-can-piss-on-your-heads-what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it machismo that it is ... to quote my favorite rag,
Everyday Feminism -- toxic masculinity weaponized into an industrial-psychology complex.
Actually, I am pretty serious about this. There are rags like
Forbes and
Inc and
Fortune and every success porn outlet in between who worship some fake cult of leadership as a means not of lifting up others in service, as leadership should do, but rather as a means of self-aggrandizement and feigned superiority.
The first rule of leadership is you do not talk about leadership.
We live today in a more networked world where influence is earned, not anointed by a higher power to be forced down onto the masses to do one's bidding. This means throwing away all the b.s. associated with traditional leadership and developing those skills and participating in those actions that brings the best out of others. Leadership is not a title, it's an action. Shut up and just do it, and stop treating it like some badge of honor. We all need to be leaders in complex societies with so many views, opinions, moving parts, etc.