Ever ponder on how I, how we, how society, or how our culture defines, “leadership?”  Despite the bottom line facts that there are thousands of leadership models, tens of thousands consultants, tens of thousands books, and endless assessments for leadership – sometime as individual’s, people can hardly agreed on anything!

Let’s set a foundation and start with things I think we could agree on.

• Leadership development is a critical
• Leadership development is challenging
• Leadership development will differ per individual
• Leadership development requires TIME

Most leadership development sources and professional coaches focus on “rounding out the sharp edges,” by helping individuals identify their “skyrocketing strengths” while, identifying our shortcomings, derailers, blind spots… aka: weakness.

As I’ve ponder on this for a several months, I’ve now concluded with some interesting takeaway suggestions I wanted to share with you personally.

First, In order to define and get a true perspective on leadership you have to look at “followers.”

Why?

Leaders naturally attract followers. 

This requires us to back up and ask another question, “Who do we follow and why?”

Week one’s interesting takeaway suggestion to ponder is:

• People follow individuals with character.

Truly great leadership requires deep personal character traits.  Leadership is so much more than a title!  Leadership, requires individuals to think and act on behalf of every single person that come in contact with the organization.  These people, set a good example, inspire others to follow them and other co-leaders through tenacity and their behavior.  They do not have to “bend the rules,” or “play to the crowd,” but rather they give us all a better understanding of how to unlock the potential within our lives.

My personal experience have seen that most leaders function exceptionally well in focused or certain situations, are thrust into new roles (example: transitioning from companies to startups, or from growing businesses to turnarounds), and the failure rate is high; however, leaders are resilient and keep moving forward.

Action step: Take a moment to leave a comment or your thoughts on, “Who do we follow and why?” I’d be honored to hear and have you share thoughts.  How? Simply leave or submit a comment below and personally commit take one step forward from where you are at today.