Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?

With this rhetorical question, we're concluding our two modules on managing people and organisations. For the question, all credits go to Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones who wrote an entire book about authentic leadership.  And leadership was the theme of the day: we had a passionate lecture by Robert A. Burgelman  on strategic leadership, got feedback from our leadership effectiveness analysis a.k.a. the 360 feedback, learned about situational leadership and analysed what it takes to become a high performance organisation.  But what about servant leadership, connected leadership, creative leadership or other types of leadership?  Are we natural born leaders or can you be taught to become a leader?  Are all people at the top leaders or do you also have leaders at the lower part of the food chain?  There are roughly 105 million results when you google leadership so you can imagine that there is a lot to say about the topic.
Personally, I believe that leadership is all about execution and getting things done.  Like someone recently said to me, an idea is worth nothing as long as it is not put into practice.  You can be a visionary and a strategic thinker but if you cannot convince people to follow you, it's gonna be a lonely ride out there.  So before you can lead others you have to learn to lead yourself.   That's why - throughout our journey - we have a personal coach who helps us to set a vision, define our personal goals and lay the stepping stones towards our destiny.  He learns us to deal with our weaknesses and differentiate ourselves from the crowd.  But is leadership then about being rational about oneself?

Well, not exactly - because intuition is the missing ingredient to make the magic work.  Intuition is what makes leaders go astray and boldly go where no one has ever gone before. It is that sensing part that makes the difference between being a manager and being a leader. Or like Goffee and Jones put it:
(...) leadership, it should be noted, is not about results per se. While many of the leaders we have studied and use as examples do in fact post superior financial returns, the focus (...) has been on leaders who excel at inspiring people—in capturing hearts, minds, and souls. So if you ever want anyone to be lead by you, then authenticity is the way forward it seems.