What is Leadership?

Many years ago, when I was in what might be called “the adolescence” of my career, I had a manager who took an interest in me. This manager wanted me to develop a proper career plan which was new to me.

Career planning to that point had consisted of naming a position I’d like to see myself in a few years and identifying a training program for the next year.

This manager was insistent I think and choose carefully and purposefully about my career. What did I aspire to do? What fit my personality and ambitions? What skills would I need? Together, we built a plan.

That was a true instance of leadership in action. For the first time in my career, I wasn’t simply serving my manager, my manager was serving me. At that moment he became my leader.

My manager didn’t have to spend so much time and energy helping me develop my career plan. My manager could have identified what needed to be done and simply asked me to do it. My manager could have ticked the box in the career development part of the annual performance management process.

My leader chose more and that made a huge difference in me and my journey. This leader made a choice to invest in me, the person, not to meet his short term needs but for the long run which benefited the organization and my career.

Since that time he has become a friend, mentor, advisor and executive coach to me. Now I am much older, much more experienced and a bit wiser. My leader is into his fourth career and is still helping me with my career planning, this time as an entrepreneur and business owner rather than an employee. He has never stopped choosing and supporting me. I am grateful for his leadership.