With so much written about leadership, with so many theories about what it is and what it isn’t, let me just give you one single, simple, singular idea that you can make application with right now, where you are.
The very best thing you can do today to improve your leadership certainly by a factor of two or three, is become interested in people. Truly interested. Not interested because it is your job, or your career, or your responsibility; but truly, honestly interested.
As a leader when was the last time you simply stopped and talked and engaged the people around you? Not only the people you lead, but the people you are in existence to help and serve. As a matter of fact, that’s what leadership is, isn’t it? It’s helping, it’s serving, and it’s enabling others and inspiring others to do the same through a coordinated effort.
If you are stuck in your leadership and you wonder why things are going wrong, why people won’t do what you tell them to do, or expect them to do, or even pay them to do; if you’re worried about why customers aren’t buying more of your widgets, maybe the best thing you could do – it will cost you no money and very little time – is to strategically and on purpose and from the heart become interested in the people you lead and the people you serve.