Say "LEADERSHIP" One More Time and I Will Punch You

That’s it, I’m done being nice and diplomatic and elaborate using the most politically correct terms. “leadership” and “A leader” and all this jargon have become more common than IPhones and more cheesy than cheese itself.

Now, maybe the terms is so popular and all business people talk about it because that leadership thing is the newly discovered secret key of Ali baba’s treasure cave, and having that key will grant you all the success and wealth you ever dreamed of.

OR

Maybe because “Leadership” is the sweet illusion of a secret key of Ali Baba’s treasure cave.

To find out which is which let’s think together within the next couple of lines. Let’s first start with specifying what we are talking about. More or less, and according to hundreds of seminars, YouTube videos, articles and books, we are talking about an exceptional ability to drive one’s self and the others toward new horizons of success, right?.

An image that just brings my memory the picture of superman’s strong confident face, the handsome smile of john Wayne on top of his horse, and the old hazy sketches on the yellow pages of “Nemer bin Adwan” story book (our version of John Wayne). It is the concept of one certain individual with exceptional abilities that make him/her the envy and admiration of everyone, an image so sweet you can hardly resist liking, in fact that image sells in billions of dollars through an industry called “movies” .

Back to you dear curious reader, remember the last 3 successes you had in your life, and remember how many people were involved in each? let it be the encouragement of your wife, the support of your boss or the advice of a friend. Homosepians are social creatures, life in reality goes through a complex structure of interconnected relationships and interdependencies that make the mere idea of “sole ranger” and “super hero” who succeeded because of their exceptional abilities (not the interconnected system that supports them) shockingly childish.

 Let’s go to the dark side of you now, remember 3 failures you had, and tell me sweet friend, did they take place because “you are not a leader”?, shame on you, if you were a leader you would know better than failing. Super man has a body stronger than steel and a super breath and a super sight, Nemer bin Adwan is a sheikh, a poet, a fighter, a wise man and a lover, they were “leaders”, weren’t they?.

The concept of a man with qualities that make him better, faster, smarter and stronger than the others is too sexy to resist, the problem is that man/woman only exists in Fiction, in real life you are exceptional in at most a side or 2 in your life and you are normal or even really bad in other areas. Life gives you, or sometimes even forces on you, the leading seat for specific matters or situations, but in the remaining times you are just a passenger (probably reading a book with the title: “leadership, the secret formula to be independent and exceptional in everything”).

Leadership is a term that got so commercialized and abused that it became a junk brain food, delicious, fulfilling but bad in the long term (ever wondered why the people who keep bringing “leadership” in every conversation are usually your hostile coworkers or the ones with very obvious shortage of social skills?).

Leadership is not the spiders bite that will make you a very popular super human who can do things exceptionally well. In fact, “Leadership” has a definition that is not sexy at all and it cannot sell seminars and training courses, a definition that makes “leadership” sounds more like an unwanted disease rather than the envy of the others. Leadership is, simply, the courage to accept responsibilities when needed, and handle the consequences of your choices when you do so.