The "inspirational" leader

Do you know what defines a good leader? Earlier this summer, I learned that I would be leading a group of people in a business where the outcome of what my team and I achieve is crucial to the company's situation.

My first thought was: Yes, I want this!

A day later: Desperation. This is happening for real.

I started figuring out how I should be as a leader by learning from my more experienced peers. And so I embarked on a journey of the 1000 thought leaders who told me to be “an inspiration”. When too many thought leaders have the same opinion - it’s either because everyone’s been fed the same information, read it in the same way and believed it, or because it’s what the audience engages with. Financially rewarding, but rarely the truth.

One of the most important learnings I’ve brought with me over the past few years is to be careful who I take advice from. And so I took a step back and realized that if I were to be a good leader, I needed to focus on optimising the performance of my team and minimize churn. Several empirical books and articles later: Being an inspirational leader might be excellent if you try to win an election, but I doubt it will help me create a high-performing, low-churn team. That’s just Leadership BS.

Now I’m going to find a leadership style that fits my personality and is most likely to make my team perform while being happy. Warm and Confident are the keywords I’m following.