I s'pose I grew up thinking that people who were in a leadership position simply knew things I didn't; that they had some secret decoder ring (yeah, I'm dating myself with that one, huh?) that gave them an insider's knowledge. It just seemed that the successful (students, teachers, consultants, business owners...) people had something I couldn't have...
Then, I started traveling...and introducing myself to people, and sitting down to talk with them. Just yesterday, I got to sit down and enjoy a fantastic string of conversations with Bob Maitland (founder of Elite Leadership Solutions) at The Common Man restaurant in Merrimack, NH. How did we meet? Via a common group of connections over on LinkedIn!
Driving away from a dinner discussing our profession, the possibilities, and what we can individually do to work as a community, I realized that real-life leadership consists of at least a few things (what did I miss, please leave as a comment below!):
1. Show up: Reach out to my community. Ask people where I can participate, help and be of service.
2. Be friendly(er): Share a real story, one that I can laugh about that shows the "real" me...
3. Connect the dots: A social network is simply a group of people who share some kind of interest and can bounce ideas off of each other as they grow. If I know someone...and I know someone else, could those two know each other to move their mission forward? I gotta connect 'em!
#4. You have to be willing to be helped. You cannot be part of a network if you won't let people, assist, mentor, teach or work with you to overcome a problem.
Posted by: Vince Lyons | March 23, 2011 at 08:32 AM