What THEY lie to you about in management school

If you're an employee, you're a leader. If you are responsible for a function, some output that your department is "#KnownFor," you ARE a leader.

What Are You #KnownFor?

Maybe not in the #military or #political sense. But, every day that you wake up and in-tend to do/be/have something, you're leading.

Naturally, the question you're asking, "Who am I leading?" The answer always starts with a single pronoun: "You."

You're leading yourself. Through your morning rituals. As you make your way to your workplace. When you switch between tasks (or between distractions). As you make your way through the day, you're setting the direction you want to go in, and then your influencing yourself to take the actions necessary. When you think of leadership, you've got to start with the woman or man in the mirror.

Do You Trust You?

You see, when it comes to studying real leadership - or as we are coaching you this month: Strategic Thinking and Leadership - it is doubly-necessary to ask yourself the question "they" are avoiding. That question is:

Am I trustworthy?

Consider this: What makes a leader "followable"? Really, you can take all the leadership courses, read the leadership books, you can attend high-priced workshops that claim to be based on neuro-science and b-school research. Do any of those things and you're only - and always - left with this query:

As a result of learning this, will the people I'm leading trust me more?

Learning to be more followable should be the only thing that leaders study their first of promotion. How are you doing it?