I'm here today to talk to you about how to be a leader, an impossible subject in two minutes; never-the-less, let's have a go of it. Whereas management is about the perfecting of existing things of work, leadership is really all about changing the way people work so that you can improve the business performance. Leaders are really concerned with getting people to lean in to the future, in to the unknown, and the unknowable. So what is it that people do as leaders? Well, they inspire people to do things they didn't think was possible, they create a vision so that people can actually put themselves in to a task by being clearer about the destination and how to get there. They solve problems, they resolve conflict between teams, they create teams that are naturally diverse, not just a bunch of people that are all the same. What are leaders? What do they possess? You know, if that's what they do, who are they? Well, good leaders have what's called in the trade, emotional literacy. That's not just kind of living inside your own head and kind of thinking out what you think that is going on around you, it's actually checking out what other people think about your leadership and responding to that. So it's living inside your own head, and that of others. It's a great balancing act really, great leadership. You have to balance short term ambitions with the long term perspective. You have to balance people's needs for comfort with the need to be outside of their range of skills, and a whole lot of other things. So what do leaders do on a daily basis? Well, they inspire people to reach goals and ambitions that they didn't think were possible, perhaps extending their skill set. They do, as I said, create this vision where by people can see what the, the future holds, because people tend to stop if they don't know what they're about to enter as, as an ambition. They will problem solve with their teams, help them to under, to explore different options when they're stuck. They will counsel them, couch them, possibly love them when they're feeling down, and celebrate with them when they're feeling good. So, it's worth exploring also what leaders are. Above all else, leaders have emotional literacy, that's not just living inside your own head, it's living inside other people's heads and finding out how you impact upon them so that you can get the best out of them. Good leaders also make good decisions. Now that balances head and heart, or if we're talking Star Trek here, Spock and Kirk. You can find out an awful lot more about leadership beyond these two minutes in my book, Sex, Leadership and Rock and Roll.
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