What is a leader and How to become one?

I was enjoying a cartoon short on Disney+ with my children on Saturday morning - “Forky Asks A Question.” Forky’s questions and subsequent answers typically aren’t particularly mind-blowing - even the most ‘hard-hitting’ of topics are things such as “What is cheese?” However, this Saturday’s topic was surprisingly thought-provoking. Today, Forky the talking spork asked the viewer: “What is a leader?” 

Forky’s eventual answer was that a leader is someone who takes control and makes decisions for everybody. A leader, Forky elaborated, is someone who decides the best thing to do.

For a children’s show, Forky’s answer is pretty good. But if we were to pretend for a moment that this was a real thought exercise and not a kid’s cartoon, does Forky’s answer capture the true essence of leadership? It begs the question: Is leadership just about making decisions for others? Typically in the corporate world, “delegation” and “empowerment” are buzzwords that float around the “leadership” space, but they don’t really fit with Forky’s answer. 

We like to say that at BlueSky, the cliche “we don’t just get employees, we get family” isn’t a cliche. And we try to champion leadership skills in every employee - but obviously, not every employee is “taking control” of everything and “making decisions for everybody”, as our Spork friend might believe. 

So how do we improve upon Forky’s definition of leadership?

It may come as a surprise, but despite its frequent usage, defining leadership in its entirety is a difficult task.

The definition that I believe resonates with my BlueSky’s concept of leadership was from author Kevin Kruse in an article for Forbes. 

His definition of leadership is: Leadership is a process of social influence that maximizes the efforts of others towards achieving a goal. It's not about authority or power, it's about inspiring and encouraging others to reach a meaningful outcome. 

To be fair to Forky, it’s probably difficult to be that verbose as a talking Spork. 

In the article, Kevin Kruse breaks down the key elements of true leadership as such: 

1. Leadership is all about social influence, not just holding a title or power.
2. Leadership requires others, and that implies they don’t need to be “direct reports”.
3. It's about working with others to achieve a shared goal. 
4. With no need for specific personality traits or attributes, leadership can come in many forms. 
5. It's always about maximizing the efforts of the team. That's what sets this definition apart from the usual academic ones.

It's fascinating that such a complex definition is needed for something as common as leadership. The reason for this is that people tend to have misconceptions about what it truly means. Leadership isn't about having a title, it's about taking action and inspiring others to achieve something meaningful. 

Another important thing that flew over Forky’s spiky head was the how of leadership. It’s all well and good to say what a leader is, but that’s not so useful when you don’t know how to become one.

I have a story from my own life that I believe best describes the how of leadership. As a freshly minted technical lead, I had decided to step out of my comfort zone and apply for a “big league” Head of Development position. “What the hell?” I thought. After all, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!”

In the interview, My inexperience was highlighted with the curveball “You're lagging behind in leadership compared to other candidates who are interviewing with us, what's your game plan to level up?” 

My answer was short and maybe even a little too simple - but it was significant. Significant enough for the memory has stayed with me so clearly even so many years later.  My answer was “I plan on becoming a Leader by being one” I meant that I wanted to learn by doing - to lead from the front, and learn by making mistakes. I wasn’t going to be infallible - likely far from it. But I wanted to take my mistakes in my stride transparently and show leadership through how I overcame those mistakes. I wanted to learn how to be a leader, and show leadership to others, by being a leader in the first place. 

There were 3 interviewers on the panel. One smiled, one was confused, and one blanked me. I didn’t let it discourage me, I explained my answer - I have had a wealth of leadership experience, not just in the tech world, but also in school and sports teams. I was a “game” changer!"

I also shared my other secret recipe for leadership success - continuously reading about tech and business leadership, but more importantly, the belief that real leadership begins with leading by example. That’s why I wanted to become a leader, by being one.

I continued to qualify my original statement to the interviewers - leadership isn't just about titles, it's about choice. I've seen junior developers lead like champions and managers fall short. To me, being a leader is a skill to develop, and titles and promotions simply followed suit. Well, the interviewers decided to make me walk the walk, not just talk the talk - they offered me a position, but not as Head of Development - as a Senior Developer in the same company. I didn’t mind because I truly believed it when I said that leadership was a choice and that titles and promotions would follow.

11 months later, I was promoted to Head of Development. 

Five years after that? The interviewer who had smiled at my answer in that interview asked me to become CEO of their company.