Today marks the last in my series on defining characteristics of leadership.  I hope that you have enjoyed them and that you have found them beneficial.

The last facet of leadership that I will be discussing is perhaps the hardest and yet the most important.

As leaders we must release the work, the results, the process, the progress and even the direction of the organization into the hands of our team. If we don’t release it to them, they will never have the necessary intrinsic motivators necessary to be fully engaged and successful.

Our releasing actually must begin at the very first discussion about goals and organizational direction. As the leader we may have certain key components that we feel are non-negotiable but we need to keep them few and simple. Leaders must release the work to the team (and they in turn must release the work to those they lead) if we ever want to learn about team-work, collaboration, unity and synergy.

Releasing the work is a humbling process and requires that we as leaders have a trust in the character and ability of our team. Releasing the work is giving people permission to try and permission to fail. Releasing the work is opening wide the possibilities of what might be both for the individual team member but also for the entire organization. If we cannot release the work we will burnout, personally stifle the health and growth of our organization, drastically reduce the trust our team members have for us and perhaps ultimately relegate us to managers of the status quo.

Leadership is involving is the third in this short series.  In case you have missed the first two, here are links to those articles.  The first one was Leadership is . . .  Modeling.  And the second one was Leadership is . . .  Teaching.  But today I want to focus on involving others through our leadership.

After we have modeled our convictions, purpose and plan and then shared with others where we are headed and how they can be a vital part of that process, then we must begin involving people.

It is not enough to plan and structure things. It is not enough to have goals and action steps, we must involve and engage people in the actual implementation. Involving begins during the previous stage of teaching/learning because it simply won’t work to tell others what the vision and plan is and how they fit in it without giving them opportunity to contribute to the formation of the vision and plan.

Even if you have the leverage of certain extrinsic motivators, you and your organization will simply not achieve great results if you merely give people a list of expectations. As leaders we need to involve people in every part of the process from the brainstorming session to the recruitment of the team to the development of the process and to the analysis of the “success” of the plan. We must involve people not only by letting them have a seat at the table but seeking and welcoming their ideas and insights all along the way. Involvement should create ownership and produce far greater results than any one person can achieve alone.

Leadership is teaching.

We must tell others what we are attempting, why we are doing it, how we plan on getting there and how to avoid pitfalls along the way. As leaders we can never assume that the people we are leading know what we are thinking or reaching for.

As we live out our personal mission we must constantly be attentive to leading others through teaching. We must explain why we do what we do, and we must invite others to join us. We cannot be timid in our recruiting or our teaching. Our words must be clear and purposeful.

Our teaching must be about more than just vision, but also about the process. But let me be clear here: the teaching of leadership doesn’t only go one way. In many ways this facet of leadership could be titled “learning” because not only will our team be learning but we will be as well. Sometimes we are the teacher, sometimes one of our team is doing the teaching and of course many times it is the circumstances and failures along the way that teach us the most.

As leaders we must teach and we must learn, because if we do not then we ourselves, not to mention our team and our organization, will stagnate and become irrelevant and useless.

Leadership is leading, but perhaps first it is living.

We must live what we know is right and pursue the goals and steps we know are important to live out our purpose. In other words as leaders we must let our lives model our convictions. As those who have been given charge of a group of people we must model what we are advocating and live out loud the lifestyle and practices that we are hoping they will one day emulate. In order to have credibility we must be authentic and live what we teach. Not only this but because people learn in so many different ways a multi-sensory approach to training and equipping is a must.

Furthermore, faithfully living out what we desire for those we are responsible for will help them to realize that what we are asking of them is much more than just a routine but we believe in it enough that we devote our lives to taking our ideas, philosophies, convictions, goals and dreams and putting “skin” on them.

Be so committed to your purpose and convictions that your life is a picture of what you desire your followers to be.