“Leadership is not a license to do less; it is a responsibility to do more.” — Simon Sinek, Leaders Eat Last
As part of my personal growth process, I love spending time studying other leaders. Both leaders from the past, but also present day leaders. I also look at the leaders that are part of my business today and also those that had to be promoted to another organization in years past. I typically look at two different kinds of patterns: What has lead to their success and also what lead to failure.
Today, I want to share a pattern I’ve observed. It’s a pattern EVERY leader should avoid, and it begins with one thought:
“I deserve to be a leader”
I believe this to be by far a leader’s most dangerous thought! To some degree it’s natural to have entitlement feelings as a leader. Leadership is hard and it is very demanding. And not all people know how to accept the responsibility and steward it well. It no doubt takes a personal toll and if we’re not careful, we can make it all about us. But once a leader has developed an entitlement pattern of thinking, his / her Team is in great danger.
The biggest problem with “I deserve this” is how it changes our perspective. We begin to see our contribution to the organization as more important than anyone else’s. This creates a “one-way street” mindset, which leads to a very wrong mindset motivation for leadership.
The greatest leaders know that leading is not about getting what you want. Leadership is about serving the people around you for the benefit of the entire team.
“I deserve” thinking threatens our ability to lead because it takes us out of our group. It separates us from the real nature of what leadership is all about – Serving others.
Trying to make life all about you and your own agenda pushes happiness for everyone else further out of reach. If a leader thinks, “it’s all about me,” then his or her team will think it’s all about them. The result from that? No hope for getting along, and certainly no hope for achieving what’s best for the team.
So I know what you are thinking, How do I reverse the “I deserve” mentality? My answer is actually a pretty easy one…
Value other people! Do it everyday. Do it intentionally. And do it consistently. Make it what you wake up and put your game face on to do!
A DAILY practice for me and has changed my mindset as a leader:
Everyday I wake up to…
1. Always value people
2. Think of ways to add value to people
3. Look for ways to add value to people
4. Intentionally add value to people
5. Encourage everybody around me to add value to people
Valuing others helps minimize the entitlement mindset of “I deserve this.” It redirects your focus and energy onto your team rather than on yourself.
Entitlement is a self-absorbed and a passive exercise. It’s inward-facing and pretty much simply represents a lack of leadership maturity. It also becomes tedious and tiresome. Great leaders are humble in their actions, take responsibility, and accept accountability to drive change.
Remember this my amigos: Leadership is not simply a position on the org chart, it is a role that your people feel that you are best fit to be in. It’s on you to maintain that position and steward it for the greater good of others. The second your people feel you are more interested in positional entitlement for your own gain, rather than using your resources to help them grow, there is trouble brewing on the horizon! Leading is about channeling all that you are for the benefit of building others. Take a minute to examine your own leadership today. Do you have any “I deserve to be a leader” assumptions? If there are areas in your leadership where you struggle with a sense of entitlement, begin counteracting this by developing the daily habit of valuing others. True success comes when you take what you’re the best at and use that to help others achieve their goals and dreams.