Leadership is a Journey

What's your Leadership Mindset?
Here's what I got from this article . . . leadership is a journey, and it's to be undertaken by everyone.  Wow, what a lesson, and first thing on a Monday morning.  This is going to be a great week!

Why I find this so interesting is because I can envision the difference between a workplace where everyone is behaving as a leader and one where they are not.

EVERYONE IS A LEADER -
Decisions are made by everyone with less dependency on the leader for day to day decision making.  This frees the leader up to work on big picture projects rather than everyday business. This gets an organization operating under the philosophy of the lowest paid person who can do the work should do the work. The company's money is well spent when the top leaders are able to work on future planning of the organization.  Growth will occur at a much greater rate.  Not to mention that the employees will be much more able to take on larger roles since they are already in a leadership mindset.

Accountability is greater.  Every action has a consequence and it is great when the consequence of your overall business philosophy is in the form of more accountability.  With everyone taking on more responsibility each individual has greater accountability. They will be more likely to step up when asked "who is responsible?" and say "I am".

The customer experience is enhanced.  Every business deals with customers in some form.  Internal customers are other employees that rely on us.  External customers are other businesses or consumers who rely or purchase from us.  If your employees are working with a leadership mindset the customer gets resolution more quickly.  There are less interruptions in the transaction to go look for an answer.  It also builds trust when more face to face time can be spent directly with the person providing what they need.  We all want to work directly with the person who can give us what we want.  Encourage your employees to behave as a leader and your customers will get what they want.

ORGANIZATIONS WHERE ONLY LEADERS BEHAVE AS SUCH

Growth happens at a slower rate because leaders are spending the bulk of their time operating the business.  When positions open there is not as much internal talent to fill them and many times the company will have to look for an outside hire.

Accountability is low and everyone is now able to point blame since they were not part of the decision.   This may even lead to low employee engagement. 

The customer pays.  This could range from a minor inconvenience of a short delay while an answer is being sought elsewhere to becoming a complete disaster because somewhere in the communication line something wasn't clear and the customers expectations were not met.

I hope that you can see the difference between the two.