Why Leading Is Not About Winning

Yes, the university catalog cover you see below was a huge, insensitive, socially out-of-touch blunder. We don’t even have to go into the gender and racial insensitivity it conveys. But if you missed the flap and want background on the original controversy, read Jessica Roy’s article “University Catalogue Cover Accidentally Becomes Perfect Metaphor for America” in New York magazine.

As leaders, and especially readers of this blog, you certainly see just how widely the catalog editors missed the mark in terms of leadership as well.

“SUCCESS” screams the catalog title. Then its headline prods prospective students, “Why Follow When You Can LEAD!”

Apparently the folks who selected the stock image for the cover think the man breaking the tape represents leadership and those following him his rank and file.

“I beat all of you,” I expect he tells them after the race, as they all catch their breath. “Be more like me!”

Someone in the university leadership should have reminded the editors that leadership is not about beating your team to the finish line. It’s not even about competing with other people.

Leadership means knowing your team intimately and helping them grow. It’s not showing them your back, but showing them yourself, your weaknesses as well as your strengths.

Great Leaders on Leadership

Two leaders who could not be more disparate culturally have made their thoughts clear on this very subject.

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front…
—Nelson Mandela

Mandela empowered his people and did 30 years of it from behind bars. If the idea of leadership is to empower people, then clearly you don’t want to see the leader in front and the team lagging behind.

When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.
—Jack Welch

Even though Welch was known as a leader who cracked the whip with little tolerance for slackers, those he led, he helped grow into leaders. Great leaders nurture their followers up into leadership positions.

Finally and just to make sure I’m not misunderstood about winning, I don’t mean to suggest that a leaders shouldn’t lead (or should I say follow?) their teams to victory. After all I and my team have just won the Leadership 500 Excellence Award for the second straight year.

In fact, competition drives creativity and innovation. Beating one’s competitors is the name of the game. Team members do and should compete within their organizations, as long as that competition does not detract from the organization’s mission. Or from helping each other grow.

Learn How to Follow as a Leader

To really understand what this is all about, please see what we have in store for you to learn alongside other leaders like you in our CoachQuest Leader-as-Coach Workshop.

[el52b35d3687258]