We need to reframe what we think about when we think about leading.

So often we default to negative pre-conceptions about being in charge.

That it is hard.

That it is all-consuming.

That is is ever-changing.

That we are, in fact, ever really in charge at all.

And so we meet leading as we expect to find it.

With hardness.

With everything we have.

With uncertainty.

With a sense that we should be in control.

But how we think becomes what we think.

What we think becomes what we say.

What we say becomes what we do.

And what we do becomes who we are.

So if we don’t want to be hard, exhausted, uncertain, controlling leaders, we need to think differently about what it means to lead in the first place.

Because once we think differently about leadership we’ll become different leaders.

We’ll meet hardness with tenderness.

We’ll meet quantity with quality.

We’ll meet change with consistency.

To lead is to “be the person in charge of an organisation”.

The ability to “influence and guide followers”.

An “example for others to follow.”

But it is also to “take gently by the hand and more forward”.

To take gently

by the hand

and move

forward.

Now doesn’t that sound like the kind of leader you’d want to follow?