One piece of advice that some leaders hear is this: Just be yourself.
And, often, the intent of that advice is good. People say it with a good heart. There’s just one problem with it:
It’s wrong.
Now, to clarify, you shouldn’t try to be someone else, in the sense that, you try to match their personality, humor, etc. That part is legit (though you can learn good principles or practices from others, though).
However, when you tell leaders to “just be yourself”, especially new leaders, you could be hurting them, not helping them.
How is that the case? Let’s find out.
First, we need to understand what leadership is built on
There’s a lot of confusion today about leadership. Even the concept of what leadership is (and how it is defined) is often confused.
Then you get to all the leadership vs. manager memes and confusion that goes with it there – it gets crazy.
And, like it is in many areas, conventional wisdom about leadership is often wrong, or it’s just not enough.
Part of all this confusion is because of this aspect of conventional wisdom: the idea that leadership revolves around you.
Much of the content today is about discovering yourself, your style, and your preferences. People define leadership how they want it to be, not what it is.
Here’s the crux of it all: Leadership isn’t about you. It’s about you being what you need to be for the team and mission.
Leadership isn’t whatever you want it to be. Like any skill, it’s based on certain principles. The principles come first.
If you have the principles, you can act and adjust based on those principles. Without them, it doesn’t matter what you do, you will fail.
You can define leadership as whatever you want it to be, you can do whatever you want to and call it leadership, but it’s not really leadership and you won’t be effective as a leader.
Because it’s “you” doesn’t make it legit, right, or effective.
Quick Summary: Leadership is built on principles. It’s not about you, it’s about you being what you need to be for your team. It’s about serving the mission and others, not serving yourself.