A young man, 17 years old, sat before an Eagle Scout Board of Review and was asked to explain the difference between being a boss and being a leader. The young man thought for a few minutes and then responded,
“A boss is someone who can make you do something whether you want to do it or not. But, a leader is someone who inspires you to accomplish things you never thought you were capable of doing.”
This two sentence answer provides one of the key ingredients of great leadership; inspiration. Great leaders have the ability to inspire their followers to strive for the difficult … the unattainable. Great leaders empower their followers to not only strive to meet a challenge that others see as impossible to overcome, they do so in a manner that causes the followers to see themselves as being capable of reaching and even exceeding the goal. Here’s an example of leadership in action.
Several years ago, a Scoutmaster (we’ll call him Doug) approached the adult leaders in his troop with a problem. Doug had been appointed as the leader of a large group that would be traveling to a quadrennial jamboree where scouts from all over the nation would come together. His contingent was made up of over 250 boys and their adult leaders.
He explained that he was setting up a weekend campout that would be entirely devoted to team building exercises so that the boys could learn to work together and function effectively and efficiently in troops of 36 scouts and 4 adults. The entire event was scheduled, the campground reserved. Everything was ready EXCEPT that he had just learned that the dining hall would not be available and he had no way to feed the contingent. He wondered if his troop’s leadership team would be willing to set up a field kitchen and undertake responsibility for feeding the contingent.
Two members of the troop’s leadership team stepped forward and said, “We can do this!” They became the team leaders. They began to create a “To Do List” of things that had to be done and equipment/supplies that had to be obtained. Other individuals joined the team and began to offer suggestions, not saying why it could not be done, but rather citing difficulties that would be encountered and offering suggestions as to HOW those impediments could be overcome. In the end, this team, led by two individuals who believed that by working together the team could accomplish anything it set its mind to, rose to the challenge and fed 325 individuals for an entire weekend.
While bosses order others around taking sole credit for success and placing responsibility for failure at the feet of their followers alone, great leaders inspire their followers to accomplish what lesser men and women see as impossible tasks; unattainable goals. They provide that inspiration by showing that they believe in their followers; that they are willing to work as hard as (or harder than) their team members; by giving credit for the successes to their followers and taking sole responsibility for any shortcomings or failures to reach a goal.