I assumed I was leading

Dear Leader,

I trust this meets you in pursuit of greatness.

My first attempt at leading was flawed.

Over 15 years ago, I was trusted with my first leadership position and I assumed I was leading simply because I had been elected and called into an office. I started giving commands and issuing out orders the way I wanted. Because this was a volunteer based organisation, soon after people stopped following me, listening to me or receiving my commands even though I had the title backed with even an ID card (all of those things were simply positional material). I realised position is not the same as leadership.

My assumption was that I had become a leader because of my position, instead of recognising that the position was an opportunity to actually become a leader. I learnt from this experience that position can be given to you but true leadership must be earned by you.

For most early stage leaders, leadership traditionally would begin with a position. You ran and won an election as a student union executive, you got appointed to lead a youth fellowship or organisation or you were even recruited to work for an organisation - all of these usually come with some form of titles, positions or job description. Position is the starting point for early stage leaders but position is not equal to leadership.

From my studies in leadership, I acknowledge that there was a generation where people believed in and relied heavily on positions to lead, this was the time where leadership was largely hereditary. You may not have experienced it but you’ve seen it in movies where leadership positions were handed down from father to son, from generation to generation within bloodlines or family. For example, a prince would automatically become a king.

But those days are gone!

Today, you must understand that if you have a position, it is because you were able to convince people to vote for you as in the case of an election, or someone in authority saw some talent and potential in you hence you were given a position. This is a good place to start your leadership journey because with position comes some rights and degree of authority that you can leverage on to build true leadership.

You must go beyond your position because if you lead with the assumption that your position makes you a leader, you are always going to place a very high value on holding on to the position above everyone and everything else. Your position will be more important to you than the work you are expected to do and the value you are to add to your people or the contribution to make to society.

In my first experience, I failed to work with people because I had the assumption that my position made me a leader and assumed people should do what I want them to do because of my position. If you rely on your title or position, you won’t work well with people and you may not even like people. Instead you will use people as a tool to keep your position intact. Position mindset puts politics above impact.

I’ve observed that in a “positional driven environment”, there is great emphasis on addressing people by their titles and positions. Leaders in this kind of environment have a sense of entitlement and expect their people to always serve them rather than looking for ways to serve their people. Also, in this kind of environment, teamwork is zero. Nobody works too long with a leader who always relies on his or her position. People will desert such leaders and move somewhere else , especially creative and innovative people. It happened to me!

So, this letter is specifically designed to cure this assumption gap.

Position ≠ Leadership

Even if you mistakenly find yourself in a position or were given a title, it is time to step up beyond the assumption that you are leading because you have a title. You have to be intentional about leadership. You don’t lead by assumption. No one leads by accident.

There is nothing wrong with having a position but you must not have a “position mindset”. Your position is just your starting point.

It is time to grow beyond assumption.

Welcome to leadership.

I’m rooting for you,
The Great Owete