Blog about Leadership

At my prior company, the CEO was known for many sayings, some stuck, some didn’t. One saying that resonated with me was that “Leadership happens at every level.” In a lot of modern companies, especially smaller and especially technology companies, this saying carries a lot of truth. Some cultures foster leadership, while others fail to develop leaders even at the highest positions of management. Many small, technology companies fit into the former. Perhaps it’s the culture where young, fresh out of college grads are recognized for contributing new innovative ideas, or perhaps it’s just the camaraderie of small companies in general. Either way, fostering leadership at every level of the organization produces a company of fully committed and fully contributing team members.

Seth Godin, the well known marketing author, wrote about how people sometimes have a lot of failures, but just one success builds a successful career (read here). There’s definitely more to understand about failure and success, but the message is the same – don’t fail to do anything by trying to avoid failure. Start trying to accomplish something and accept that there may be failures on the path to attaining success.

If you’re low on the totam pole today, start leading where you are. Don’t wait for the management position or until you’re a manager of managers to start leading. By then, you won’t have the experience learned from leading where you are now. On the flip side, dealing with people and learning how to contribute and influence will provide you with invaluable experience for when your job requires you to lead. Don’t worry about failing for failure is an experience on the path of learning how to succeed.

If you are in a leadership position, foster leadership at every level of your organization.