When you are a leader, there are no excuses, and there is no one else to blame. You have to make decisions. You have to build relationships. You have to communicate so that everyone can understand. You have to control your ego and your emotions. You have to be able to detach. You need to instill pride in the team. You need to train the team. You need to be balanced and tactful and aware, and you have to take ownership. The list goes on and on and makes up this incredibly complex undertaking that we call leadership. And if you do all those things well—if you lead effectively—the team will be successful, and the mission will be accomplished. If you do not lead effectively, you will fail, and the team will not accomplish the mission.
Leadership is all on you.
But at the same time, leadership is not about you. Not at all. Leadership is about the team. The team is more important than you are. The moment you put your own interests above the team and above the mission is the moment you fail as a leader. When you think you can get away with it—when you think the team won’t notice your self-serving maneuvers—you are wrong. Your people will see it, and they will know it.
The leadership strategies and tactics in this book are to be used not so you can be successful; these strategies and tactics are to be used so the team can be successful. If you use them to further your own career or your own agenda, eventually, these strategies and tactics will backfire and bring you down. You will fail as a leader and as a person.
But if you use these strategies and tactics with the goal of helping others and of helping the team accomplish its mission, then the team will succeed. And if the team succeeds, you win as a leader and as a person. But infinitely more important, your people win. And that is true leadership.