This article aims to take a closer look at who leaders are rather than what leaders do. What often passes for leadership today is a shallow substitution of technique for substance. Most literature on leadership focuses on what leaders do.

Consult any of the current works unlocking the mysteries of leadership and management and you will see a long list of outputs that we want leaders to deliver, such as establishing direction, aligning people, motivating and inspiring and producing change. Despite all we know about what leaders should do, our societies and companies in general have a shortage of quality leaders.

What is more important is to define a leadership model that describes the inner characteristics of a leader, beyond what they do at work, to include who they are as people in everyday life situations. This model flows against the tide of most contemporary leadership models and rejects quick-fix approaches that equate leadership with mere techniques and tactics. I believe there are four main areas that need to be clarified as you focus on who leaders are, rather than what they do.

1.  We are all leaders, and we are leading all the time, well or poorly.

A typical hierarchical model within organisations has the 1% in charge (company presidents, generals and coaches) and the 99% as subordinates. This model focuses only on the top 1% as leaders and overlooks the challenges facing the other 99%.

Instead we need to realise that everyone is a leader, and everyone is leading all the time – sometimes in immediate, dramatic and obvious ways, but more often in subtle, hard-to-measure ways. Everyone has influence, good or bad, large or small, all the time. A leader seizes all the available opportunities to influence and make an impact. Circumstances will present a few people with world-changing, defining-moment opportunities, but most will enjoy no such big time opportunities in their lifetimes. Leadership should not be defined by the scale of the opportunity but by the quality of the response.

2.  Leadership springs from within. It is about who I am, as much as what I do.

No one ever became an effective leader by reading an instruction book, or learning one-size-fits-all rules. Rather, a leader’s most compelling tool is who he is: a person who understands what he values and wants, which is anchored by certain principles, and who faces the world with a consistent outlook. Leadership behaviour develops naturally once this internal foundation has been laid.

A leader’s greatest power is his personal vision, communicated by the example of his daily life. Vision is intensely personal and is the hard-won product of self-reflection: What do I care about? What do I want? How do I fit into the world? Company mission statements don’t take root simply because they are elegantly worded. They take root when subordinates see managers take a personal interest in the mission and it springs from within them. The techniques of how to win buy-in from your team and fashion long term goals can amplify vision, but can never substitute for it.

3.  Leadership is not an act; it is a life – a way of living.

Leadership is not a job, not a role one plays at work and then puts aside during the commute home in order to relax and enjoy real life. Leadership is real life. Your way of doing things should flow from your worldview and priorities. By knowing what you value and want to achieve, you will always be able to orientate yourself in a new environment, and adapt confidently to unfamiliar circumstances.

4.  I never complete the task of becoming a leader. It is an ongoing process.

Personal leadership is a never ending work in progress that draws on continually maturing self-understanding. The external environment evolves and personal circumstances change, as do personal priorities. Some personal strengths erode, even as opportunities arise to develop others. All these changes demand consistent balanced growth and evolution as a leader. The strong leader relishes the opportunity to continue learning about self and the world and looks forward to new discoveries and interests.

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