Let’s make it more personal with this sobering question: are the people you lead better or worse off because of you? What is the experience of each person on the other end of your leadership?

Since there are so many leadership responsibilities, let’s focus on just a few that have enormous implications for the people in our wake.

Your Decisions

We’ve probably all complained at one time or another that “management” makes arbitrary decisions and doesn’t understand the impact on the day-to-day work. But then one day we’re put in charge and have to figure it out. By definition, decision-making involves uncertainty and risk. Leaders are responsible for applying not only their insights and fact-based evidence – they must seek to understand the implications at the frontline – and especially at the point of customer interaction.

Your Feedback

Feedback is tricky business – especially when it’s negative. Many times we jump straight in and give abrasive feedback off the cuff or we feel intimidated and don’t give feedback that is truly necessary. Both approaches make a situation worse. It helps to remember there is a real, live person on the other end of our feedback. A curt, one-sided exchange may feel efficient in the moment but create more work and resistance in the long-run than taking the time to have a thoughtful interaction.

Your Commitment to Growth

What got you to where are now won’t get you to the next opportunity. Leaders either grow or they slow. The tricky part is that the more responsibilities a leader takes on, the less time they usually have available to sharpen the saw without being disciplined and intentional. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to chart your growth.

Your Transparency

Leaders tell the truth. Of course it’s not always appropriate to disclose 100% of the information to 100% of the stakeholders in 100% of the situations. But leaders go out of their way to tell their followers what they need to know without making them wait any longer than is necessary. It’s very hard to maintain credibility when followers think you’re hiding something. It’s nearly impossible to maintain credibility after your actions don’t match your words.

Your Vulnerability

In The Five Dysfunctions of Team, bestselling author Patrick Lencioni says that a leader demonstrating vulnerability is one of the best ways to build trust on a team. That means admitting where he messed up or needs help. It’s always difficult to say I’m sorry and no one wants to appear incompetent. But keep in mind, none of these revelations come as a surprise to the people on the other end of your leadership. Appropriate vulnerability builds credibility rather than erodes it.

Your Character

Ultimately, skill can make you leader but it’s character that will sustain you. Unfortunately, skills come much more easily than character. Think about it, would you rather have an employee who lacked skill or who lacked character? Your character is the sum total of the embodiment of your values. It’s not enough to have positive aspirations, character comes through both in the daily grind and the crucible.

Remember, everyone watches the leader. Being a leader is like interviewing for your dream job – every single day. Some days are better than others, but at the end of the day, each person on the other end of our leadership deserves our very best.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader. Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or follow him on Twitter.

Hope is a strangely human enigma. It can’t be handled but it can be shared. It can’t create anything on its own but it can pave the way for new accomplishments.

Whether you’re celebrating a new beginning (like the start of a new year), caught up in new adventure or struggling to maintain the status quo, hope plays a key role. Not only must leaders be positive (no one wants to follow a pessimist!), they must deal in hope that can be felt and transferred.

Here are several ways to grow and share your hope.

Cast a Fascinating Vision

Plans are critical to any leadership endeavor, but they aren’t inspiring. Plans and goals are actionable. A vision is a picture of what could (and should) be. It can be felt. It has the power to unite. But not all visions are created equal. Even if your goals seem routine, identify the better future they create and share it in a compelling way.

Humanize Your Message

Hope won’t spring eternal for a new sales goal. But it will for a solution to a human need. At the end of the day, every business is a people business. Resist the tendency to get lazy with your message. Find the person on the other end of your goal and make them a focal point for your message.

Blow it Up

Realist goals get approved but don’t inspire hope. Zoom out: how could you make your goal 10% bigger? 100% bigger? It takes discipline to think big – especially when many leaders are overloaded with putting out fires and managing the daily grind. Not every goal should be expanded, and none of them should be arbitrarily. Forcing yourself to think bigger not only ups the ante, it provides the chance to discover a game-changing new alternative.

Identify Your Kryptonite

Hope isn’t restrained by realism. But that shouldn’t prevent you from doing a risk assessment. What could prevent your hopes from coming true? How can you avoid this? How will you continue if it can’t be avoided? If you fail to identify risks, your hopes aren’t any better than whims.

History is filled with leaders who accomplished amazing feats with little more than hope. Even if your situation is much more “everyday” than the heroes in our books and movies, hope must be stewarded. As John Johnson said, “It’s the size of your hope that will determine how far you will go in life.”

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or follow him on Twitter.

A couple years ago I was privileged to have Mark Miller guest post on my site about surviving success. We all need a game plan to kick off a new opportunity. But our behavior needs an adjustment as well.

In his bestseller What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, executive coach Marshall Goldsmith shares twenty habits that can be largely overlooked at lower organizational levels, but have the potential to absolutely derail a senior leader who doesn’t change course. There isn’t room to share them all in this post, but I’d like to highlight five extra critical ones. Fail to implement them, and your best people may go looking for a new leader.

Adding Too Much Value

It’s crucial to learn how to influence when you’re not in charge. But when you are in charge, that same influence gets interpreted differently. As the boss, your two cents’ worth can easily be taken as a mandate. The more you give, the more restricted your team may feel. So resist the urge to share every comment that comes to mind – and when you do, be clear on whether it is simply an idea or a strong preference.

Winning Too Much

Leaders don’t get promoted without demonstrating results. They are often high achievers. But at some point, senior leaders must pick and choose their battles. Some causes are worth every ounce of energy and resources. Many are not. Know which hill you’re willing to die on and when it’s time to move on.

Withholding Information

Practically every organization has a communication problem in some regard – it’s a frequently mentioned employee engagement item year over year. Some leaders refuse to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others – dictator behavior at its finest. Others assume everyone has the information they need because they shared it in a single meeting last quarter. One is egregious, the other is misdirected but both can cause major performance breakdowns.

Not Listening

Goldsmith calls the failure to listen “the most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.” Ouch. Failing to listen well may not be a show-stopper at lower organizational levels, but it’s crucial the closer you get to the top. I believe this is one reason coach training for managers has gained such popularity in the last decade. So listen actively, not just to gain information but to truly understand.

An Excessive Need to Be “Me”

We all have our quirks. The problem comes when different standards apply to different parties. When senior leaders insist “this is just how I am” when exhibiting behavior that is unacceptable for others, morale takes a big hit. No one likes double standards.

At the end of the day, leadership is a privilege. Not only that, it’s much easier to lead with a team that has your back. People are smart. They pick up on our behavior – good or bad. So if you’re in a senior role (or better yet, before you get there), do a behavior inventory. Find an area to improve and get to work. You’ll be the one who benefits most.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Dictatorship is alive and well in the world of global politics, but it’s a not-so-subtle organizational management style as well. So if you want to lead like a dictator, here are some unfortunate suggestions for you, including some from Machiavelli. And if you prefer a more serving style of leadership, note the contrasts.

Capitalize on Crises

Crises can be ripe ground for gaining or expanding control, both in politics and business. All you need to do is find a villain or a condition to blame and pronounce yourself the savior. In fact, when a situation is especially negative (think fallout from a corporate scandal), you don’t necessarily have to have a great plan – you can just capitalize off negative public sentiment.

For servant leaders: Caution against emotional reactions to crises and emphasize the need for qualified leaders with thoughtful solutions.

Keep Others Off Balance

In principled organizations, people always know where they stand because they get clear direction and feedback. Dictators thrive on internal instability. Since knowledge is power, they selectively withhold information so no one has the full picture beside themselves. And instead of creating clear expectations and accountability measures, they play the blame game when things don’t turn out as anticipated.

For servant leaders: Over-communicate what is most important, including goals and plans regarding direction. Be clear about expectations. Give frequent and constructive feedback.

Eliminate Internal Threats

By definition, every leader is a potential threat to a dictator’s power. Therefore, they have no option but to squash leaders who stand out – even (and sometimes especially) the competent ones. In their place, dictators install leaders they can control (e.g. tainted leaders they have dirt on). Additionally, dictators are careful to prevent high levels of trust among their subordinates for fear of future opposition.

For servant leaders: Actively support and celebrate the success of others. Recruit a strong team, including people who are smarter or better than you. Work hard to promote trust and collaboration within the team and organization.

Reward Personal Loyalty

Machiavelli theorized that, “It’s best to be loved as well as feared. But if you can only have one, it is safer to be feared.” Dictators can rarely survive long-term without public support, so there are often distinctions between their public and private dealings. PR is a constant priority. Furthermore, rewards tend to be based on public displays of loyalty and commitment to the cause above other factors, such as competence and courage.

For servant leaders: Reward commitment to the values that guide the organization. Despise favoritism. Build a team with diverse viewpoints.

Prevent Criticism

One reason dictators hate criticism is because much of it is just. And since accountability is in short supply, there is no way to right a misstep – only silence the accusers. Ultimately, criticizing a dictator is dangerous business because it’s received as a threat that must be dealt with – often harshly.

For servant leaders: Know the difference between just and unjust criticism. Seek feedback, take it to heart and then act on it.

By now you may have noticed a trend: dictators thirst for power and can never be fully satisfied. It’s a leadership style that is rooted in fear – and ultimately that fear is passed on to followers. It’s an incredibly damning legacy.

So here’s the question: in which areas do you act more like a dictator than a servant leader?

Incidentally, if you find the philosophies of dictatorship and leadership interesting, pick up a copy of The Prince and give it a read. Or check out one of my favorite leadership books titled The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, which references several of Machiavelli’s insightful concepts as well.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

One of the first mistakes we often make is assuming that the person in charge is always the leader. Then, when it turns out they aren’t, we give up. But what if leadership doesn’t have anything to do with having a title? In that case, it would be possible to have an organization filled with leaders at every level.

So how can we tell who the real leaders are? Here’s a start. Real leaders do each of the following – and then some:

Take Responsibility

Great followers do what they’re told. Leaders take initiative and responsibility for solving problems. Have you ever tried to resolve a problem with someone who told you, “that’s not my job?” Contrast that with a person who went the extra mile to resolve your issue, or at least get you pointed in the right direction. Which one will you prefer to work with in the future? There’s no substitute for having defined processes, but leaders gain influence each time they take responsibility.

Have the Courage to Take Risks

One of the reasons people are so reluctant to take additional responsibility is their fear of consequences if things don’t work out. In unhealthy organizations, this is a legitimate fear. But leaders don’t take risks for just for the fun of it – they understand the differences between blind risks and acceptable risks – and they accept the responsibility to take the appropriate risks at their level. At some point, someone has to make a decision. It’s always easier to push risk up the organizational chart, but organizations tend to reward those who are willing to manage risk themselves. Leadership always requires courage.

Collaborate

In today’s information age, collaboration isn’t just a nice sentiment or corporate buzzword that goes in and out of vogue. It’s an organizational deal-breaker. Leaders are aware of how their part fits in the context of the larger picture – and they go out of their way to anticipate who needs the information they have. Then they work proactively to make that information available.

Develop Others

I got to work on a project with the FBI once and I will never forget what the Executive Assistant Director told us one day. She stated that the organization needed leaders who were good at… making other people look good. This flies in the face of the assumption that leadership is 100% about individual performance. A high performer who can’t develop others will soon be leading a low-performing team – and won’t be doing it for long.

True leaders don’t wait until they are in charge to develop others. They constantly look for ways to help others improve – or to make something better for everyone.

Set a Positive Example

Unfortunately, the best examples of positive behavior don’t always come from the top of the organizational chart. But people can’t help but take notice of a worthwhile example, no matter where it comes from. Leaders understand they are never too unqualified to set a good example – and that includes a good leadership example.

Create Positive Change

The whole point of leadership is change. If things were good enough the way they are, leadership would be unnecessary and irrelevant. Change is difficult to initiate and harder to sustain. There are often many barriers. But leaders don’t let what they can’t do prevent them from doing what they can do. And what they can do is enough.

It’s not easy being a leader. If it was, everyone would be doing it. But it matters – for individuals, teams and organizations as a whole. So if you are trying to figure out who the real leaders are, start looking for these factors. If you are trying to determine if someone is a leader, look for past evidence of them. And if you are trying to become a leader, this is a great place to start.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

How did it go?

If you had anything to say, share or contribute, chances are at some point you found yourself wondering, “how can I make myself credible to these people?”

The interesting thing about credibility is that it can never been attained for oneself. It can only be conveyed by others. You can only ever be as credible and others decide you are.

So what can you and I do? Quite a bit, actually. Here’s a sample of the ways I’ve noticed people gain credibility with others.

Length of Time

This is probably the most important of the bunch. The longer a person sticks around, the more their history speaks for itself. A school director recently told me that he is building programs now that he could only dream of years ago when he started. The organization became open to his influence over time as he demonstrated value little by little. I wish there was a substitute for time, but unfortunately, there usually isn’t.

Competence

Obviously, incompetence is a quick way to ruin credibility, sometimes permanently. In fact, one of the great risks of being new to any group or team is appearing incompetent based on unfamiliarity with culture, relationships, processes, systems, policies, etc. Appearing incompetent right off the bat is a setback. If you’re new, try to find some quick wins and learn fast!

Appearance

Appearance is extremely fickle because it’s completely surface level. But it certainly plays a role in demonstrating credibility. That’s why we dress up for job interviews. How we look usually has nothing to do with our capability, but it send a huge message about our perceived competence. Image isn’t everything, but it is definitely something.

Communication

How we communicate goes an awful long way in building credibility. In some cases, one careless comment can derail a successful career despite many other positive factors. On the other hand, strong communication can overcome deficiencies in other areas. Incidentally, the most effective communicators place the greatest emphasis on the audience, not themselves. They listen well, care and make their audience feel important and smart – genuinely.

Credentials

In some environments, this is much more crucial than others. If you want to connect with a scientific, medical or academic audience, the more credentials the better. In other fields, high credentials might actually hurt your credibility based on misconceptions or stereotypes. Oftentimes, people are more concerned with fit than the number of letters that following your name.

Relationship Capital

Who you know can go a long way in building credibility with those you don’t know. You may not know a person from Adam, but a phone call or email to a mutual connection can either open or close a door – quickly and permanently. That’s why it’s so important to build and maintain a network.

Character

Character is one of the more difficult aspects of credibility because it takes a lifetime to build but only a moment to destroy. Think of all the high profile leaders who were credible in every way until one indiscretion became public knowledge. Game over. The public may not always notice the presence of character, but they will eventually notice its absence. And the consequences are usually devastating. Character matters.

Remember, you can’t attain credibility, but you can influence how others perceive it.

What shape is your credibility in?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

I saw a great post from Mark Miller last week on New Year’s resolutions for leaders – and it really challenged my thinking. I’m not sure what your leadership goals are for the new year, but if you haven’t thought about it, I’d suggest picking something from these ideas below.

1. Speak Up

Jack Welch made an observation in his book Winning that society and business generally seem to favor those who are energetic and extroverted above the rest. So where does that leave all the introverts (myself included)? Here’s a start: when you see something, say something. Whether it’s a safety concern, a new idea or simply providing your two cents’ worth, your voice will never be heard unless you take the opportunity to speak up.

2. Help Others Build Relationships

Nearly every organization struggles with poor communication, from top to bottom as well as sideways. One of the underlying factors I’ve found is that people simply don’t know each other. People who know each other are more likely to communicate and work well together. You may not be a social butterfly, but with a little initiative, you can still be a connector. Take a look at your network. Who do you know who needs to know someone else? What can you do to make an introduction?

3. Fight Off Pessimism

Pessimism – even under the guise of realism – will destroy your leadership influence. The reason is simple: no one wants to follow a pessimist. If you truly believe a project or initiative you are leading will fail, how can you expect anyone supporting you to believe differently? There is a direct relationship between expectations and results. Positive expectations get positive support which leads to positive results. Be an optimist.

4. Join a Cross-Functional Working Group

In any organization, there are generally three leadership opportunities: leading yourself, leading others and leading an organization. There is only so much room on the executive team, but a good way anyone can influence an entire organization is by joining a cross-functional working group. Instead of representing your function’s interests, you partner together to solve an organizational problem. And who knows, it could be great executive practice.

5. Smile

Dale Carnegie pointed out in How to Win Friends and Influence People that a smile is usually the first impression a person gives. In the business world, smiles lead to dollars because people prefer to do business with friendly people. A smile is the modern day game face. How’s yours?

6. Conduct an Experiment

Have you ever wanted to try something new, but felt you didn’t have the information you needed to know you would succeed? This over-reliance on research stymies people and organizations alike. Chip and Dan Heath propose an intuitive solution to this lack of action in their book Decisive. “Ooch.” Instead of waiting for all the data come in, conduct a small experiment to see if your idea can work. Why guess when you can know?

7. Learn Something New & Teach It to Others

Many organizations offer tuition assistance or provide a learning budget. Employees are sometimes required score a passing grade in the course to be eligible for reimbursement. But that’s usually where the expectation ends. The ROI on learning stays low unless people take the initiative to share what they’ve learned with others. If you engage in a development opportunity, host a lunch ‘n’ learn or ask for 15 minutes during your team meeting to spread the wealth of knowledge around.

7.5 Floss More

You haven’t gotten a lecture about flossing until you’ve gotten one from a high school buddy who is now a dentist. Maybe it’s not a leadership resolution per say, but my dentist friend told me recently that he always tells parents to floss in front of their kids because positive action examples are “more powerful than a million verbal reminders.” That’s a good leadership resolution for all of us: to set a positive example through our actions, whether flossing or anything else.

If you were to add another leadership resolution, what would it be?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

You’ve undoubtedly been asked this rhetorical question before. Apparently how you answer is supposed to quickly reveal whether you are an optimist or a pessimist – and perhaps a lot more about your inner worldview.

I’m not sure what the “right” answer to the the glass question is – although I always think it should somehow depend on what’s in the glass to begin with. But when it comes to being an optimist, I’m am sure of this: optimists are in high demand.

Here’s why.

Your Vision Won’t Last Without It

A vision is normally the first step for any change initiative. You’ve got to develop a clear picture of what the future could and should look like. But if you don’t believe you can bring the vision to life, why even bother to get started? That’s why leaders must be optimists. It’s not that they can’t see problems for what they are, but they use problems to fuel their vision of a better future.

You’ll Never Be Completely Sure

Can’t we just settle for being realists? After all, some of the criticisms of overly positive people is that they are naive, have their head in the clouds and are unrealistic. Author Mark Miller addresses this in The Heart of Leadership. He says expecting the best doesn’t mean ignoring the facts. We need to have as clear a grasp of reality as possible. The problem is that we’ll never be 100% sure of anything. There will always be uncertainty. That’s where optimism comes in. At the end of the day, each decision should be a calculated guess. But if you believe it will fail, you’ll never be able to enlist the support you need to pull it off.

Leaders must be optimists because of uncertainty, not despite it.

People Need It

In his book Winning, Jack Welch observes that upbeat managers with a positive outlook naturally tend to have teams made up of… upbeat employees with a positive outlook. It’s a fact that people respond positively to positive expectations.

But to take this a step further, probably the best tactic in human relations is to believe the best about people. Napoleon said that people are dealers in hope. A little hope doesn’t just go a long way. It could make all the difference in the world. Think about the teachers, coaches or bosses you’ve worked the hardest for. Chances are they saw what you could become and challenged you along the way.

Will you ever be wrong? Will people ever let you down? Of course they will. But that won’t stop you if you genuinely believe the best about them – for their sake, not yours.

No One Wants to Follow a Pessimist!

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shared in an interview at the Leadercast seminar in 2013 that leaders must be optimists simply because no one wants to follow a pessimist! This is really the bottom line. If you want to be a pessimist, that’s fine, but don’t expect people to line up behind you.

So where does that leave us: glass half empty or half full? I understand we all approach the question from a different stand point. Being positive can be a challenge sometimes, but when it comes down to it, optimism is a choice.

Will you make the choice to be an optimist today?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

I can’t think of a better example to share than this month’s leadership profile Malala Yousafzai.

I first heard of Malala when it was reported the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley had attempted to assassinate the then 15 year-old girl on her way home from school, shooting her in the face at point blank range in October, 2012. Her only “crime” was standing up and speaking out for the education rights of girls in the region. After an amazing recovery in Birmingham, England, Malala slowly but surely redoubled her efforts to speak out on behalf of education equality. Her book I Am Malala was released one year after her assassination attempt and she was the youngest person ever to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Malala’s media story has yet to peak, but I believe there are several takeaways from a leadership front as well, particularly for young leaders. Here they are:

Take Intiative

If there’s one thing young leaders (or any of us) need to hear, it’s this: you are never to unqualified to set a good example. Unfortunately, age can be one of the biggest excuses for not taking initiative when the opportunity arises. Encouraged by her father when she was 11 years old, Malala began writing a blog for the BBC under a pseudonym describing her experience under Taliban occupation. But it wasn’t because she was the most qualified. She was simply the only one willing to do it after the 15 year-old who had been selected backed out at the last minute.

Taking initiative isn’t about position or authority or attempting to make huge, sweeping changes. It’s about doing what we can in the circumstances we’re in.

Take Courage

If you’re advocating for any kind of change at all, you WILL face opposition at some point. This was certainly the case with Malala. Because she did so well with her BBC blog, additional media opportunities came her way. Eventually, the Taliban figured out who she was an issued threats against her and her family.

When opposition comes, it can often seem perfectly reasonable to quit. Many leaders do. Some are justified, but for the ones who stick with it, opposition is essentially a gut check. How much are they willing to put on the line? How important is the vision they are trying to accomplish? What is it worth?

For Malala, opposition simply added fuel to her efforts. The Taliban threats made it obvious she was making a difference. As Dale Carnegie says, criticism is often a disguised compliment. You don’t get it unless you are doing something noteworthy.

Serve Your Purpose

One of the questions author Mark Miller asks is this: are you a serving leader or a self-serving leader? In other words, are you in it for others or only yourself? I’ll admit this is always a tough question for me because I have so many personal and professional goals. Malala was the same way. Education was very personal for her and she worked extremely hard to win top honors as a child. But through her work as an education advocate, it became clear to her that education shouldn’t be a privilege, it should be a universal right. Her efforts (and circumstances) led to the passage of Pakistan’s first Right to Education Bill.

There comes a time when serving our purpose dwarfs the importance of self-promotion. To press that point, I’d like to share Malala’s own thoughts in this brief clip from her recent interview with Jon Stewart. When it became apparent Malala was literally fighting for everyone – even the very people who had tried to kill her – it left me just as speechless as it did Stewart.

You don’t need to be old enough or important enough to make a difference. Malala didn’t set out to become a revolutionary. She simply did the next right thing and didn’t give up, despite the pressure. You and I can do this too, right where we stand. Let’s join in.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

I still haven’t forgotten that day, but not for the reasons you might expect.

We sat down at a table and I began telling this busy man what I was learning in my graduate program and in the store and what I hoped to contribute at the corporate level. He was interested and engaged, but not enough to miss the young mother who had walked past my line of sight and into his with a stroller, her items and a small child in tow and was approaching the door. He quickly jumped up from the table, held the door open for the customer and then returned to our table where I continued my spiel.

And then it happened a second time.

Talk about making a poor first and second impression. But it gets worse.

I had somehow failed to let my operator know the director would be stopping by his store. He had taken the Friday afternoon off to celebrate his son’s birthday at the lake over the weekend. He was also in the process of applying for a larger store. So when he found out the director would be coming by, he had to make a mad dash from his family at the lake to get back to the store in time to greet the director and make a positive impression.

Here’s the ironic part: both my operator and the director had gone out of their way to put their focus on me – to help me win. Unfortunately my complete tunnel vision on my own goals blinded me to the situation and I missed my most important objectives: to serve my customers and my operator. I cared about them, but in the moment I was focused only on me. What a mistake!

In his new book The Heart of Leadership, author Mark Miller says the one distinction that sets great leaders apart is this: Are you a serving leader or a self-serving leader? He then goes on to talk about the character side of leadership, which starts when we think others first. It’s a mindset more than anything else. Instead of being in the leadership game solely to accomplish personal victories, the greatest leaders use their influence and resources to help the people around them be more successful. It’s not easy, but it is crucial. Without leadership character, a person may attain a position of leadership but is not likely to keep it for the long-haul.

If this had happened in a military context (I was in the Army Reserves at the time), I would have been dressed down so severely I might not have talked to a superior ever again. But my operator never mentioned it to me and is still a champion of my goals today. Years later, the director is now a senior director. My operator got the bigger store and is currently being considered for a second one. I never did make it into the corporate office and became a consultant instead. I’d like to think things have worked out for the best.

I missed an opportunity in the store that day, but hopefully I haven’t missed out on the greater lesson: to use who I am and what I can do to help those around me win. Will you join me?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.