Do you have permission to lead?

Leadership is not just position and authority, but also influence and guidance. A leader holds a position, a title, or something that distinguishes their role, but leadership, the act of leading is an ability to influence and guide people.

Leaders with only positional authority may get things done but if the title were gone, no one would listen to them. However, when you start to develop influence, people voluntarily follow you, not because of title, but because they like you. John Maxwell describes this is as Permission Leadership and it is the second step up in leadership. 

"So, who cares what people think about me? I'm not here to make friends." 

I believe some leaders say this after getting their fair share of kicks in the butt or simply heard someone else say it and took it as good advice. It's easier to keep it impersonal or as some say, "professional." Unfortunately, we are all emotional beings and sometimes that means people will talk about their feelings about you- what they like about you, what they don't like you, what they would do, and what they wouldn't do if they were you.  There's a number of reasons why people say things about you, and sometimes is just as simple as they want what you have. Sometimes there may be truth to what people say about you, and you'll have to make a choice to change or not to change. Sometimes what people say is slander, and in extreme cases you'll need to move those people off your team; but, I really believe if you always keep it "professional," you're not going to get influence and you cannot grow as a leader without the ability to influence. 

Let your guards down.

I'm not saying be best friends with everyone you lead because you can actually care so much about someone that you become unable take them where they don't want to go, but need to go for fear of hurting their feelings, but you do need to show those that you lead that you care about them personally and professionally so you have a relationship to build on.

Show you care.

A mentor gave me some great advice once and it was this. List everyone who reports directly to you and list one personal thing about them. Is there anyone you can't list anything for? Get to know them. Get to know what passions they have, what's going on in their life at the moment. Find something (not work) to talk about that you relate to and share your stories as well. It may be awkward at first, but if you are consistent in getting to know someone, they'll start to open up and begin to give you the Permission to lead not because of your title, but because they like you.

The five levels of leadership John Maxwell describes are position, permission, production, people, and personhood (very few people reach this high). One cannot be achieved without the others below it. Read more about these in Developing the Leader Within You.

You Don't Need the Title to be a Lifelong Learner of Leadership

I've seen a lot of  new leaders earn leadership positions based on good performance in previous roles, but it's very rare that I've seen someone preparing for leadership before becoming a leader. I don't think it's because these people who became leaders without preparation weren't learners, and all leaders should be if they want to grow and help others to grow, but that it never occurred to study leadership before becoming a leader.

It wasn't until 2 years into a leadership role that I realized how bad I was at leadership and that if I wanted to succeed, I needed to invest regular time and energy to acquire leadership skills. I spent a lot of time investing in the technical skills of my job like how to forecast calls volume, how to plan staffing needs, and even how to use Erlang-C. That was all necessary and made me more competent in the tactical side of my job as a Contact Center Manager, but I spent more time in spreadsheets than I did with people. John Maxwell, in his book Leadership Gold, said something along the lines of  it's not about what fills your day, but who. This became a turning point for me. I had no one following, no one looking to me for advice or help, and it was because I didn't make people my priority. Leadership is all about the who, not the what.

Anyone can learn the tactical side of a job, but if that's all you study then at best you may become an expert in a very specific area with limited accomplishments and limited influence. Learn and practice leadership on the other hand, and you will influence and inspire others, and then through the collective efforts of a team accomplish a thousand times more.

You don't need the title of a leader to be a learner of leadership, and you shouldn't wait until you have the position. Could you imagine a surgeon waiting until they are in the operating room with a person on the table to learn how to operate? How insane would that be? Don't wait until you are a leader to start learning leadership.  I wish I had started learning about leadership many years before becoming a leader, but I'm learning now, and I plan to make it a daily part of my life through books, podcasts, seminars, mentors and whatever else I can get my hands on.

Becoming Conscious of Your Leadership Abilities

When we are new leaders, we often start by deciding what we don't want to do. I attribute this to the leadership traits we dislike in other leaders. At least this was my mindset, but in reality I knew very little of what it meant to be a leader. In fact, I'm still learning and will be a life long learner of leadership.


I started in leadership at young age out of college and I was blissfully ignorant of how to lead a group of people (I can tell you some stories later of what I did as a leader with the best of intentions that still make me cringe.) Leadership would be amazingly simple it weren't for people to lead, but sadly many leaders never actually lead anyone and so they never grow.


How do you grow as a leader?
One of the first steps in growing in any area, is to become conscious of your incompetence and conscious of your competence. 


Many times when we start something new we are unaware of how bad we actually are. This lack of awareness is described as "Unconscious Incompetence." We also need to be aware of the area in which are competent- the abilities that are more natural to us This similar lack of awareness is described as "Unconscious Competence." The first step to growing as a leader is becoming aware of where you are incompetent and competent as a leader. The process is not easy and sometimes painful, but if you want to grow you must create an accurate view of yourself and your abilities.


I love John Maxwell's leadership assessment in his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership in which he covers 21 timeless laws of leadership including, "The Law of Influence," "The Law of the Big Mo [momentum]", and "The Law of Empowerment." In this assessment you give yourself a score of:

• 0 - Never
• 1 - Rarely
• 2 - Occasionally
• 3 - Always

The structure of the ranking helps force you into a decision as you are asked to score statements like, "I rely on my influence rather than on my position or title to get others to follow me or do what I want," and "It is my regular practice to give people I lead the authority to make decisions and take risks."


He also suggests asking 2 colleagues, 3 people you lead, and your boss to rank you from 1 to 10 in the following areas:

• People Skills
• Planning and Strategic Thinking
• Vision
• Results

This helps identify gaps in the self assessment where you may have ranked yourself too high or too low. 
Of course, you don't have to read John Maxwell's book on the laws of leadership (although highly recommended), but whatever you decide, it is important to get an accurate picture of yourself, of your strengths and your opportunities for growth.