What Does It Take to Be a Leader?

In business, the word “leader” is too often used to describe top performers.

Sometimes, that works. You might be a “leading” producer, and results are important—but leadership transcends results. Genuine leadership has nothing to do with rank, title, achievement or performance.

What defines “authentic,” sustainable leadership? And how can you replicate it in order to develop the next generation?

Leadership is your ability to attract willing followers, coupled with your will to serve them. People are attracted to high achievers. If you’re the top producer in the Northeast, people are going to want to follow your lead.

But to be a genuine leader, you need to focus on the second part of the definition: the will to serve. I may be preaching to the choir, and that’s OK—if your success is rooted in your service to your customers, your staff and your colleagues, you’re doing the right thing. But if you think numbers alone make you a leader, you’ve got some work to do.

Performance without dedicated service has a short shelf life. Customers become dissatisfied. Employees become disengaged. Colleagues are forced to pick up the slack—and then they become resentful.

Your commitment to the people you serve is key to effective leadership. Recent studies show that leaders who adopt this mindset can outperform their competition by as much as five times. Benefits include lower turnover, less wasted time, improved morale, more cohesive teamwork, innovation and loyalty. All these benefits directly affect your bottom line.

Leadership is sharing. Share compassion, respect, trust, wisdom and experience. Share authority and power—in other words, your capacity to act or perform effectively. The formula is quite simple: Help others become more powerful and effective, and they in turn make you more powerful and effective.

You grow as a leader—and as a person—in direct proportion to what you’re willing to share with others. The better you serve them, the better they serve you.

Jim Bouchard is a speaker, corporate leadership trainer and author of “The Sensei Leader” and “Think Like a Black Belt.”