I’ve been thinking of reading Seth Godin’s latest book, Tribes. In it, he addresses the concept of leadership. His blog has an excerpt from the book, which alone has prompted me to put it on my “rent from the library” list of books to read next. Here’s the excerpt:
Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.
The scarcity makes leadership valuable. If everyone tries to lead all the time, not much happens. It’s discomfort that creates the leverage that makes leadership worthwhile.
In other words, if everyone could do it, they would, and it wouldn’t be worth much.
I’ve always pondered the concept of what makes a successful leader. Granted, one of my MBA courses discussed this in great detail, putting forth a list of characteristics like a boilerplate of personality traits we had to possess to be successful. However, I have always disagreed with this standard list. After all, when you think of all the leaders, good leaders, that you have come across, they are all different, aren’t they?
Food for thought. I’ll pick up this book with my next library stash.
