“It’s never crowded along the extra mile.”
That quote on leadership comes from best-selling author and speaker Wayne Dyer. And if you stop to think about it, it’s probably pretty darn quiet along that extra mile. It’s often the distance where the qualities and actions of leaders are set apart from the rest of the pack.
The importance of true leadership is never more apparent than today – you don’t have to look very far for good examples (Southwest Airlines, Apple, and Zappos come to mind) or bad ones (too many to list, I’ll leave that to your imagination).
Leadership development continues to be a hot topic across industries. In my experience the focus is typically on how to become an effective leader of others, which is extremely important. But when considering all the aspects of leadership, there’s more to it.
Leadership is a way of being and a set of skills that you can develop regardless of title. Have you thought about what it means to lead yourself? Even if you don’t have a leadership title within your organization, you are still a leader – a self-leader.