The Burden of Leadership

“The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility; and he who knows most, knows best how little he knows.”

~ Thomas Jefferson

Being a leader is never easy, and for numerous reasons. You are responsible for educating, directing, creating new paths and setting others on their own. You must have a vision, you must have integrity, and you have to be willing and able to hold others accountable.

BUT: you must be able to hold yourself accountable first - and for many, this is the greatest challenge.

You see, credibility is your biggest asset as a leader - do you practice what you preach? If not, then all of your direction and guidance will fall on deaf ears - because the whole "Do as I say, not as I do" philosophy simply doesn't resonate. Similarly, no one is perfect - and they never will be. So while you have to be willing to do what you ask others to do - equally (and in some cases even more) importantly, you must be able to admit that you're not perfect. That you can be wrong.

And this is where so many leaders fail.

Real world example? Why does so much of what our official "opposition" in the government get ignored - because the policies or issues they speak about isn't true? No - its because we all know that if the same people who are criticizing were actually in power, they'd be doing the exact same thing as the party they're lambasting... and its why more and more people are tuning out our own country's leaders. It's because the voters feel (and in many cases, they're right unfortunately), that no matter who they vote for they're going to get the same thing.

It's time to stop this cycle. We need to "be the change we want to see" - it starts with us, in our every day lives.

After all - just like the opposition parties, if we're not holding ourselves accountable (and being honest about our shortcomings), then we're hardly in a position to be critical of others for making the same mistakes.

~Guy