More than anything, great leaders believe in their people and their potential to advance.

When leadership is examined, it becomes ever more apparent that it’s about the impact those in a leadership position have on their people.

In other words, the value of leadership is about what we enable our people to become. 

For this reason, leaders need to understand their leadership must be powerful to facilitate change; for it’s the extent of the change they bring about that governs the value they add.

Regrettably, most people in leadership positions today believe power is about having control ‘over’ people rather than ‘enabling’ people to perform to their potential.

The fact is, no one appreciates others having control over them however, everyone excels when they know their leader believes in them.

Obviously there are other facets we need to consider to excel in our roles as leaders (refer our F3 Leadership Framework) but what matters most, is what you cause within those you lead.

If you want to excel as a leader, ask yourself the following:

• What are your people becoming as a consequence of you?
• What have you enabled them to achieve that they wouldn’t otherwise have produced?
• What changes have they made as a result of your leadership?
• What in your opinion constitutes power in leadership i.e. do you believe it is about control over people or do you believe it’s about the impact you have on people?

Your answers to these questions will offer you an insight as to your relevance as a leader today. If you aren’t yet where you could be, I suggest you work on yourself for if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about leadership, it’s the fact that we need to be seen to work on ourselves in order to improve the performance of others.

Needless to say, your ability to see the correlation between you and what your people achieve is critical if you are to excel as a leader.

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