An Unlikely Leader

To lead people, walk beside them ... As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ... When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves!'" ~Lao-tsu

I did not start out to be a leader and can honestly say, growing up, I never saw myself as one who leads others. I was always a follower, one that rode on the coat tails of the cool kid. I venture to say, none of my friends ever saw me as a leader either. Funny thing, in High School during my Senior year, I was voted by my teammates as a one of the captains. I found this to be very strange and oft wondered if it was some cosmic mistake - make the shy kid a captain as it would be fun to watch him stumble. At the coin toss, I never called heads or tails. That was a responsibility I left to one of the other co-captains. When we took kicks from the penalty mark, a cruel way to determine a winner in a soccer match, at a tournament game, I abdicated all responsibility for a kick and let another player put himself on the line for the team.

My major in college was Engineering. This was in big part because I liked working with things much more than working with people. Things are predictable, clean, elegant where as people are confusing and relationships are messy. During the first phase in my career, I worked with things, my people interaction was minimal and I was happy in my work....or so I thought. A few years in, I wanted more responsibility in my department, I wanted to see the bigger picture, be one of the decision makers. I moved into a Supervisory role in my department when my boss received a promotion. I was a leader again. Not a very good one, mind you, but a leader nonetheless.


Truth be told, if anyone had asked me why I should be in a position to lead anyone, I would not have been able to give an answer. I was not charismatic, I was not brilliant, I was not dictatorial, I don't think I was power hungry. I would have had no idea why anyone would want to be led by me. As far as I could tell, I had no natural leadership abilities - no vision to cast, no motivational speeches to give, no inspirational words to share, and I wasn't eloquent. I pretty much lacked any tact when dealing with people, and was completely devoid of anything resembling empathy or compassion for anyone.

After a few years of being a Supervisor, I moved into Project Management. The big reasons were, I hated doing annual reviews and I wanted to move out of Manufacturing and into Engineering where, rumor had it, more money was to be made. The big difference in Project Management from Supervisory Management was that I had no authority. I had to get things done completely through people who had another boss. My job was to get things done, to bring projects to a successful completion. To do this as a Project Manager, I had to get things done through leadership skills as opposed to manager skills. And this is where things changed for me.

I saw my role as one of getting things out of the way for the people that did the real work of product development. It was my job to make sure they had the information they needed before they knew they needed it, to make sure they had the tools to complete the job at hand, and to shield them from any political garbage coming down from on top. It was my job to create an environment where they could do work. I was there to serve the needs of my team. I also began to see myself as someone who needed to let the people on the team know that I appreciated what they were doing. One year around the holidays, another Project Manager and I held a thank you celebration for our two teams. We brought in chips and pop and I made a bunch of brownies. I also gave each of my team members a hand written note thanking them for their work over the past year. Our teams genuinely appreciated the thoughtfulness of our gesture.

I think I was comfortable with a serving style of leadership because I did not view myself as charismatic. I think I was comfortable with this leadership style because, growing up, I never viewed myself as a leader. I was comfortable serving my teams because I saw myself more as a facilitator. I think I was comfortable leading by serving because I received my satisfaction by bringing a project to completion and did not have a need to get the credit. I think I was comfortable because I was, in my mind, the unlikeliest person to ever be a leader.