What’s the Most Important Part of Leadership?

What’s the most important part of leadership?

It sounds like a simple question.

It isn’t.

Our answer to that question eventually becomes part of a larger leadership paradigm, our philosophy of what leadership is all about.

And that makes the question anything but theoretical. These convictions sit underneath our decisions, conversations, strategies, priorities, and nearly every other leadership activity.

It shapes what we celebrate.

What we protect.

What we measure.

And ultimately, what we believe success looks like.

The problem is that many of us rarely stop long enough to actually consider our answer.

Leadership moves fast. There are problems to solve, decisions to make, people to care for, opportunities to pursue, and goals to reach.

The urgent demands of leadership have a way of keeping us from thinking carefully about leadership itself.

So let’s slow down for a moment.

Imagine leadership as a ship.

There’s a captain.

The captain carries vision and direction. Someone has to look toward the horizon, decide where the ship is going, and take responsibility for getting it there.

There’s a destination.

There are places worth going, something worth pursuing. Without a destination, the ship simply drifts.

And then there’s the crew.

A team of people playing different roles all over the ship. Different gifts. Different responsibilities. Different levels of experience. But all contributing to the journey.

Captain.

Destination.

Crew.

All three matter.

But here’s the question I’ve been wrestling with: What is the relationship between them?

Is the crew primarily there to help the captain reach the destination?

Is the captain primarily responsible for getting everyone there?

What happens when reaching new destinations and caring for the crew seem to compete with one another?

And when the voyage is finally over, how should we decide whether the captain led well? Is reaching the destination enough?

Those questions are not merely philosophical. How a leader answers them changes the way they lead.

It changes how they think about people.

It changes how they respond when someone struggles.

It changes how they delegate, develop, correct, encourage, and measure progress.

It changes what they believe leadership success actually is.

So, this relationship between the captain, the destination, and the crew is at the heart of the book I’m writing.

Because I’ve become convinced that when you get this right, it changes everything.

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