There's no script for leadership. There can't be.
One of the great lines out of Seth Godin’s book Linchpin is: “There’s no script for leadership. There can’t be.”
Of course he is right. If there’s a script, you’re a follower. Sure, you may be “leading” a department or a church, but leadership is more than managing people. Leading is about taking people from where they are to where they need to go.
Now of course that doesn’t mean you can’t take great advice, learn lessons of leadership and get a lot of help along the way. But when you are leading, you are stepping out beyond where your tribe has been before. And when you step out past that point, you enter the land of leadership.
This is where risk and danger lurk on every corner, but also this is where reward and triumph live. Hope can be found in this frightening place, but only for those who are brave enough to tame its treacherous paths. Is there hope for those who refuse to lead? Perhaps, but they usually hope for mediocrity. Is that ok for you?
