What is leadership?

Today I watched a YouTube video of a man talking about his experience as a developer. He is essentially proposing how you can go from being “just” a developer, a cog in the machine, to being a leader.

I’ve actually watched quite a few videos like this and read posts. LinkedIn is full of them. The sentiment is almost always along the lines of, “If you’re not doing this and in this very specific way, you’re losing out.” A sort of FOMO.

Listening to the man I was led to the question: What did he mean exactly by being a leader? From the video it seemed like he means someone who makes the decisions and steers the ship. He is encouraging his viewers to stop being “just” a deverloper.

There is some sound advice here I think:

• Document your progress
• Think in terms of what outcomes your work will produce for your client/employer
• Is there really work to be done here or is it just fluff?

I can personally relate with the challenge of being myopic: just getting lost in the technical details and overlooking or not even being aware of the big picture. In my case it’s just a knee-jerk reaction: see problem, solve problem.

History and experience teaches you time and time again that it’s better not to immediately jump into problem solving mode and rather think up a number of solutions and the cons of the solutions.

Coming back to the question of leading, who is a leader? What makes a leader? Someone who leads of course. In the basest terms leading is simply showing the direction, telling others where to go and what to do.

But what qualifies you to be a leader? Shouldn’t it be that you actually know the way? When walking through a trek or forest wouldn’t you want your leader to know the way and what to watch out for, where the camp sites are, what to do when you get stuck or lost?

Knowing the way requires you to have gone through it before, possibly being led by someone else. I find it interesting to note that leading requires someone to be led; it’s not something you do alone. You cannot do it alone. It’s a partnership of sorts. Because otherwise who are you showing the way to?

But going back to the video and its ilk now. Again, a lot of them seem to be proposing some kind of dichotomy that if you’re not a leader or something else you’re falling behind and losing out. But is that true? If everyone’s a leader who’s doing the work? If everyone’s working who’s taking the responsibility of making the right decisions?

It seems obvious to me that you need both kinds of people: the doers and the leaders. One isn’t better than the other and one cannot do without the other. However I do think, or at least I am starting to, that we should naturally progress towards being a leader at whatever we do.

I think we should naturally progress towards being a leader because we naturally get better at doing things, if we want to. I think we should want to get better at whatever we do. It is important to do things well and make sure it is done well. Once you’re good at something you’re at a position to show others how to do that thing well; you can lead them.

Some people can lead a nation, some can lead just one other person. I don’t think it matters too much how many people you can lead and/or are leading; quality over quantity.

It takes a lot of time and effort to get good at something. I don’t think people should worry too much about how others are progressing in their own careers; it’s just unnecessary anxiety and doesn’t really help. We can learn from them, sure, but there’s really no point comparing and feeling bad about ourselves. It seems a lot more prudent to simply get better at what I do.