At dinner on Sunday I asked Laura what to write about. She asked me what inspired me this week. I paused for a minute to consider. Each week I do my best to ingest as much content as possible to challenge myself and my world view. These things range from podcasts to articles to books to conversations with people who have different viewpoints. Yet it was something simple that caught my attention.
John Maxwell’s leadership podcast is great. I highly recommend checking it out. This week he had a small anecdote about how to start leading. In his view, leaders do not start with followers, they earn those later. Leaders do not start by galvanizing others into action, they earn that ability later. In fact, they do not start out to help move others. Leaders start with themselves. Leaders must first learn to lead themselves before they can ask others to follow them. When we are unsure of our own direction, mindset, and values, we do not give anyone a reason to follow us.
Start with yourself and you might just end up leading others.