Dynamic leaders are a hot commodity in today’s competitive market. According to TrainingIndustry.com, leadership development is a $366 billion industry. But I would argue we are making it harder than we need to. Simply put, we are doing it wrong.

In a typical organization, the management and development team grow increasingly frustrated with the lack of what they deem as quality leadership candidates in order to build the bench and prepare their company for the much-needed growth and sustainability in the future. In order to remedy this, they develop programs to recruit quality proven leaders. They throw money at the problem, developing training programs and mentorships. And while much of this is important, if they have not first found the right people for the appropriate roles, then that money and time have been wasted.

As much as the leadership team is frustrated, the employees are even more so. But for different reasons. Team members come to work seeing opportunities created for what they can feel are the wrong reasons and most often they feel are created for the wrong people.  The team members in our organizations have the best feel for the problems and typically the most creative and sustainable solutions for the issues we face. Yet when they see money spent on programs developed in a think-tank, they simply cannot get behind them, and their frustrations continue to grow. Our team members do not speak up because they simply do not see themselves as leaders. And frankly, if they are in an organization that does not value their roles as what I call Everyday Leaders, then this lack of seeing themselves as leaders has been reinforced. Unfortunately, this is why employees walk past issues they know can be solved, leaving it to who they have been told are the real leaders.

Questions we ask ourselves

Let’s for a moment imagine the great scale of leadership. Picture, if you will, a growth chart with the top of the scale being the person you most respect as a leader. People may come to your mind such as a powerful world leader, dead or alive, or a business tycoon. Whoever they are, place them at the top of your scale. No think of the person you are least likely to follow. The person that you would not elect to office, promote to run your company, or follow into battle. This is your current leadership spectrum.

Now for a moment look at your leadership spectrum, with your ideal leader at one end, and your not-so-ideal leader at the other. Where would you place yourself? Are you leading millions to a better life? Or can you not get anyone to follow you out of a burning building? Wherever you are on that scale, picture yourself there and sit with that thought for a moment.

Typically this is how we have viewed the leaders in our lives, as well as our own ability to be a leader. We ask ourselves questions such as:

• Am I a leader?
• Will I ever be a leader?
• Who are the leaders around me?
• Who will appoint me a leader?
• When will I be a leader?

Yet these are the wrong questions. Next, I am going to challenge you to through your leadership scale out the window and start completely over with new data.

A New Leadership Scale

The best leaders in our world are leaders because they know what they are doing and how to solve the problems before them. This is why we trust them. This is how they earn our respect. And this is why we follow them. I cannot imagine anyone that would argue with that point.

Agreeing with that point is not the problem. The problem is that we do not apply what we already know and believe in our own lives, and in doing so, we pass over the everyday leaders all around us. Let me tell you about a few of the everyday leaders who I encounter daily:

I cannot start my day without coffee. As my very dear but late friend Karen used to say, “It is the only civilized way to start your day.” So my day starts in the line at my local coffee shop. As I approach the front of the line and it becomes my turn to order, I encounter the first leader of my day, the barista. To them, I say, “I need you to help me get through the next five minutes. I need coffee. Lead me to good coffee.” And just like that, I have handed over the role of leader to the barista until this problem is solved.

Next, as I drive down the road to my first appointment, I give up the leadership reigns to the driver ahead of me. I will follow them and expect that they will swerve if there is a hazard, or hit the brakes if we need to stop. They are now leading me through the next ten minutes of my day.

These are the first of many Everyday Leaders I will encounter throughout my day. It is in the moments that they are needed that they jump to the top of my own leadership scale.

the EVERYDAY LEADERS

So who are the Everyday Leaders in our workplace? Well, simply put, we all are. There are moments throughout the day where we are taking control of the situations, and times where we step back and follow. This is true regardless of your role on the team. You may be a vice-president of operations for a multi-million dollar company, but when your system crashes you will be relying on your IT team to get it up and running. Until that problem is solved, they are the most important leaders on your team. Instead of demanding that they solve a problem, let’s consider that they are now leading you to a solution.

In the past, I worked in a role where I seemed to have all of the problems land on my desk. I viewed this as people seeing me as the dumping grounds for their issues. I was frustrated. Everyday a problem after problem would end up in my inbox waiting for me to find a solution. I never saw this for what it really was. I was leading people to solutions. They knew I could help, and they relied on me to lead them through their difficulties. It was because of their respect of me, that they trusted me with their problems. I was a leader and did not even know it.

What about you? Do you see times in your day where you may be thrown to the top of the list for your ability to lead your team through a situation? Maybe they need your advice, help to change a tire, clean up a mess, or get the system back up and running. Whatever it is, the question is not if you are a leader, but when do you lead!

Leaders we need

Generally speaking, we do not need more people in leadership roles. We need people who understand when their leadership role is needed. In other words, we do not need more people in positions of leadership. What we need is for all of us to start to value our role as leaders in whatever situation we are called to lead throughout our day.

There are moments where you need to leap to the top of the scale and use are of your leadership superpowers. And then there are moments when you need to shut up and follow. Essentially moving you up and down the scale of leadership moment by moment all day long.

It does not matter what your talents or role in life are, it matters that you see them, value them, and know when they are needed. The same person who led me to good coffee in the morning might leave the café that afternoon to be a mentor to a friend in the afternoon, then go home to be a parent leading their kid through life, and also be part of a fundraising committee all in the same day. Each part of their day placing them in different places on the leadership scale. Sometimes leading, sometimes following, but always somewhere on the spectrum.

Where to look

So when I say we are doing it wrong, it is because we are spending so much time and money looking for solutions that are already right at our fingertips. We need to stop defining leaders based on the roles they fill, or the titles they carry, but rather define the leadership needed at the moment and recognize the talents in the room who can step up.

This needs to happen in two ways. First, we need to see it in ourselves. We need to recognize when we can step up and be a leader, and when we need to take a backseat to other Everyday Leaders who are having their leadership moments. If we do not first respect and value what we bring to the table, no one else will.

Second, as organizations and managers, we need to seek out the opportunities to use the Everyday Leaders among us. We need to focus on developing programs and processes that both recognize and utilize these talents. These processes must empower our team members with the authority to use their leadership talents when it is their time to rise to the top of the scale.

When we make this shift in mindset, solving the problems we face throughout the day will become simple. When our teams are empowered to step up throughout the day, they will no longer remain silent when they see a problem that they know they can create a solution for. Managers will no longer be expected to develop every answer in research vacuum oftentimes addressing issues they have never personally experienced. When we are each invested and empowered in the process, the solutions become simple.

Thank You

Thank you for taking the time to find your inner leader and being open to seeing the Everyday Leaders who are around us daily! Do you see leadership potential in yourself or others now that you did not see before? Can you see times in your day where your leadership skills place you at the top of your own leadership scale? Please share your thoughts in the comments. And as always please help others hear this message by sharing it with them.