Be the leader people will want to follow

“A leader without followers is just someone taking a walk.” The first rule of building a successful organization is becoming a leader worth following. One of the perennial pieces of advice I give to others is, “Never work for someone you don’t want to become.” For me, this is an inverse rule, I strive to be the boss I wish I had. Sometimes this means being tough, sometimes overly generous, but always being just another person on the journey.

Your leadership style will be unique to you, and that’s where the challenge lies. Not every approach will resonate with everyone, and that’s completely normal. The key is to consistently aim to be the leader people want to follow. When you’re not looking, people should advocate for you. When you start something new, people should seek to join your team. These are signs that you’ve cultivated not just authority, but relationship and influence.

For those with a technical background, a shift occurs as you move forward in your leadership career: every problem you face will involve fewer technical elements and more human dynamics. The technical work will still inspire you personally, but the true challenge lies in managing the humans. As we age, we get paid for our ability to manage people, because they are often the most frustrating and complex variables in any organization.

This drift away from technical execution and towards human management is inevitable, and it becomes one of the hardest aspects of leadership. While new talent will handle the technical challenges, your role as a leader will be to guide the humans through theirs.

Master the human element, and soon it won’t matter which technical “topic” your team is tackling. You’ll have the freedom to choose the projects and topics you enjoy because you’ve built a reputation as a “wizard with the humans.”