Leadership Rants Are the Best

I was looking through old documents and found this gem of a rant that I wrote about leadership in July, 2011.  I was upset about a situation that happened at a corporation I worked for, and decided to write about leadership and the lack there of in some people in leadership roles.  This pretty much pertains to leadership in general, but at the time was regarding leadership in the digital marketing industry.  You can tell at the time I was extremely upset in what had taken place.  It’s all about gaining perspective, learning, growth, changing your environment, and in my case branching out and starting my own company.

Many Companies Have Great Leaders On Paper

In the world we live today many claim or pretend to lead.  They wear fancy suits, drive over priced sports cars, and pretend as though who they are and what they do matter.  They throw out fake smiles and half of the time can’t even have the common sense to learn the names of the people under them, who in large part earn their salaries.  An individual will not be followed if they can’t lead. If you lock yourself away in your corner office fortress guess what?  Things are generally not going the way that you think they are. You can’t lead people behind a closed door, play favorites, or try to buy loyalty.  A degree or a skill set does not make one a leader. Hard work pays off as they say.  So demonstrate you are one of the people and not alienate yourself on a socio-economic pedestal thinking you are better than anyone because majority of the time you are not.  In my travels I’ve ran across some of the richest and poorest individuals around the word.  Majority of those travels have shown the poorer individuals to be all heart and be rich in all other aspects other than material wealth.  Getting on someone’s level and showing that you are one of them, goes a lot further then dictating from a far. If you have no heart and your motives are genuinely driven by greed and self advancement you will not get any help from me.  You can buy most things these days with dollars or euros, but will never buy an individual’s loyalty, honor, or faithfulness.  In many ways leadership is not a learned trait. It is what’s inside you that inspire men to stand alongside of you and shed blood in the trenches.  The world is an ever changing place, in many places lead and ruled by ruthless tyrants. But people will not stand for tyranny or be enslaved in a situation where their creative freedom and who they are as individuals is threatened.  So rise up and speak out.  As Thomas Jefferson once said, “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”