My answer to a 100 answer question

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Ahoy,

Today I want to cover something a bit more high level.

Don’t worry, its certainly still actionable.

I really am not a fan of leadership writing that is too philosophical to actually take action on, so we’ll stop it before it gets too far!

I want to write about what a leader’s actual job is…

There are always 100 different answers to this question, but I want to cover something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently.

The world runs on agency.

It runs because there are people in the world that make it run.

Things happen, things change, things come into existence all because people make it happen.

It wouldn’t happen on its own.

Some of the time things happen because a single person comes up with an idea and makes it so.

But more often, especially nowadays and especially with globally impacting things, a group of people make it happen.

Why does that group of people make the thing happen though?

What makes them all come together and do the thing?

And what makes all that happen at the moment it does?

This is what a leader’s role is.

A leader is someone that makes things happen.

Sure people can make things happen on their own. Someone can fill out their spreadsheet without a leader.

But the leader makes sure that person fills out the spreadsheet, another files certain documents, another puts together a computer program and now they have a complete product that can go on to do the thing…

A leader increases the overall impact individuals can have, by brining them together, then pushing them forward.

To take things even further I would argue that a good leader nails these 3 things in the process:

1. Gets the right people.

2. Sets the right ambitions.

3. Keeps the speed of delivery fast.

I’ve talked a lot before about getting the right people and about setting goals. I want to focus a little more on time.

Anyone can achieve almost anything given infinite time.

It was good leaders, pushing to achieve more, faster, which lead to the space race finishing in around12 years with a man on the moon.

You can imagine there wasn’t many conversations that ended with leadership saying:

“Well I guess it takes as long as it takes.”

Now I’m not saying we should be foot flat on the accelerator with our team all the time.

But our job is to insert agency into the team.

To make the thing happen!

And that wont happen if we sit back and let things move at the speed they naturally will.

Newton’s first law of motion states that an object at rest will remain at rest until acted upon by an external force.

A leader’s role is to be that force.

Make the thing happen. Push faster.

If you’re not used to it, it should feel uncomfortable at first. But that is how great things are made.

Now I’m not saying you need to just sit there and order your team to be faster.

You need to be the one to make it go faster.

Identify things that are slowing the team down and solve those problems for them.

If they seem a bit stuck, jump in, get things moving, then jump out again.

Be that external force, and inject some agency.

Don’t accept “slow” just because it’s always been that way.

That’s what keeps the world moving, and that is the role of a leader.

Reece