Just saw this question – do you see yourself as a leader? Well, objectively yes, although I never cared about becoming one. For me, a leader is not a personality trait, and becoming a leader is not an achievement. I only let others lead me when I am confident in their skills, trust their actions, and look up to them. This has to be earned.
I am aware that over 13,000 people have subscribed to my content about the technical side of digital business management. About 8-9,000 read my stuff regularly. I have over 10 years of very hands-on experience behind me, I make a lot of money, and most of my involvements are really exciting. However, I never wanted to be a manager, CEO, or anything like that.
In my businesses, I also take a humble position. I appreciate that people trust me to align and optimize their business online, often letting me handle serious decisions and large budgets. That’s how I do things. I never cared about being the best personally, but I do understand that in business, we are in competition, so I have to be a leader, more like a thought leader of some sort in my field.
As I said, I could not care less about motivating, managing, and empowering other people to do a better job. It’s not in my interest. All I want is to share my knowledge and experience and create useful things that make work better and easier for other people. That’s it.
To be honest, I really get sick of people on LinkedIn parading as leaders and passive-aggressively bringing down other people in their organization. Competition within the same organization is a very outdated way of motivation. When I work on my very own businesses, I treat everyone with utmost respect and never call them “my team” and similar, as they are not mine. They are people who I feel honored to find interest in working on my ideas, and I appreciate every single task they complete.
Not your typical leader, but to some extent, I might be one.