I had a convo with Boz recently, and he helped me realize some key points of leadership.
Leadership is about many things but i'd like to highlight two: energy & passion.
Not necessarily what gives and takes your energy but instead what vibes you give off to others. Can they feel your passion?
Think about it like this: Let say you meet someone and they start to tell you about something they find exciting
When talking to them do you want to keep talking to them? or do you want the conversation to end?
Taking it a step further, are you drawn to this person's ideas ? or sense a hint of falsehood?
And finally, are you compelled to want to work with this type of person?
These are the people who make the best leaders. The best leaders are never the people who want to be a "manager" or a "boss", but rather the people who are the most passionate about the problem they are solving.
Why? Because they have a deep understanding and passion about the problem and are positioned the best to succeed.
This reminds me of something Satya Nadella said to our intern class about being hired as Microsoft's CEO, he said, "I never wanted to be CEO, the leaders of Microsoft came to me and asked me do you want to be CEO, and I said do you want me to be CEO?"
Being CEO was never Satya's goal, his goal was to improve Microsoft's cloud service. Since Satya took over Microsoft has been doing extremely well, I'm sure there are other reasons that compliment Satya like empathy, vulnerability, and decisiveness but I'd bet what positioned him for CEO was his passion and energy.
Do things you are passionate about and where you enjoy spending the most time, everything else will work out.
5/1/2021