This is a question that many people ask themselves as they go throughout life. I tend to think about leadership like a game of Clue, that mystery board game where players try to strategically guess who attacked Mr. Somebody.

But instead of guessing that it was Mr. Plum in the Library with the Wrench, leadership could be You, Out in the World, Making a Difference with Your Leadership.

For this post, I would like to consider three aspects of leadership:

• Who is leader?
• What is leadership?
• And how do individuals become leaders?

Together, these aspects give us clues to the understanding of the overall picture of leadership.

For instance, the University of Calgary is in the process of selecting individuals who are considered leaders by their peers to act as 2012 Class Ambassadors. Click here to take a look at some of the profiles of these individuals.

There are also people like Calgary’s current Mayor, Naheed Nenshi (check out his bio here).  He is has the large responsibility of working with the people of Calgary to bridge the diverse needs of the local community and to fairly distribute scarce resources.

Mohandas Gandhi (see a brief bio here) is another example of a great leader on a more international scale. Considered by many to be one of the most recognized civil rights leaders of modern history, Gandhi lead campaigns to easy poverty, expand women’s rights, and gain India’s independence from Great Britain.

Think about your own life, who are the people in it that you would consider leaders?  Maybe a parent, your best friend, or a teacher or professor comes to mind.

• Why do you think of these people as leaders?
• Do you include yourself on that list?
• Why or why not?

This question is HUGE; it kind of feels like asking what is the meaning of life.

Leadership can mean many different things and I don’t think that two different people will give the same definition. If you are interested in those definitions, you can check out some of these links:

• Leaders Direct
• Youth Venture
• Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary

However, my purpose here is to contemplate leadership so that we can become better leaders ourselves.

Therefore, instead of haggling over the exact definition of leadership, a debate I will leave to the more than capable voices in the links above, I would prefer to look at three characteristics that many leaders share.

Leaders are (not in order of importance):

• Listeners
• Providers of Direction and Momentum
• Teachers

Listeners

My grandma used to say that “You have two ears and one mouth for a reason.”    Good leaders are those who are able to listen twice as much as they speak.

Attentively listening enables them to understand what is going on in the lives of those around them, what the challenges they are facing, what potential solution(s) might be available, and what the strengths, weaknesses, wants, wishes, and needs of those around them are.  This is valuable information and can be a great resource in solving problems or generating new ideas.

However, this information must be actively sought out and it is often fragile.  A strong leader is able to listen carefully to those around them and gathers a full picture of what is going on and uses this to guide themselves and those around them.

Providers of Direction and Momentum

Have you ever watched a group of pre-school aged children play soccer? It is hilarious to watch because at that age, there is no sense of positions and the only strategy is for every kid to be as close to the ball as possible at all times. Sometimes, if the opportunity presents itself, a random kick in the general direction of a net will result in an exciting score. This YouTube Video illustrates this wonderfully.

Leaders are like the coaches on the preschool soccer team.  They help those around them, who are brimming with energy and ideas, to channel those ideas in a constructive fashion. Instead of swarming the ball, with a leader’s direction, the team is actually able to score!

Also, sometimes the game does not go well.  A leader is able to help preserve the momentum of the team, to help remind others of the big picture; much like taking the preschoolers out for ice cream even though they lost they game.  Leaders help others to persevere.

Teachers

Finally, leaders are also teachers.  Running with the soccer analogy (please bear with me on this), just as a coach teaches his players skills to improve their game, good leaders help those around them to improve on the skills they possess, but also to build a new set of skills.  Leaders are teachers.

This clip on Taylor Mali’s poem What Teachers Make illustrates this well.

Although Mali’s poem talks about teachers in the classroom, I think that what he is saying also applies leaders.  Leaders build up those around them, even though that process can at times be challenging and difficult, to make them stronger and more capable than they would be on their own.

• When you think about the leaders in your life, do these 3 attributes come to mind?
• What other attributes make the leaders in your life great?

Also, where do the leaders in your life come from?

“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

~Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene V

I would argue that this is also true for leadership.  Some people are born as leaders, some become leaders, and others have leadership thrown onto them.

Consider your life:

• In what circumstances have your leadership positions occurred?
• How has your experience as a leader changed depending on how you came to that leadership position?

One of my favourite movies of all time, Remember the Titians, illustrates the process of becoming a leader by chance and force. (start at 3:15)

In this clip, Sunshine has to take on a leadership role in a moment of crisis and he shines in it.  But he is scared.  Taking on a leadership position can be terrifying!  But it is worth the risk.  When you challenge yourself to take on new things, you grow as a person, you can give back to your friends, your family and community. You can even share that life-changing lollipop moment with someone.

Unlike Sunshine in this clip, the situation in which you chose to become a leader does not have to be a high stakes football game or a high stakes anything.

It can simply be any moment in which you make a conscious decision to become a little more involved.

Try listening a little more, offering direction where you see it is needed, offering to teach others skills that you have already mastered.  Try to be a leader a little bit every day.  You don’t need an epic occasion, you just need to seize today.

• There are great people who can inspire us and who act as role models to our own leadership.
• There are specific attributes that we can attempt to cultivate in ourselves and others.
• There are opportunities for us to be leaders every day.

Hopefully in the game of life, it will be you, in the world making a difference through your leadership. This is the way I see leadership, but I think that everyone does have a different interpretation of what leadership is and who are great leaders.

In this way, leadership is like your fingerprints, your leadership will leave an identifiable mark on the people and situations that you encounter, but it will be also unique to you.

I encourage you to follow the example of the great leaders you know or admire and to go confidently out into the world. Leave your own fingerprints, and along the way discover more clues that will reveal the secrets to your own leadership potential.