What Do Great Leaders Do?

There are a lot of resources out there on great leaders in history and how you can be more like them. But, what do great leaders actually do, and what does it mean to be a great leader?

 

A leader performs many tasks. Not all of these are dramatic and rewarding to the ego but all of them are important for moving your team towards its goal.

 

Leaders Organize

 

To be a great leader, you first have to be a leader and leaders... lead. At its bear basics, “leader” is an administrative position. It involves overseeing a task or a team and making sure that they are working towards their goal.

 

This is again, however, the very basic requirement. There are software programs and tools that technically fit this definition. Keeping people organized is what it means to be a leader, but not what it means to be a great leader.

 

Great Leaders Orchestrate And Inspire

 

Where leaders begin to become great is when they stop merely organizing and begin orchestrating. Much of a leader’s value is intrinsic, coming from their own talents and abilities. Much of it also comes from knowing how to take their resources and their teams and fitting them to the circumstance.

 

Great leaders don’t just make sure that their team members are sticking to task, they help to make sure that their team members are in the places where they can be of the most use.

 

Similarly, keeping team members on task becomes easier and more rewarding when you are able to inspire them. This can be done by stressing the importance of the task, but it can also be done by building camaraderie with the team. 

 

Too many people think that there is the team and then above the team there is the leader. As has been said before and will be said again, the leader is merely an administrative position on the team. Leaders have different responsibilities from the team, but they also share the same goals and often the same fate.

 

Leaders Mediate

 

Another one of the basic leadership jobs is mediating. This is another basic administrative task of the leader. Leaders hear their teams to help their teams deal with problems.

 

Sometimes this means solving disputes within the team, and sometimes it means helping the team deal with more systemic problems by helping to move their problem up the ladder.

 

Being a “middle man” is a role that few people passionately desire to fill. It is important, however. And like organizing, mediating is a role that leaders must perform but it is not the only thing that great leaders occupy their time with.

 

Great Leaders Create Lasting Change

 

Of course, great leaders don’t just mediate, they create systemic change. Most of the problems that people run into at their work are problems with the ways that things are done. It is often easier and faster to address these issues on a case-by-case basis. 

 

However, finding out why these problems arise and changing the system will mean that problems of that kind don’t appear as often.

 

Great leaders will also often make their roles as mediator less important by supplying education and resources that make it easier for other people to solve problems themselves. This frees up leaders to do more important things, even though creating or changing these systems takes time.

 

Too many people try to become great leaders before they become leaders. Being a great leader isn’t about delegating away all of the boring stuff so that you can give speeches and throw parties or whatever it is people think great leaders do. The best way to be a great leader is to know your job and do it well.