A: Action

“Leadership is an action, not a position.”
– Donald McGannon

What is leadership without action?

Just imagine. A leader who talks. A leader who listens to your ideas and worries. A leader who sits in all kinds of meetings but … never acts.

Even hard to imagine, but one thing’s for sure, you wouldn’t call that person a leader.

And would you call someone a leader just because they’ve gotten a certain position in the organization? No, you know better than that. You might have even experienced a manager or supervisor who was everything but a leader – I hope that you haven’t, by the way. Although such an experience taught you what not to do as a leader, I’m sure that the experience as a whole was stressful.

Actions are important in leadership, not your position. Nothing drives an employee faster out the door than a leader who doesn’t act.

Actions, not your words, define your leadership. Of course not every action counts. Like Peter Drucker said:

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

And William James adds also some truths around action:

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”

Yes! Time management and action are related. And of course you already know that. What you might sometimes forget is that action requires often more than time management. It requires watching your inner process.

What is the real reason that you don’t act? Do you really need more data? Or are you afraid to make a decision and you’re waiting for a sign so you know that you’re making the right decision? Or is your perfectionism in the way?

If so, think about this quote:

“Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson