Nobody Aspires to Be a Great Leader

I was watching a video of little kids talking about what they want to be when they grow up.

They said what you’d expect.

“Doctor.”

“Fireman.”

“Astronaut.”

“NBA player.”

There shouldn’t be anything too surprising there, but what I found interesting is what’s implied in each of these statements.

These kids aren’t aspiring to be bad doctors or firemen that can’t put out fires or astronauts who get lost in space or the last person on the bench who barely plays and who mostly cheers on the stars.

No. What’s implied is not just wanting to do those jobs, but wanting to do them really well.

These were kids, so it’s easy to dismiss, but ask a law school student if they want to be an excellent lawyer or someone who loses every case and has a terrible reputation, and their answer would be obvious. Ask bar owners if they want to be the epitome of great service, great food, and great ambiance or a total dive with more roaches and mice in the place than customers, and their responses would be uniform.

No one aspires to be bad at what they want to do.

But what’s interesting is that no one aspires to be a great leader.

From those little kids to entrepreneurs to career-changers in their thirties, forties, and beyond, no one says, “I want to be an inspirational, highly-effective leader who people will believe in, come to when they need something, and follow even in tough times.”

Which is why, so many leaders get into the role and then find themselves playing defense against all the the things they never thought about: people who aren’t aligned, systems that don’t make sense, gossip, resistance to feedback, a culture of mediocrity and everyone just wanting to be left alone because what difference does it make anyway, and beyond.

These leaders get a sort of cognitive whiplash because they’re so jolted by how hard it is to actually lead people when all they really wanted to do was start a real estate firm, become an assistant principal, or launch a non-profit to serve others.

It makes me wonder if we should see, “Leader” as a job in and of itself. Because a leader can work in multiple fields. A leader can make change wherever they go, even if they lack the technical expertise that some team members have.

Which begs the question, who would you rather work for: a person who knows your profession inside and out but who misses things, is wishy-washy, doesn’t hold anyone accountable, makes rash decisions, takes things personally, and is unwelcoming and defensive or a leader who acknowledges that you know more than them, but who runs a really tight ship with clear systems, has processes for feedback and coaching, who genuinely appreciates you and the team, and who listens when you have something to share?

It seems pretty obvious seeing it written out like that, right? And look, I get that the two profiles I shared above aren’t the only two options. Obviously there’s a middle ground. But still, so many leaders are in that first bucket I described while so few are in the second.

Which really makes me want to see, “Leader” added to the list of jobs. It might just be the most important one.