The Challenge of Leadership - Leading with Humility, Power, & Authority January 3, 2025
One of my all-time favorite movies is Gladiator. The main character, Maximus, is the ultimate leader. I love his humble, yet powerful approach to leadership. His troops followed him out of love and passion for who he was and everything he stood for. He didn’t lord it over them. He was from among them and had a vision that drove him through unbelievably difficult and tragic circumstances. His direction came from the emperor, Marcus Aurelius, who has a vision for Rome to become a place where all people were treated fairly, where the people’s voices were heard, where all people came together to support one another, where leaders served the needs of the people and worked toward harmony for all.
One of the most often quoted lines from Maximus is “Brothers, what we do in life…echoes in eternity.” Such broad perspective fuels purpose, and purpose, rooted in strong character, results in powerful leadership. Whether during the height of the Roman empire or the 21st century, no matter the field, the profession, or the industry, we are all facing the need for transformation, to achieve and sustain the results expected by those who depend upon us. Leading change, achieving transformation, and experiencing sustainable results require great leadership.
As I have said many times to my teams during my career, “leadership matters!” In my experience, great leadership, like that displayed by Maximus, is rare. Perhaps that is because leadership is so full of dissonant concepts, both in theory and in practice. In a quote I recently stumbled upon, the late Jim Rohn describes it this way:
“The challenge of LEADERSHIP… is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.”
Every attribute of great leadership taken too far can lead to dysfunction and a toxic environment. Some of the dissonant concepts that highlight great leadership include humility, servanthood, presence, empathy, sensitivity, and teamwork. However, concepts also necessary in great leaders include strength, power, boldness, pride, vision, and clarity. Great leadership is indeed a challenge. It requires constancy of purpose, principle-based behaviors, and a results-driven mentality. How you lead in the achievement of results, however, is as important, or perhaps more important, than the results themselves. Leaders who are strong, kind, bold, thoughtful, humble, proud, and have humor, expressed within appropriate constraints, lead people and organizations to sustainable results over time. They also result in cultures that are positive, retaining and attracting people to the vision.
We must embrace the dissonant concepts of leadership and keep them in balance. There is no room and no time for leaders who are rude, weak, bullies, lazy, timid, or arrogant. The job before us requires principled-driven, consistent leadership that understands how to deploy and support talent, leverage tools, develop and implement systems, and coach organizations in a principle-based fashion, to achieve results. That’s when the power and authority of humble, servant leadership is released, which leads to transformation and sustained results. That’s when the real joy of work is experienced by everyone involved. That’s the kind of organization we all want to be a part of. We need more leaders to step up and embrace the challenge of leadership!