Want to know the heart, the core, the soul of what being a quintessential leader is? It is building trust and being trustworthy. Without this, you cannot be a quintessential leader. Without this, you cannot be a leader. Period.
Let’s get real. It doesn’t matter how many platitudes you give. It doesn’t matter how many buzz words you use. It doesn’t matter how many leadership seminars you conduct, how many leadership articles you write, how many leadership lectures you give. If you are not living and being these traits of building trust and being trustworthy, then you are not a quintessential leader and your example, your seminars, your writing, your lectures are perpetuating a fraud on your teams, your students, your readers, and your audiences.
As quintessential leaders, our responsibility is to build trust and be trustworthy. We say that is who we are, but do we really know how far that commitment takes us? It’s definitely the narrow path, but to be genuine, authentic, and quintessential leaders and not wannabe’s, which is what we see around us in most of the people in leadership positions, we must commit and adhere to that. Otherwise, there will be no real leadership.
Let’s make sure we’re not pretenders. Let’s make sure we’re not following the crowd. Let’s make sure we know what we need to do – from our families, because this is where quintessential leadership starts, for our neighbors, for our teams, for our business units, for our organizations, for our towns, for our states, for our countries, for our brothers and sisters in the human race.
You and I have a personal responsibility to do this. It doesn’t matter whether anyone else is doing it or not. You and I answer for ourselves alone, not for anyone else. Anything less than ensuring that you and I are fulfilling our responsibility to build trust and be trustworthy is an excuse.
Quintessential leadership doesn’t have excuses. It is action. Let’s take action today. None of us is guaranteed tomorrow.
The Quintessential Leader 