Leadership Happens in the Small Moments

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When we think of leadership, we often tend to think of it as this larger than life, grand personality characteristic that is essentially an intrinsically developed ability.

The nature of much of the public discourse on the subject is such that it tends to focus on the grand gesture, the career or life altering intervention, and hence we believe the idea that leadership is always at arm's length, just out of reach for "the rest of us".

In reality, of course, this isn't true.

Leadership is everywhere, in all of us. It is inherent in so many of our interactions, whether with friends, with work colleagues or otherwise. 

Leadership almost always happens in the small moments. That is the true reality of leadership.

This comes through clearly in the Ted talk below where Drew Dudley speaks of the idea of Everyday Leadership. As he says:

"As long as we make leadership something bigger than us, as long as we keep leadership beyond us and make it about changing the world, we give ourselves an excuse not to expect it every day, from ourselves and from each other."

Spot on. Check out the video of his talk. It's well worth 6 minutes of your time.