“The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there. ” John Buchan
This is one of my favourite quotes on leadership and i was reminded of it today in a conversation with a dear friend.
She was telling me about her children and about how she had supported them in their development, listening to their dreams and ambitions, and then encouraging them to go go for them.
I told her that this is the essence of leadership, helping people be all that they can be, and as parents we are ideally placed to do just that with our own children.
Although, quite often as parents, we try to force their our dreams and ambitions onto our children and try to relive our lives through their children, this is akin to trying putting greatness into them.
We try to get them to achieve things we wanted to achieve, rather than asking them what they want to achieve and supporting that, i.e. eliciting the greatness thats within them.
As parents we always want to do the best for our children and the best that we can do is to follow the words of John Buchan.
Great post Gordon. I have not heard the quote before from John Buchan, it is an excellent quote that expresses the concept eloquently. The philosophy in leadership of making others be the best they can be follows my own thinking I have expressed before and for me one of the quintessential characteristics of great leadership but John Buchan expressed it a lot better than I can.
Paul, he expressed it very well, but you have the opportunity to do it just as well. You have the chance to walk the walk.
This is a one of my great pleasures, i used to love to surprise people by doing things they should i could not do, i used to love that look on their faces. Now i love the look on the faces of people who achieve something that they themselves thought was impossible this is what motivates me now.
I’m currently training to run a marathon and it was a big day when, as a non runner, i ran my first marathon, but it actually gave me greater pleasure when my friend Dave completed his first with me, doing something he would have told you was impossible if you’d only asked him 3 months before.
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Gordon,
Thanks for sharing the great quote. Among my MA in Leadership cohort were mothers and fathers who expressed their desire to take their leadership journey so they could be better parents and raise their children to make a positive difference in their communities and the world. Effective leadership begins at home.
Given that one of the main jobs of leaders is the development of the next generation of leads, these are great skills to have and for us to apply in the home. As parents we have to help develop our children and the overlap with leadership is clear, we definitely want to be able to develop our children such that they can reach their full potential. So i am happy to hear the people attend leadership see that leadership in the home benefit.