Leadership Isn't For Cowards: How to Drive Performance by Challenging People and Confronting Problems

Chapter 17

What Difference Do You Make?

Accepting responsibility and letting go of blame have been the core ideas in this section. These ideas are so integral to courageous leadership that one could write an entire book about them; what will be the impact you get to have when you fully and courageously absorb and integrate those two concepts? How can you show your followers what to do?

Waaaaay back at the start of this book we talked about how you need to understand that you are messing with people’s lives. You have the power to do a lot of good or a lot of harm. The difference you make is the degree to which you drive these concepts deep into your organization. So here you are, no doubt wondering how exactly a leader does that. How can you exhibit the necessary leadership behaviors so that those who report to you not only understand the concept of accepting responsibility, but also apply it to their performance and realize why they should do so?

The first and most effective way is to model it yourself. That is the biggest difference you can make. There is no type of behavioral influence as effective as modeling, particularly when that modeling comes from a person in a position of authority. What you model is simply the story your behavior tells. If someone didn’t know you, didn’t understand your intentions, had never heard you talk, didn’t know your background, and was dropped into your organization to observe you for a month without being allowed to talk to you, what is the story ...