What is Leadership

What two roles are required for leadership? Out of those two roles, who is more important? What is leadership? Define this by listing 5 words. Do this on your own first, and then join me as we run through my list. In order to have a leader, we must have a follower. There are two roles required for leadership, Leader and Follower. They are both equally important because you can not effectively have one with out the other. When thinking of Leadership, think of an individual you consider to be a leader. Maybe you know this person through a working relationship or a personal relationship. A leader is different from an idol. An idol is someone you may idolize and want to aspire to be, and someone that is more a figment of imagination. Lets keep these two types of people separate from each other, and focus more on the person who has the ability to lead you, direct you, coach you, free you, take you to a position that enables you. When talking about leadership, here are five words that come to my mind: 1. Trust 2. Respect 3. Safety 4. Confidence 5. Teach I can keep going, and I am sure so can you. But lets move on. Now, define five jobs of a leader: Here are mine. 1. To Coach 2. To Create Opportunity 3. To Reward 4. To Challenge 5. To Balance Yours may vary quite a bit from mine, but theres no wrong... we may be saying the same thing in different ways. However the one thing we can commonly agree on will be that a true leaders does not use force or bribes. Right? A leader that threatens, or uses coercion/force/manipulation of rewards through bribery, certainly is not one who will create and build Trust, Respect, Security, Confidence, or able to Teach. This person will not have followers, therefore this person will not be a leader. Who are followers: Followers are intelligent people who can work together as a team to get a job done. The nature of a follower is not submission or weakness. They dont surrender into this position. As a matter of fact, followers are your key players without whom you would not have a leader. Think of followers as Pillars, and Leaders as a Ceiling. Without the pillars, the ceiling can not be raised. Followers are highly skilled people, with an unlimited or unquantifiable amount of potential. Their potential is directly dependent on a leaders ability to do its job: Ability to coach to create opportunities that are rewarding and challenging involving a balanced lifestyle. Dog training is no different. You can choose to use force, or treats to bribe, but if you fail to develop a relationship with your dog, where you dog chooses for you to be the leader and it the follower, you will heavily depend on force or bribery. Opportunity to escape force or the temptation to ignore bribes will increase with time. Think of how this pertains to your relationship with your dog. Leadership is not based on Force, or Bribery. Ye "