People want their leaders confident and fearless. They want super-men that can overcome any obstacle in their path, rise to any challenge and defeat it, and set impossible goals which they regularly achieve. Nobody wants to follow a weak and insecure leader, someone who’s afraid of a challenge or to try something new. In fact, nobody will follow such a leader because there are better men out there to follow to success.
But in reality, most leaders hide, in part, behind the super-man facade. They are normal people with normal fears, they struggle to overcome challenges, and don’t always achieve their goals. Good leaders don’t let anybody know about these things fears and challenges. Great leaders do.
A great leader not only recognizes their fears, insecurities and limitations, but seeks to overcome them on a daily basis. The difference between good leaders and great leaders is that great leaders will be open and honest to their team about these things, while at the same time being confident in their ability to overcome. They will also enlist the team to be a part of that process which leads to success, showing team members, who also have similar fears and limitations of their own, how to overcome a challenge.
When leaders are open and honest it provides their team with a unique perspective on overcoming challenges. Instead of seeing a successful person who never falters, they see a real person, much like them, who has overcome past challenges, and continues to overcome them today. These leaders are don’t whine about the challenges that lie ahead but they identify them, seek to understand their own weaknesses and then blaze forward with a plan to beat it.
By doing this they set the example on how to be a super-man to others who don’t think they can. They allow others to see that challenges come, fears arise, but confidence and commitment to overcome will bring success. They prove that everyone can be a super-man.
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