I’ve long believed that the best leaders are teachers. Not lecturers, but teachers. As teachers, they challenge us to think, to explore, to experiment, to learn and to keep trying.
Good leaders encourage us to find joy and energy in the journey of discovery and they remind us that the satisfaction from finding the answer is momentary and should quickly be replaced with more searching and more learning.
The best leaders…like teachers let us fail in order to learn. They offer encouragement when needed and tough-love when it the situation demands it. They teach us to be accountable to ourselves…and to set exceeding high standards for our own performance.
Great teachers and great leaders challenge us to reach and strive. They might step in if we’re about to fall off a cliff or to cross the street without looking, but they’ll wince and stand by as we fall and skin our knees or as we settle out our playground disputes.
Leaders teach and someday in the future, the student becomes the teacher and the cycle starts anew.
Are you a teacher?