Leadership style that attracts Copycats

Being a leader is not a simple task and leadership is not easy. The subject of leadership becomes more critical as workplace dynamics grow and evolve. Leadership is serious business.

Leading and managing people in the midst of their peculiarities makes leadership a tough work. It takes a distinct type of person to motivate employees, inspire toward results, placate influencers, and then hobnob with other stakeholders. Leading a unit or organisation requires greater discipline and attention to detail. You must deliberately keep your people engaged and focused on consistently hitting the numbers and achieving business goals.

As a leader you want your team to “do as I say and do as I do”. No better word to describe this scenario better than copycat. A Copy Cat is defined as a person who copies another’s behaviour, dress, or ideas.

True and effective leadership is by example. If you are thinking of changing your organisation for the better, that change must start from you. As Mahatma Ghandi opined, you must “Be the change you want to see in the world”.

As much as retaining your people must be of great concern to you, developing competent employees who are proficient both value and number wise must be a priority too. However, in the midst of all these, you must never forget the golden rule of leadership: You can’t take your people to where you have never being (at least in your mind).

Bottom line, the analogy of copycats links to you being responsible for shaping the culture practice and “personality” of your organisation.

In the words of Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Our change and performance improvement efforts often falter because leaders overlook the need to make fundamental changes in themselves first. Be the change you want to see. Let it start with you. If you were charged with the responsibility of creating great leaders from your style of leadership, how would you be rated?

Put yourself on the spot. Challenge your leadership space. If your team were to be your copy cats replicating your behaviour, your work ethics, style of leadership, approach to work, level of trust, honesty, integrity, sense of entitlement, performance level, team spirit, fairness, stamina and grit would you be proud? Would you be comfortable? Would you sleep easy?

Ngozi Adebiyi