Note: This article is a transcription of my answer to a leadership question asked during the first episode of the La Forja podcast, which will be released soon.
Redefining the concept of Leadership
My definition of leadership is a little bit, perhaps, contrary to what is usually told out there as leadership.
Why? Because I once heard a definition that is very pragmatic, very practical and very operational, which is that the leader is the one who has followers.
Just as someone said it, and you can't argue with that definition.
But for me, since I heard it, it seems to me that this definition lacks semantics, lacks real meaning, because I know that there are people who are leaders and do not have followers, but they do not have them yet, or they will never have them because they do not want to have them.
And then I know that there are people who have followers and if we go to the operational definition of what a leader is, they certainly fulfill that. But I personally don't like that definition and I like to redefine it.
For me, leadership starts with the individual, with the single person.
I believe that a person has to be able to lead himself first of all, because he is the first person he leads, himself.
What does that mean? That he can set goals and he has to be able to carry himself towards achieving them, to push himself towards achieving them.
You have to be able to do things on your own. This is important. And I say this because I am not very much in agreement with the traditional concepts of teams, work groups, etc., which are now, let's say, mainstream and there is no way to escape from work groups, group work in educational systems, etc.
Let's say that teams, group works (also in the business world), collaboration, etc. are sanctified...
They are important, but I think they only work and are only really important if they come from the right place.
From what right place?
Since people, first, have been alone, they know how to respond alone to challenges, they know how to carry themselves towards achieving goals and push themselves.
And also the other side of the coin, they know how to endure, they know how to endure alone without others helping them.
When they have developed that, I would say that there we have a leader, we have a potential leader or a leader directly, there may be a person who already has a professional trajectory, who has never had people under him, followers that would be called, but that person is a leader of himself.
You assign things to him or when people hire him because he's a freelancer, he gets things done, he's leading himself, he's not asking for help, he's not dependent.
The word is not, not asking for help, but he is not dependent on others to tell him what to do and to solve problems. This doesn't mean that he can't cooperate with others and that he can't ask for help, but that he is not dependent.
Because I think that teams and groups today are very much designed so that, let's say, with the sacred ones of the group, the individual is blurred.
So, the individuals themselves who have worked like that all their lives, if they find themselves in situations where they are alone, it turns out that they do not know what to do, because they have never had to do anything alone, neither to push, nor to endure, which are for me like the two parts.
So, I come back to close the loop on your question.
For me, a leader is someone who is capable of considering doing something and pushing himself to do it and not needing, not depending on other third parties to push him, not depending on other third parties to give him the parts he needs to make it work.
And at the same time, he is someone who is able to resist without always having to rely on third parties to resist.
That to me is the essence of a leader.
Notice that I start from there, from the individual, and when we already have that individual, that is where I think we have to work in the educational system, in the families, in society, etc., and people on themselves, because we are talking about La Forja in this case.
I believe that people have to work on this quality, because that is what if you want in the future, will enable you to lead people, or not if you do not want to, but that will always be much better for your life.
And then when there are leaders who lead groups of people, I think that if he has not gone through this stage before and knows what he is himself, knows what he is capable of and has led himself in things, we have a problem, because then he will tend to make a series of mistakes that surely you are going to ask me now about that and my opinion.
So, leader starting from the individual.
The first person to be led is oneself.
If you are always working in a group, and you are always divided into a team, you may not know who you are, you may never have had to resist alone, and you may never have had to push alone.
So how do you expect people to follow you, and you have the responsibility and the ability to push and to resist?
Very difficult from my point of view.
And I think that right now we are more in error than in success. That is to say, much more is being bet on the dilution of the individual in the group.
The group is virtuous only when it is composed, for me, by individuals who know very well what they are and what they are worth on their own. And then they voluntarily decide to cooperate, which is different.