Where do you stand?
The first step of Social Leadership is to choose your space.
Your formal power is given to you by the Organisation that you work for, held within the hierarchy.
You social authority, the foundation of your Social Leadership, is earned through your actions over time. But where will that leave you standing?
Your job description defines your formal role, but there is no job description for your social one.
Instead, there is the story that you write: it’s a story for yourself, to calibrate your actions against. You may choose to share it, or simply hold it close.
Use your sixty seconds today to ask yourself what sits within your story: what will your space be as a Social Leader?
You may start with words like ‘kind’, ‘fair’, ‘powerful’, ‘reflective’, ‘learning’. Or alternatively you can define your space by what you will leave behind: ‘fear’, ‘limitation’, ‘legacy narratives’.
One reason to understand your space is so that you may know if you are already there: it’s easy to imagine our journey being one to a future destination, but what if that is incorrect?
Perhaps instead, Leadership is simply about understanding where you stand right now, but better. And taking steps to look after the place where you stand today.
IF you want to read further about this idea, explore the notion of the Organisation as Ecosystem.