Leadership can be expensive. If we desire to be leaders it will likely cost us something – maybe even something we value greatly. There are high costs of leadership that every leader should be willing to pay.
The reality is that leadership is a stewardship. It’s the keeping of a valuable trust others place in you. Therefore, cheap leadership is never good leadership.
What high costs are you paying for leadership?
Let me give you a few examples.
7 high costs of leadership:
Personal agenda
Good leaders give up their personal desires for the good of others, the team or the organization.
Control
What you control you limit. Good leaders give freedom and flexibility to others in how they accomplish the predetermined goals and objectives.
Popularity
Leading well is no guarantee a leader will be popular. In fact, there will be times where the opposite is more true. Leaders take people through change. Change is almost never initially popular. I wrote a whole chapter about this principle in my book The Mythical Leader.
Comfort
If you are leading well you don’t often get to lead “comfortably”. You get to wrestle with messiness and awkwardness and push through conflict and difficulty. It’s for a noble purpose, but it isn’t easy.
Fear
Good leadership leads into the unknown. That’s often scary. Even the best leaders are anxious at times about what is next.
Loneliness
I believe every leader should surround themselves with other leaders. We should be vulnerable enough to let others speak into our life. But there will be days when a leader has to stand alone. Others won’t immediately understand. On those days the quality of strength in a leader is revealed. This one should never be intentional, but when you are leading change – when it involves risk and unknowns – this will often be for a season a significant cost.
Outcomes
People follow worthy visions. Of course, we should create measurable goals and objectives. We should discipline for the tasks ahead. We don’t, however, get to script the way people respond, how times change, or the future unfolds.
As leaders, we should consider whether we are willing to pay the price for the high costs of leadership. Good leadership is not cheap!
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