Company Blog

It’s so easy. Not.

by Adam Zack — October 31, 2018

We all talk a lot about great leaders. Guys who are innovative and groundbreaking. They are respected and successful. They inspire the team and cultivate positivity. Guys like Herb Kelleher, co-founder of Southwest Airlines, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway and Tim Cook of Apple. They are universally considered outstanding leaders. If you’re like most people, then you think they were born great leaders. They were captains of the football team, homecoming queen (or King), valedictorian, first chair violin and president of the debate team (which went on to win the state championship, by the way.)

Men and women who are the great leaders do deserve the respect, but for every one of them, there are thousands who don’t get any accolades but are revered just as much by their employees. People like Bill at Town and Country, Norman at Dorothy Lane, Colleen at Wegman’s and Adam at Bristol Farms. Everyone (well not everyone) in management wants to be a great leader, but no one talks about just how much work it is every day to be one, and to maintain it. For all the glory of success that the great ones get credit for, there’s thousands of moments of failure, doubt, stress and pain. It requires doing the extracurricular activities, taking calls at all hours, signing the personal guarantees on loans and smiling when you just feel like screaming.

Winning can be inspirational

I think the real great leaders are like a great dad or mom. They make you feel good when you’re sad, comfortable when you’re stressed and confident when you’re doubtful. What I’m trying to say is that the leader you admire, or better yet, aspire to be is gonna take a lot of work. It’s not the title that leads. There are plenty of really crappy bosses who assumed that since they were now head of marketing or VP of Operations were suddenly great leaders. Nope. It’s hard to be a leader.