The act of leadership revolves around three P’s: Passion, Purpose, People. Over the past semester in Management and Leadership and throughout my high school career, I have learned that this is what sets apart “leaders” from “managers” and other people in supervising positions. To be a powerful and effective leader one must posses passion for something, have a purpose in mind, and inspire people to follow and acquire the same passion and purpose that the leader has.
Passion is what motivates people to wake up earlier, work harder, and love what they do each day. Whether a person is passionate for personal, social, political, or economic reasons, it is what drives them to persevere through difficulties and strive to achieve their own definition of success. Without passion, a person has no reason to lead and there is no reason for anyone to be inspired. But when a leader demonstrates a strong passion and commitment to something, then people can become inspired and when people are inspired they will usually work harder to achieve the goals set out by the leader. This passion that the leader demonstrates will then lead to a purpose.
Purpose is what guides a leader, it is the reason why the leader is doing something. A big aspect of leadership that I learned this semester is that it is always important to ask yourself “why” you are doing something before you know “how” or maybe even “what” you are doing. Without knowing that “why”, or the purpose, of what you are doing, you have no backbone or guidance to fall back on along the journey of achieving your set goals; you can easily get lost in what you are doing and not be able to succeed because you don’t know why you are doing something. This is why having a purpose is important to being a successful leader. Also, having a purpose will bring together people that share the same reasons or values as you for doing something. A good example is Apple; in a TED talk, Simon Sinek explains how Apple is different from other companies because in their commercials they tell you why they are doing something which then inspires people to follow that same passion and wait in line for 24 hours to buy a new iPhone. In doing so, apple is able to inspire change based on their purpose for doing what they do. But nothing would be achieved by the leader if it wasn't for the people that follow.
People that share the passion, purpose, and vision of the leader are just as important as the leader. No leader can successfully be recognized as a leader if it wasn’t for the support and action of the people following. The job of the leader, though, is to inspire the people to share the same vision, purpose, and goals in order to achieve their desired success. A manager will tell a group of employees what to do and scold them when they are doing it wrong but a leader will inspire the employees to want to take action and work to achieve success. Aculture should be created by the leader and embraced by the people which makes the leader effective and successful.
A leader must trusts his passions which shape a purpose that brings people together in order to achieve great things. A leader without the three P’s is simply a follower so take the risk, pursue your passions, and inspire change by being a successful leader.
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