The other day, I was sitting with an executive team talking about bench strength and high-potential talent. Nothing unusual. A familiar conversation in a familiar setting.
But something landed differently.
As the discussion unfolded, I realized we were talking about leadership the same way most organizations do – as if leadership were a noun.
- A thing.
- A label.
- A set of characteristics we can list, debate, and categorize.
Directive leader. Participative leader. Bold leader. Considerate leader. Seasoned leader. Emerging leader…
…the list just keeps growing.
When we treat leadership as a noun, we feel compelled to define it the way nouns demand to be defined – as a person, place, or thing. Something concrete. Something describable. Something you either “have” or don’t.
The problem is leadership isn’t concrete. And trying to force it into that box actually makes it more confusing, not less.
Consider two wildly successful leaders: one calm and relational, the other intense and relentless. Different personalities. Different styles. Different ways of showing up. And yet, both achieve extraordinary results.
If leadership were truly a noun, this wouldn’t make sense.
From my vantage point, leadership works far better when you stop treating it like a thing and start treating it like what it actually is:
A verb.
Verbs are action words. And that aligns perfectly with a leader’s real job.
Leadership is about movement.
A leader’s job is to move a person, a team, an organization, a conversation, or a customer from where they are to where they need to be.
That’s it.
When you view leadership this way, the obsession with style starts to fade. Whether you’re directive or participative, charismatic or reserved, isn’t the point anymore. The point is whether you can facilitate movement.
This is why I often say leaders need to stop muscling results and start facilitating movement. Movement requires two things: a starting location and a desired destination. Without both, you have rudderless effort. With both, you have a journey. Which sounds like ‘growth’ to you?
Here’s the empowering part.
Once leadership becomes a verb, development changes. You stop asking, “What kind of leader should I be?” and start asking, “What needs to move and how do I intend to lead it?”
Leadership becomes less about identity and more about action. Less about labels and more about leverage.
And when that shift happens, leaders often feel something unexpected: Freedom.
Because leadership was never about becoming a particular type of person.
It was always about learning how to, deliberately, move things forward.
You don’t need more leadership theory. You need clarity. The Locator Report is designed to help you identify where you are, so you can lead with the right kind of movement for this season, not someone else’s playbook.
