I love leadership. Actually, I’m passionate about it. I love it so much because I really really want to help myself, my family, and other people make their greatest contribution to the world.
I have discovered that the only way to truly impact people and help them do this is through great leadership. That’s a lesson I began learning over a decade ago when I first started an orphan care organization whose mission was to help people shape their destinies. The people I started working with was orphans and poor people. I continue to learn the importance of leadership today.
Over the last three days, I had the pleasure of spending all day, morning till evening, studying and thinking about leadership and strategy. This is something I do frequently over the years.
At some point in my studying and writing, I had an epiphany moment and went to my dry erase board and just wrote,
“Leadership is all about Human Needs. Leadership has and will always be about people. Leadership is the people business. Leadership will always be about meeting people’s needs, their fundamental human needs.”
If you don’t understand people, You don’t understand leadership. The best way to know people is to understand their fundamental human needs and meet them. What is true about leadership is true about business. Business, like everything else under the sun, rises and falls on leadership. If you don’t understand people and their human needs that motivate them, you don’t understand business.
Leadership is about the needs of all the stakeholders. Leadership is about the needs of the customers, the employees, the leadership, the shareholders, the larger community, and the government.
If you understand human needs and can predict and meet them, you understand leadership.
