Everyone is a leader, but not everyone want to be

As John Maxwell says, “Everyone is a leader because everyone influences someone”. We can agree or disagree with this statement; nonetheless, after giving this saying a closer look, I firmly believe that each of us will admit that any of us have impact on someone. It doesn't matter whether it's one person, our closest family, group of friends or someone else -- there’s always someone.

We accept this type of leadership unquestionably, it's so natural for us that we often don't even treat this as leadership. This is the main reason underlying lack of development in this field. We didn’t name it, so we simply don't invest our time to become better in how we impact others.
Is this the only reason? I think that many of us just don’t like to take full responsibility. They don’t feel well in a situation in which they find themselves, it wasn’t their choice. The fact that someone is a leader does not mean that he or she wanted to become one.

Take one thing at a time

A while back I wrote that if you want to make improvements or fix something, you should start with the easiest thing, because it allows you to gain team's trust and increase confidence of team members. It will also prove them that it's OK to try and, in some cases, to fail.
Thanks to this you increase your and your team members’ chances to succeed with more complex and problematic issues in the future.

But there’s more things which can help you to achieve a success and increase quality of communication.

It's all about differences... or not?

definition of good team

It's not easy to create a good team. It's even hard to find one definition of a good team which would be accepted by everyone. I think the reason is simple - there are many solutions to each problem and the problem can be solved in a satisfying way by good teams working differently, teams consisting of people with various personalities.

good time for something easy...

I'm pretty active person or at least I'm trying to be. I have this luck that everything what I'm doing give me some kind of joy. I'm happy when I can spent a time playing with my daughter, when she doesn't stop asking "why this?", "why that?". I appreciate all of those moments when I can talk hours with my wife, arguing or laughing. I'm feeling great at my work, where I have opportunities to work with great people, solve nontrivial problems and have an impact on many things around me. I love those moments when I can sit for a moment and focus on my hobbies or other interests.

The essence of leadership

For some people leader is someone who have a control over the team, who decides and sets the right directions.

For some people leader isn't so important role at all, well, just some guy with something he called soft skills, guy who want to do nothing, take no responsibility and get money for this.

For other leader is just another name for project manager or a titile for a developer who started to earn more money.

In many cases you aren't become a leader, because someone notice that you will be good as a leader or that you have traits of the great leader. In many cases is just another step on career ladder.

Do you have a time for thinking?

Some time ago one of friend of mine told me that he have a problem with people who doesn't want to take any responsibility. He told me that he continuously encourages them to share their opinions, make comments and even argue with him, but somehow he still fails.
We had a short, but constructive conversation this day. We formulate a few questions which would be helpful with finding a solution and we decide to get back to this topic in next week.

Unfortunately we had to reschedule it and we met again after two weeks.
I was prepared very well to the conversation and I eagerly waiting for what my friend will share with me.
It was pretty unexpected when I heard that he have had no time to thing about our questions.

I know that nowadays it's not so easy to find a free time which can be intended for thinking, but if we would think about solutions for our own problems is rather like an investment, not a waste of precious time.

It's worth to remember that is cheaper to prevent than react.

Customers don't know what they want!

I believe that you heard this sentence many times, maybe a few times you were a person who said it (sadly I need to admit that I also said it a few times in past), and maybe you heard additional comments like: "They don't understand how their business works!", "Who had a such a great idea?!" and many others which mainly shows how everyone are upset because of customer's requirement.
Why people feels like this? Because they see no logic under requirement and functionality and (sometimes) even customer's explanations don't brings this desired "aha" moment.

I were there many times and I believe that many times are still in front of me and I can assume that almost everyone who have ever had to create something for a client know this very well.

So maybe it's really something with our clients? Or maybe... it's something with us?

Ok, let me tell you a short story.