5 Leadership Takeaways from Seth Godin
In the most recent episode of The Customer Revolution Podcast, customer experience expert John DiJulius interviews the legendary Seth Godin – entrepreneur, author, speaker, leader, and visionary – and he shares these golden nuggets of insights about leadership.
- A leader is anyone who is creating and innovating. Leading doesn’t always mean having people underneath you. Managers are essential and they’re all around. But managers are not leaders because leading is voluntary as it is voluntary to be led.
- As a leader, you describe the future based on who you are and what you know. What you see over there is a good place but you can’t guarantee it. You don’t know how it’s going to work and how to get there but you’re willing to try new things and take risks.
- If you’re a leader, you’re an artist. And art has nothing to do with painting or prettiness or design. Art is when a human does something original that might not work.
- Leaders are impostors. Feeling like an impostor is actually a good thing because it means you’re onto something. It means you’re creating value and doing something most people aren’t willing to do. In other words, the impostor syndrome is a way of keeping you in check.
- Be careful with the language you use. A lot of people use the term “writer’s block.” What it really means is you’re afraid someone’s going to look at your work and think it’s not good. Keep doing some bad writing because there’s definitely going to be good stuff in there. That’s the practice. You have to show up again and again because if you need your first one to be perfect, that’s never going to happen.
For more information and resources on how to keep your leadership in check, check out The Customer Service Revolution podcast. If you’d like to listen, head over to 016: The Practice.
