The Leader Who Had No Title – Robin Sharma

Leadership 2.0

How you see leadership as being obsolete

• Leadership is not a privilege; it is a duty.
• It is not something that depends on the title or position you hold. It is how diligently you do what you do.
• It is not having people work for you; it is working with the people for the achievement of a common goal.
• It is not given. It is earned as people around you grow to respect you.
• And above all, leadership is for everyone. No matter where you are, what you do, or anything else,

Action

When you are exposed to an idea that fires you up or you have a brilliant idea where you hear something. Whether reading a book, participating in a conversation, attending a workshop, or whatever, you just have this distillation of clarity. Of that’s a distinction I want to bring into my life. 

He says the moment you have that idea, you need to take action immediately. Take white-hot action on red-hot ideas. Don’t let time come between your inspiration and your action.

The longer the time elapses between your inspiration and your action, the less likely it is that you’ll ever take action. So take action on ideas that fire you up.

It doesn’t matter how small the baby step is. Just do something to make progress; take action.

Love

“Love is the best-kept secret of business and leadership.” Loving what you do with the people with whom you do it and treating them with respect

Robin says a number of things, but here’s one of my favorite kinds of practical life hacks. He says, “Be helpful.” You want to strengthen relationships; be helpful. Try to be the most helpful person you know. That’s an extraordinary way to very practically apply the idea of being more loving.

Athlete

The next big idea is that the first person you need to lead is yourself. You need to be a great human being if you want to be a great leader, and Robin walks us through the fundamentals.

Think about an athlete who tells a reporter in the locker room after a game one day, “I’m done practicing; I’m not going to prepare before games anymore; no more training, no more practicing, no more prep, and I’m still going to show up at a stupor superstar level.” 

Robin says if someone actually said that, you’d think they were a bit crazy because that’s not going to happen. The higher you go, the more you need to train and practice. That’s what the elite performers know.

Flip the switch

The basic idea is that you don’t need a title to lead. We all have an inner leader, and we don’t need to wait until someone bestows us with a title. e.g., we get the corner office for whatever to exert a tremendous amount of power and influence in our lives. What we need to do, among other things, is flip the switch. We need to flip the leadership switch, and the basic distinction we need to make is that we need to claim responsibility.

The Restructuring

Every structure that involves people has obvious titles. This is often taken as leadership, whereas it is just meant to imply the specific nature of their contribution. To make the organization work, everyone needs to act like a leader. A leader’s work is their own. It starts with having immense love for what you do.

Flip the Switch Part 2

We can choose to be a victim, we can choose to be a leader, we can choose to complain about life’s problems and challenges in our circumstances in our life or we can choose to do something about them. 

We can create the most empowered response we can and create a better future. Victims complain; leaders create. You need to flip the switch. If you want to have an extraordinary life,

Fear

Every leader talks about a time when they were challenged—about the crucible of challenge that brought out the best in them.

You need to know that every time you move into your fear and are able to go past your comfort zone, you just expanded your comfort zone. Your zone expands incrementally over time in magical ways. Embrace challenges if you want to do extraordinary, great things.

You are a genius

You, me, your neighbor—we are all geniuses. Every single person is. We just settle for mediocrity over time. All it takes is to believe in our potential and fix the years of bad habits we have developed to unlock the genius in us.

What matters

The only thing that matters is whether you are doing your best. Each individual is unique, and so should be everyone’s benchmark of performance. And you know, deep down, when you’re giving it your all. That’s all you need to focus on.

Sooner or later, you won’t have them, so it’s better to do what you can now than regret it later.

Your best asset is your mind

So go for it. Learn unendingly and obsessively. That’s where the real magic is. The bigger your library (well, the part that you have actually read), the higher you can rise.

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