What is Modern Leadership, Anyway?
Developing and Owning Your Leadership Throughout Your Career
Whether you’re a new or seasoned leader, this is your guide to modern leadership. Learn to develop & own your leadership with these strategies, resources, and tools.
Whether you’re new to leadership or have managed a team for years, you’re not alone if you feel like you have more questions than answers about leadership.
Along your career path, it’s not unusual to:
Be tapped for a managerial role… without any leadership training or additional support
Get feedback about developing your “executive presence”... without any clarity on what that actually looks like
Pursue a promotion to reach a new level of leadership… but feel uncertain about how to articulate and leverage your experience
See leadership examples that you don’t quite want to emulate… but feel stuck when it comes to doing things differently
At a certain point in your career, leadership can feel like a skill that’s expected from you just like all of the job-specific expertise you bring to your work.
For some people, this is exciting—you’re eager to manage and lead! For others, the thought of leadership can feel daunting—you’ve had training in so many of the skills you use day-to-day, but this big one wasn’t exactly covered in your last webinar.
A new perspective on modern leadership qualities
As a leadership trainer and coach, I’ve guided mission-driven leaders for over 10 years to step into their authentic leadership and build their toolbox of mindsets, skills, and resources to make a meaningful impact.
I also know firsthand what it’s like to muddle through leadership on your own. As a nonprofit leader, initially I felt like I had to model what leadership “should” look like—wearing a lot of blazers to work and copying the management style of my predecessors. I felt like I was making things up as I went along (with much trial and error) and desperately trying to prove myself. It was an important time to try new things and see what fit, but I definitely didn’t feel like I was developing a sense of confidence in myself.
Only after stepping back to define my personal mission, my values, and my vision for who I wanted to be as a leader did I see that intentional self-knowledge combined with practice was the key. With newfound confidence and a sense of groundedness, I could make strategic decisions about what would bring me closer to my vision and show up as the leader I intended to be.
It turns out that leadership isn’t about fancy job titles, direct reports, and senior positions. Instead, I’ll offer two foundational beliefs to take with you as you prepare to step into new levels of leadership, whatever that looks like for you.
Belief #1: Leadership is a practice, not a destination.
A title change isn’t what makes you a leader (and a promotion definitely doesn't magically give you the skills or confidence you’re looking for).
Leadership also isn’t a level you can achieve when you “finally know enough,” because that keeps you trapped in a chicken and egg situation. What comes first, the knowledge or the experience? And what does finally knowing enough even look like?
Instead, you can approach leadership as a practice, one that you’re able to authentically develop from wherever you are.
It’s not about "knowing it all”—it’s about how you’re prepared to show up when you don’t know. It’s about honing your ability (and developing the self-trust) to make consistent, confident decisions with and for your team.
Doesn’t this perspective shift already make leadership feel more approachable?
Belief #2: We are all leaders.
One of the biggest misconceptions about leadership is that you have to have an official title or direct reports in order to lead.
But no matter where you are in your life's journey—at the top of a company or fresh out of college—you can show up as a leader.
It's not a someday thing. You can lead through influence from wherever you are, whether or not you have a role that directly reflects leadership.
Here’s what I mean:
→ Whether or not you have formal authority baked into your job title, you’re leading through your influence.
→ Whether or not you directly manage employees, you are leading your peers, projects and ideas, or organizational strategy. (Even leading yourself!)
→ Whenever you sit down to create a plan, have a conversation, lead a meeting, or even draft a to-do list, you’re actually practicing leadership in real time.
This perspective matters because when you recognize the ways in which you are already leading, you create the foundation of your leadership skills—and can develop opportunities to grow them even further.
Strategies for leading from right where you are
Often, we sit back and wait for those with formal authority to set the tone for our working relationships and the direction for our organizations. Meanwhile, we complain about how we would do it differently, roll our eyes at their flaws, and grow frustrated as we impatiently wait for a leadership opportunity to open up. Because what else can we do? They hold the power, make the decisions, and control the resources—and we have to deal with what trickles down our way.
Wrong. They may have the formal authority to make decisions, but authority (and the power and privilege that come with it) is not the only form of leadership, and certainly not the most important form.
No matter where you fall in an organization, you can lead through influence.
Influence is the capacity to shape and impact decisions, and your ability to influence others isn't fixed—it's a skill that you can learn and develop. When you develop your ability to influence the decision-makers above and around you, you become a strategic leader, no matter what your job title says.
Embracing your leadership from wherever you are in the formal hierarchy can help you to:
Shift from feeling stuck, frustrated, and small into empowered and open to solutions
Develop a stronger working relationship with your manager
Advocate for the clients/customers/constituents you serve more effectively
Create more value and be seen as more valuable
Feel more impactful and successful at work
My client Sani experienced this shift firsthand. When we started working together, he was hungry for more responsibility and wanted to develop a plan that would help him step up into a formal leadership role.
When we reframed how he thinks about leadership—that is, embracing the idea that we are all leaders—he realized that he could leverage opportunities to lead right here and now.
He took a new approach to a collaboration with a colleague, getting creative about how he could apply leadership skills to the situation instead of continuing to act like an individual contributor.
He even transformed the way he interacted with formal leaders at his company. He’d previously used a series of mentorship meetings to simply report out on his work, but he began actively practicing “managing up” and using his relationship with that leader to help develop his strategic thinking and build his executive presence
The wonderful thing about Sani’s story is that it proves that you don’t have to wait. His commitment, curiosity, and growth helped him practice leadership right there, right then (and ultimately opened a door to a surprise new opportunity, one that was perfectly aligned with his personal mission).
It all started by identifying some of the ways that he was already leading—and you can get started doing the same by downloading our Leading Through Influence Workbook.
The top mindset for stepping into leadership, especially for new supervisors
If you do have a formal leadership position but don’t find it easy to “own” your leadership, you’re far from alone.
When Laura, a manager in the hospitality industry, came to me for coaching, she hesitated to claim leadership as one of her skills because she didn’t always know the right answers and was worried about making mistakes.
Imagine that! A leader, making mistakes? Better wait to call yourself a leader until you’re sure you know enough to never make one, right?
New supervisors and managers worry about this all the time, too. It can be exciting to step into a new level of leadership, but it also comes with the fear of how you’ll manage people, how you’ll figure out your leadership style, and what you’ll do when you don’t know what to do.
But to embrace your role with more confidence, try a reframe:
Your success as a leader is not about knowing what to do in every situation or having every answer to every question. (That’s literally impossible, right?)
Think of yourself as engaged in an ongoing practice of leadership, one that always involves moving forward through the unknown. And even if you’ve never managed someone or held a formal leadership title before, you’ve been leading throughout your career already.
→ You’ve practiced leadership in the conversations you have every day, the meetings you facilitate each week, and the ideas you put forward.
→ You’ve practiced leadership when you’ve created a plan for a project that’s never been done before, helped a group navigate change, or mediated a conflict.
→ You’ve flexed real leadership skills even when you did something seemingly small like sharing appreciation, giving feedback, reflecting on how something went, or simply creating a to-do list.
See how those aren’t one-and-done accomplishments you can check off, or a specific level you can finally reach?
Proving yourself won’t make you a great leader—but embracing the practice of leadership absolutely will.
One underrated leadership skill you can embrace and develop right now
A lot of people think this is what it takes to be a leader:
A top-tier title, with the salary to match
A closet full of blazers
A job description packed with big responsibilities
A roster of team members to manage
But actually, there’s just one thing you need along the way, and it’s not something that anyone can give you (or that you need permission to have!).
It’s your ability to respond, guided by a trustworthy internal navigation system.
At one point in my career as a nonprofit leader, I envisioned each responsibility I had as a weight on my shoulders. I laid awake in the middle of the night worrying about how I could muster the strength and endurance required to carry them all. I felt pressured to not only shoulder them, but to do it with grace and exceed everyone’s expectations—most of all my own.
It’s no wonder I felt so run down, behind the ball, and anxious—I was crumbling under the incredible weight of all those capital-R Responsibilities.
In the midst of this crumbling, I happened to listen to an episode of the Magic Lessons podcast with Liz Gilbert in which Liz told her guest: “Let me remind you of the definition of the word responsibility: the ability to respond.”
My ears perked up. I hadn't considered this definition before.
What would happen if I thought about Responsibilities not as something that I shoulder day in and day out—but instead as my response-ability, my ability to respond?
This perspective shift was huge for me, personally and professionally. I began putting this concept into practice as a nonprofit leader, and then developed it even further as a leadership coach helping others cultivate this ability, too.
Your ability to respond is guided by your internal navigation system. Even in those moments when you feel lost, you are able to assess the situation and help others feel safe as you take a beat, draw upon your collective resources, and make intentional decisions about how to move forward.
This approach helps you create a leadership style that actually feels authentic to you, allowing you to feel more confident and at ease instead of like you’re stuffed inside a suit a few sizes too small.
Ultimately, as a leader, you don’t get handed a pre-drawn map marked with all the turns you’ll take and where exactly they’ll lead you. But you don’t actually need a map (or the magical foresight to have everything figured out in advance). Honing your navigation system helps you develop the self-trust to handle the bumps and forks in the road as they come up.
Wherever you are in your leadership journey, there’s support for you here.
Developing your leadership ability starts with cultivating your navigation system—the compass that enables you to clearly, confidently, and strategically guide yourself and your team.
Through personal Leadership Coaching, we help you build your unique Strategic Leadership Compass, which is made up of the key elements of who you are, what you stand for, and what you bring to the table.
Over 10 weeks, you’ll get clear on your authentic leadership style, the core values that drive your work, the strengths that you and your team bring to the table, and your vision for the impact that you want to have.
We’re here to support your confidence, competence, and career path, so that you can thrive as a leader with purpose and resilience.
