7-40 Challenge | Planning Week
In 2012, I wrote a blog post called “It Is Not All About Me.” I was writing about collaborative leadership — about casting a vision and then letting other people help shape it instead of dictating every step.
It was a good post. It was also about half of the lesson.
The 2012 version of me had figured out that you can’t lead by telling everyone what to do. That’s real, and it took some humility to get there. But what I didn’t understand yet — what took another decade of leading teams, starting new roles, and watching how people actually respond to vision — is this:
Most people don’t want co-ownership. They want a playbook.
They want to feel heard. They want to know that someone is paying attention to their input. But at the end of the day, most people want to be shown what to do. They want clarity. They want direction. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
The leadership lesson isn’t “invite everyone to the table.” It’s knowing the difference between the people who want to build with you and the people who want the rule book. There’s a place for both. But the builders — the ones who want to collaborate, who push back, who make your idea better or replace it entirely — those are the ones who end up influencing everyone else.
Find them. Build them. Trust them.
I started a new job in the middle of last year. I am very accustomed to leading meetings. I’ve done it for years — setting agendas, driving conversations, pulling people toward decisions. Almost from day one, I had to start actively reminding myself to observe. Pick up the lay of the land. Learn the room before trying to lead it.
It was very hard to do.
The pull to assert yourself in a new environment is strong. You want to prove you belong. You want people to see what you bring. But I took the other path. I chose to serve first and earn credibility before spending it. It’s the right way to enter someone else’s house.
The other thing I understand now that I didn’t in 2012 is what it costs to let your idea go.
Not every solution I bring to the table is the right one. Sometimes I have exactly what we need. Sometimes I’m just the spark that gets the conversation rolling. Either way, we moved toward the goal of being better than we were. That’s the part that matters. Not who got credit. Not whose version survived.
I’ve been wrong enough times to know that being right isn’t the point. Getting somewhere better is.
Fourteen years ago, I learned not to dictate. Somewhere in the years since, I learned something harder: finding the right path matters more than it being the path you started on.
I’m sharper than I was. I hope I’m sharper in another fourteen.
David Willis 