The great baseball player Jackie Robinson once said that “A life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives.”
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Leadership ISN’T about titles, position, authority, or status. Leadership is about influence. It’s about one person influencing another. You don’t need a title to be a leader. You don’t need a title to be a person of influence.
Anyone can lead regardless of their role because everyone has the ability to influence. If people respect you and believe in you, then your opportunities to influence increase exponentially.
Consider the case of Harriet Tubman.
She was a very small, black woman living in the middle 1800’s. It is nearly impossible to be further from a traditional leadership position than she was.
Yet, she is one of the greatest leaders of all-time because she was so greatly respected and elicited hope in her followers. Because of her ability to influence others, she saved many lives. She was barely five feet tall yet she commanded the attention of everyone that she came into contact. She wasn’t educated but was smart, savvy and wise. She didn’t have an official title but became the most well-known conductor of the Underground Railroad. She took great pride in the work that she did to free slaves.
“I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”
She inspired or helped hundreds of southern slaves find their freedom in the North during the Civil War. Tubman was affectionately called “Moses” because she went into the land of captivity and broke the chains of slavery for so many people.
How does a someone with a small physical stature and no position of authority end up leaving such a legacy? Tubman found a cause and sacrificed everything to make the world a better place for the people that she could impact.
She couldn’t do everything but she could do something.
She couldn’t save everyone but she could save someone. She’d do her part.
She was a leader without a title.