As a leader, we wear many hats. After all the buck stops…well you know where. Recently, I had a conversation with a young man who just graduated from high school. He was inquiring about the leader’s role. Not so much of the day-to-day functions, but “big picture” (his words) I went on to describe as best as I could the “big picture” for him.

Leaders are people developers, change agents, decision makers, problem solvers, visionaries, culture protectors, strategy developers, coaches, communicators, talent recruiters, conflict managers, team builders…and well I’ll stop there. He said to me,  “Wow, that is a ton of things you have to do!” The Leader has his/her plate full with responsibility. Yes the buck stops with us.  And as I was reflecting on that conversation and decided to share it with you, I am going to boil it down to this:

In the end, as a leader, you are always going to get a combination of two things: what you create, and what you allow. Think about that for a moment. Is that true in your world? It certainly has been true in mine.

As you ponder that thought, I have two more questions for you: Is what you have created what you really want? And are you allowing (tolerating) something you should not?