Innumerable books and articles on Leadership provide loads of examples, anecdotes, guidance and checklists essentially under the umbrella of “How to be a (great) leader.”

But much of this well-intended guidance suffers a sorry fate: many of those reading these checklists do not in fact end up being even mediocre leaders. In fact, one counterintuitive consequence of all of this advice is that it leaves too many with the conclusion that being an even halfway decent leader is something remote and even unattainable.

After watching video clips of Martin Luther King, JFK, Mahatma Gandhi or Winston Churchill, an obvious conclusion could well be, “I could never be that. I simply cannot see myself as someone who embodies all of those characteristics, and therefore leadership is something completely out of reach.”

So in our attempt to increase the pool of leaders within and across our organizations, we find more leadership talk and less leadership actions. In some cases, we find people doing what they believe is leadership-like stuff—speaking louder, standing up straighter or more authoritatively, ordering others around, making big promises while hiding real and valid concerns—which can in fact produce less real leadership and more pretenders and imposters.  

There must be a better approach.