Spring is arriving in the Northern Hemisphere with renewal, rebirth, and new growth. Thankfully, we’re also seeing strong signs of economic growth after the most severe “economic winter” in many decades.

Forward thinking organizations are now looking toward renewing or rebuilding leadership skills. That generally starts with learning and development initiatives for supervisors, managers, and executives. This is about 10% of the people in most organizations. They are critical players in growing and moving the organization forward. But peak performing organizations also grow, develop, and engage the other 90% as well.

Many people think narrowly of leadership as an appointed role. In our organizations and institutions, we do need clarity around roles and responsibilities. It does need to be evident where “the buck stops” and who’s in charge.

But the action of leading – taking initiative, seeing new possibilities, encouraging and supporting, reframing, harnessing the winds of change to grow forward, and overcoming helplessness with hopefulness – needs to be broadly shared by everyone everywhere, regardless of formal roles or positions. The scope of leadership might be determined by roles, but the actions of leadership are determined by approach. To thrive and grow, we all need to be leaders in every aspect of our lives. True leadership is defined by what we do, not the position we hold. Leadership is action, not a position.

Our basic choices are to lead, follow, or wallow. CLICK HERE to read more about these choices. North American proverb reminds us “We can’t control the wind, but we can adjust our sails.” When we wallow we’re cursing the wind, when we follow we wait for conditions to chance, when we’re leading we get busy adjusting the sails.

In today’s stormy and unpredictable seas we need all hands on deck. We need “leaderful” teams and organizations to inspire everyone upward to higher performance and results.

For more on the keys to developing leadership at all levels CLICK HERE to watch my archived webcast on Thriving in Turbulent Times.