Just Because It Quacks Like a Duck…
... doesn’t mean it’s the real thing.
A lot of what passes for leadership today doesn’t hold up under pressure. If you’ve ever felt let down by a leadership model—or struggled to live up to one—you’re not alone.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
There’s another way to lead
What if leadership isn’t something we perform—but something we practice? In clarity, authentic relationship, and everyday resilience.
We call it Leadership Actually. It’s real and learnable, practiced in the ordinary moments of work and life. It can change how you see yourself, others, and also your view of what leadership is really about.
This is a path worth taking. We’d be honored to walk it with you. And to begin, let’s look together at one of the things that keeps us from seeing what’s real.
Old Habits Still Persist
A lot of people and organizations still lean on familiar—and often less than adequate—models of so-called leadership.
The hard-nosed, command-and-control type who always has the answers to every question.
The manager who avoids leading in the name of playing nice.
And the performer who, after reading the latest book, can talk the talk — but never pauses to reflect.
These patterns — and others you could easily name — avoid the true definition of leadership.
“Leadership is the process of getting other people to move along together with you, and each other, with competence and full commitment to achieve a goal.”
— Elliott Jaques & Stephen D. Clement
In plain language, leading is about influencing people.
Influence Isn’t NeW
These days, influence has been repackaged as something to be curated, monetized, and measured by the number of followers you can amass.
But long before influence became a marketing term, it described something essential to human life: the way people affect one another through attention, trust, and shared purpose.
Influence isn’t a thing leaders do — it’s what emerges through the quality of the attention they give, the trust they earn, and the working relationships they build. It’s how people have shaped communities, decisions, and progress since humans first began working together.
That’s a definition worth reclaiming — it’s quieter, steadier, and far more consequential — something that builds rather than brands.
And once you see influence this way, the real question becomes:
How can you become more effective in how you influence —
more deliberate, more human, more real?
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