Leadership Is a Noun - Leading Is a Verb

Think of the leader standing beneath the arch as a symbol, with the strong foundation representing Being, the rising structure representing Doing, and the space opening toward other people representing Relating.

Leadership is a noun. It names a position, an ability, or sometimes a group of people. What a leader actually does is lead, and that is a verb. This distinction explains a lot about why well-intended change efforts stall.

When we set out to change an organization, we usually start with verbs: the plan, the action steps, the timeline. But organizations are also nouns. They have a culture, a collective understanding of who we are. When the verbs ignore the nouns, people comply on the surface while the culture quietly absorbs or rejects the change.

Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory offers a useful map. It crosses internal and external with individual and collective, and I’ve found that a leader’s work falls into three dimensions across it:

• Being is the internal foundation: a leader’s attitudes and sense of purpose.

• Doing is the visible work: behaviors and practices that express who the leader is.

• Relating is where it all goes: the people and the organization on the receiving end.

Most leadership development concentrates on Doing. Skills, strategies, and best practices are teachable and measurable. Being takes more patient work, and Relating is too often treated as a soft skill. Yet the Doing comes from the Being, and both are aimed at others. Without a grounded Being, the Doing gets reactive. Without Relating, the Doing has no one to serve. These principles are integral to creating the true change that is desired.

I spent more than 20 years in school district leadership, through consolidations, a state budget impasse, a referendum, a strike, and COVID. The lesson that stayed with me is that leaders spend so much energy developing others that they neglect themselves. As the organization changes, its people must adjust, and the leader must keep pace.

That is the heart of my forthcoming book, The Leader Within: Executive Coaching of Educational Leaders. Its thesis may sound ironic: leaders emerge only when they are managed. The leadership is already there, waiting to be drawn out, but it takes honest reflection, daily practice, and often another person willing to walk the path alongside you. A good coach doesn’t hand over answers. The client does the work.

The book organizes that work as an arch, with attitudes and purpose as the foundation, behaviors and identity rising above them, and practices as the keystone. It is a gateway into development rather than a straight line. Progress, not perfection.

This is also the approach behind the coaching work at Managing Leadership LLC. We help leaders see where they default under pressure and what they neglect. On a typical day, and in a stressful one, do you lead from Being, Doing, or Relating?

Leaders are beings who do things in relationship with others. Neglect any one of the three, and something important gets lost.

To explore leadership identity further, visit managingleadershipllc.com.