To mark the start of the New Year, LinkedIn has released a list of the top ten most overused words and phrases which are used on the site to describe business personas. Whilst there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the use of words such as motivated, creative and enthusiastic they can become meaningless unless they are backed up with actions.
The LinkedIn list got us thinking about the way in which leaders might choose to describe their leadership style. For example the five practices identified as being characteristic of a great leader include inspiring a shared vision and enabling others to act but to describe your leadership style as inspirational or empowering is meaningless unless you live the practice on a daily basis.
We can take all the courses we like, we can describe ourselves and our achievements in any way we like but the true mark of a great leader is one who puts aside the rhetoric and gets on with leading by example and encouraging others to greatness.
