Recently on Twitter, several people linked to the same article on BusinessWeek, “Leadership: Intentional Influence.” The author, Joseph Grenny, outlined the difficulty that some leaders have both defining leadership and understanding and exerting their influence. One leader he works with has a ready definition for leadership, the best one I’ve heard.
Tim Tassopoulos, chief operating officer of Chik-fil-A, says it this way: Leadership is intentional influence.
Tassopoulus also speaks for an Atlanta based organization called Growing Leaders, Inc.. And he is the father of two sons.
With Father’s Day approaching, I have been thinking about the influence and leadership of dads in their children’s lives. By Tassopoulus’ definition, fathers who are intentional about influencing their children are leaders.
In honor of dads everywhere, I am going to write a series of posts about dads as leaders. In the first post, I am going to share a dad’s perspective — insights taken from my interview with Steve Roesler from All Things Workplace ; in the second post, I am going to talk about the unintentional influence of absent fathers; and in the final post I am going to share a view of fatherhood from an adult child’s perspective. Be sure to come back frequently over the next few days so you don’t miss a single post.
This was originally posted at Mountain State University LeaderTalk and is re-posted with permission.
I am the founder/CEO of the Weaving Influence team, the author of Reach: Creating the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause, and the host of the Book Marketing Action Podcast. I’m a wife and mom of three kids, and I enjoy running, reading, writing, coffee, and dark chocolate.