Is your project derailing?  Having trouble accomplishing your objectives?  Do the people working with you understand their roles and responsibilities or even what you’re trying to accomplish?  Who are you waiting on to fix it?  Whether you are the most senior leader in an organization or you’re a worker bee several layers from the top, there is an opportunity for you to diagnose the problem and be a part of the success solution in your team, your business and/or your start-up.

Steven Covey taught us the seven habits of highly effective people and they are still useful habits twenty seven years after he published the book.  As individuals, we need to be proactive, to begin with the end in mind, and to prioritize by putting first things first. When dealing with others we also must learn to think win-win versus being competive, seek to understand different perspectives and views, look for synergies and ways to sharpen the saw because people take a lot of your energy.  These are tools of effectiveness that are helpful in building a solid foundation but even with them you might find it hard to achieve success without effective leadership.  

I want to talk about success from a different angle.  Leading from the middle is what I call it because leadership is action not position.  Being able to step back and figure out what’s missing when things are not going as planned can be done by anyone.  Just ask your self do you know the what, why, how, and who of what you’re trying to accomplish.  

• Is your project or goal missing a leader?  A leader is someone who can articulate what you’re doing in a very detailed descriptive way that makes the expected outcome clear for everyone involved.  
• Does everyone know how you will accomplish the objective and get the resources needed?  A manager’s job is planning the details, the budget, the resourcing requirements, etc.  A vision with no plan is just a pretty picture.
• Movitating others to work with you requires understanding and good intentions.  People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.  A good supervisor can engage their team by focusing on what’s in it for each individual and aligning their goals with the overall objective of the project or goal.
• Finally, nothing replaces the effort required to get things done.  Leadership is also about execution which is why people respect leaders with experience and those who know what it takes to accomplish the goal.  

When you think of yourself as having all of these roles, you can be successful in any endeavor.  So are you missing a leader, a manager, a supervisor or an employee?