Several years ago I worked with a group of senior leaders at a large construction company. We were having a lively conversation about leadership when someone asked me, “Hey, Vince, what is leadership?” I said, “Leadership is a decision.” It was the very first time I had said those words out loud. It was an intuitive response in the moment. But right away Earl, one of the participants, snapped, “Well, I never got to make that decision!”

Earl was the senior vice president of engineering services. He had started his career as an engineer, but the organization soon offered him a supervisory role and a series of promotions. Earl said that he accepted each of these promotions without thinking about whether he truly wanted a new role or whether he was really ready to commit to it.

I looked around the room. Everyone was listening intently. It seemed like Earl's story was striking a chord with the other leaders.

Earl explained that he thought taking on those leadership roles was the logical thing to do. From a practical perspective, it was the only way he could make more money and get more prestige within the company. But he said that every time he took on a more senior leadership role, he moved further and further away from what he really loved to do: engineering.

I have told Earl's story many times, and I have been surprised by how many leaders say they've done the same thing.

Although making more money, expanding your skills, and having more impact are all somewhat valid reasons to be a leader, they are no longer enough in today's world of business.

Every day you have opportunities to make a leadership decision. But do you answer that call? Many times making the decision to lead isn't easy—it's easier to stay put and play it safe. But staying put makes you an empty chair leader and keeps your organization stuck.

Why Doesn't Anyone Want to Be a Leader Anymore?

I have met a lot of people who relate to Earl's experience, and most of them are about Earl's age. I have also noticed that the younger generation isn't as willing to take on a leadership role just for perks or prestige.

My team and I worked with a software company a while back to design and deliver a two-day leadership program aimed at 30 people they had identified as high-potential (hi-po) leaders. To begin the project, we interviewed these hi-po leaders. What we found was quite surprising. The majority of them didn't want the label of a high-potential leader. In fact, leadership had a negative connotation for most of them. They thought being a high-potential leader would just mean doing more work. They felt busy enough already, and being saddled with more leadership tasks (including dealing with difficult employee performance issues) certainly didn't appeal to them. They did the math and figured out that all the extra work wouldn't really be reflected in their salaries. And they didn't want to take time away from their families to put in those extra hours. That wasn't a sacrifice they wanted to make.

The executive team was surprised—and frustrated—to hear this news. They had assumed everyone would want to be a leader. They thought these employees would be proud to be tagged with the hi-po label. But the more we talked to the hi-pos to figure out why they had such negative views of leadership, the more we realized the executive team was the problem. Executives were the model for leadership in that company. They all worked 60 to 80 hours per week. They were always on planes traveling the world. When you saw the current executives from afar, as the hi-pos did, all you saw was hard work and personal sacrifice.

The executive team soon realized that they needed to do a better job of demonstrating to the hi-pos all the rewards associated with leadership roles—the gratification that comes from serving customers, building great teams, and creating a successful business.

So we changed the focus of the two-day leadership development program. Instead of a launch program, we created a process to help those would-be leaders better understand what a leadership role is really all about—the good, the bad, and the ugly. The participants loved this approach. They were grateful for the chance to decide for themselves whether to step into these new roles. They started to realize they had been focusing only on the downside of leadership. After that two-day event, all but five of our potential leaders decided to continue. Those who opted out did so mainly for personal family reasons but asked to be considered again once their young children were older.

Something is changing in our organizations. Younger employees understand that leadership is a decision and that it needs to be deliberately made. I saw this recently with one of my own team members—a smart, personable guy who had been an informal leader for a while. When his manager and I offered him a formal leadership role, he said, “Wow, I'm really flattered. Thank you so much. Do you mind if I take a couple of weeks to think about it?”

Both his manager and I were a little surprised to hear this. I remember thinking to myself, “Listen, buddy, in my day when someone gave you a leadership opportunity, you just took it. No ifs, ands, or buts!” Even I am having a hard time letting go of this outdated perspective on leadership.

We met with him again after the two weeks were up, and this time he said, “Thanks for giving me the time to reflect on this big decision. I needed to think carefully about this. Both my wife and I have big jobs, and we also have a young family. I needed to know before committing whether this was the right thing to do for my family. I have thought it through, and I'm in.”

I thought to myself, “This guy is much smarter than I was at his age.” He knows what it means to be a leader. He appreciates the demands and the pressure. That's why he wanted to make sure he could really commit to doing the work and becoming a great leader. He took his time to reflect and then made his leadership decision.

Why You Need to Make the Leadership Decision

The first term of the leadership contract (see Figure 5.1) begins with the idea that leadership is a decision. There isn't much point in discussing anything else about leadership until we get this clear. Too many theories about leadership just assume that everyone wants to be a leader. But this is a faulty assumption—one that we often don't realize we are making.

We need to replace this faulty assumption with the idea that everyone needs to decide whether he or she wants to be a leader. If we do that, we will end up with leaders who truly want the role and are prepared to be accountable and do what is necessary to help their organizations succeed. We also help those who don't want the role find other ways to add value in their organizations.

One of the reasons you need to be more deliberate in making leadership decisions is that organizations have changed. In the past, companies were much larger than they are today, with many levels of managerial roles throughout the hierarchy. The good thing was that all those roles acted as effective stepping-stones, enabling individuals to progress nicely from one leadership role to another. Because you could see the stepping-stones ahead of you, each move seemed like a natural and logical step to take, and you really didn't have to do too much thinking about the roles you were taking on.

However, companies today are leaner and flatter. The stepping-stones are gone and have been replaced by giant leaps. So when you take on a leadership role in today's world, you don't see the next steps at all. What you see is a big chasm between your current role and the role ahead of you. This is one of the primary reasons why there is such a high incidence of failure among leaders assuming new roles.

Much of the research has shown—whether it's at the front line, in the middle, or at the executive ranks—that a significant percentage of leaders derail within a year or two of accepting new roles. I believe it's because they don't deliberately make leadership decisions. They don't fully understand what they are taking on and instead make the leap blindly, underestimating the demands and expectations. You may get seduced by the new title, the status, the money, and the perks. You may make assumptions about what leading will be like, but your assumptions may be wrong.

To me, it is a lot like being a first-time parent. No matter how many parenting books you read or how many stories you hear from your friends and family, you can't truly understand it until it's happening to you. And then it hits you—during the 3 AM feedings or after your fourth straight sleepless night. Then you know how challenging being a parent really is.

The other reason you need to be more deliberate in making leadership decisions is that we've always assumed that everyone wanted to be the leader, and we have ended up glorifying leadership roles above others in our organizations. We give leaders more money, more perks, and more prestige. But in reality, we've never let people decide whether they want to take on a leadership role. As a result, I've seen many leaders who don't make the conscious decision to lead. Instead, they just accept the roles they're given. Over time, they become ambivalent or reluctant leaders like Earl. Or they end up always questioning and second-guessing themselves.

Well, guess what? If this is you, you aren't fooling anybody. We can smell the indecision, the tentativeness, and the uncertainty you project.

It's important to note that in the past we may have been able to get away with weak leadership because our world was less complex than it is today. We could get by with individuals who didn't make the real decision to be leaders. But things are very different today. Ambivalent or tentative leaders just aren't strong enough to take us through this complex environment. There's too much at stake today. We need to make sure that all leaders consciously and deliberately make the decision to lead and make it for the right reasons. This is the starting point for real leadership accountability.

The Two Kinds of Leadership Decisions

Athletes have to make lots of decisions on the field (or on the court or on the ice). In the midst of the action, they have to be able to decide again and again how to move their team closer to victory. Coaches and players can also call a time-out when they believe there is a particularly important decision to make, one they can't make in an instant.

Like athletes, leaders also make dozens of real-time decisions in the middle of the action. These “small d” leadership decisions come up many times in a typical day. And then there are the time-out moments. These Big D leadership decisions are the critical moments in your career when you have to pause and be more deliberate about the choice you are about to make.

Both types of decisions are important (see Figure 5.2). Big D leadership decisions come at critical times in your career and force you to reflect on who you are as a leader and whether you are ready to take on a new leadership role. Small d leadership decisions are made in the moment and may seem minor, but over time, they can also have a considerable impact on your effectiveness as a leader.

It is important to clarify one point. Leaders make all kinds of decisions, such as where to invest for growth, which suppliers to use, and how to manage customer issues. These are typical business decisions, and there is a lot written about effective decision-making for leaders out there.

What I'm talking about here is something more specific. It's those decisions you have to make about your role as a leader both at critical times (Big D leadership decisions) and in the day-to-day experience of leading (small d decisions). These leadership decisions shape how you ultimately show up as a leader. They dictate how others judge your effectiveness as a leader.

Big D and small d Leadership Decisions—Clarity and Commitment

As the interim CEO of Target Corporation, John Mulligan had a simple message for his senior executives: It's time to lead. Mulligan had been tasked to pick up the pieces after the company's former CEO, Gregg Steinhafel, left the retail giant reeling from failed ventures and a massive breach of customer data from its online operation. In addition to moving Steinhafel out, investors and proxy advisors had declared all-out war on Target's board of directors. The proxy firms recommended that shareholders use the annual general meeting to vote out seven of the company's 10 directors. They were all reelected, but the message from investors was pretty clear: Get your act together. Reacting to that signal, Mulligan started taking bold steps to reinvent the leadership culture at Target.

Mulligan moved all the company's top executives into offices that shared the same floor of its headquarters in Minneapolis. The former executive committee of the company was renamed the leadership team. Internal executive committees were disbanded to streamline decision-making.

“All across Target, we need more ‘leadership’ and less ‘committee,’” Mulligan told executives in a letter obtained by the Wall Street Journal.¹

Mulligan believed Target had become bogged down in high-level “bureaucracy.” I believe it would be safe to say that Target had built a company where administrators and paper pushers occupied roles that real leaders should have filled.

In this scenario, nobody has the intestinal fortitude to stand up and put his or her own opinions on the record. People sit quietly by as they watch others make mistakes. Everyone is afraid to offer his or her own ideas in case they fail. Nobody is making the big or small leadership decisions that need to be made.

I've seen this story play out too many times. When a company is in trouble and not performing, we try to find some significant thing that is a cause of all the problems. We often fail to appreciate how a lack of leadership accountability day to day can lead a company into a downward spiral. This is why it is important to be deliberate as a leader every single day. Your accountability as a leader starts with your leadership decision.

Ultimately, Big D and small d leadership decisions both require clarity and commitment on your part. You need clarity about what you're taking on when assuming a leadership role. You need to be clear on the following:

• What's the role really about?
• What are the expectations?
• What will success look like?
• What value must I bring as a leader?
• What impact must I have every day?

You will also need a strong degree of personal commitment. Ask yourself:

• Am I up for this? Am I all-in as a leader?
• Am I fully committed to doing what I need to do to make my team and company succeed?
• Am I able to handle the heat that I will be exposed to?
• Am I prepared for the hardships that will come my way?
• Am I committing for the right reasons, or am I doing this only to feed my ego?

Too many leaders lack this kind of commitment. In a recent global survey we conducted, we found that most organizations believe just under half of their leaders are fully committed to their leadership roles. That means we have people in leadership roles who don't own their entire role. They may be focused on the technical aspects of their jobs, but when it comes to the people leadership aspects, they aren't as committed.

If you aren't committed to your entire leadership role, then you need to have a career discussion with your manager. Find a technical role that allows you to do those things that enable you to be successful without having to take on the burden of being a leader.

It's important to pause and reflect on these questions, especially when you are at a critical turning point in leadership. Why? Because many aspects of your leadership role change.

For example, you will find that at each turning point the amount of complexity you deal with increases. You have to be able to tolerate ambiguity and the pressure it will put on you. If you are lucky, you'll be in an organization that will help you through this. But most leaders will need to face this challenge on their own.

You will also face considerable scrutiny, which just keeps on increasing across the four turning points. You must be open to it, yet develop a thick skin so it doesn't undermine your confidence. I believe that the increased scrutiny is a function of the fact that leadership really matters today. There's a lot riding on you—so you'd better not screw up! First, your peers are scrutinizing you to see whether you really are high-potential material. Then your employees analyze your every word and action. Colleagues across the organization weigh in with their own views of your performance. Finally, board members, customers, analysts, and shareholders will scrutinize your every decision and every move. The spotlight keeps getting brighter.

You can also experience the realization that you are accountable. There is no room for excuses as a leader. In fact, the more senior the leadership role, the greater the degree of accountability you must assume.

You will also come to realize that you must demonstrate increasing levels of professional and personal maturity. As an emerging leader, you'll find that those around you will want to see you show up as a leader. As a front-line manager, you will need to rise above the noise and drama of the people issues and bring a leadership presence. At the middle level, you will need to be an ambassador of your organization. This requires you to be levelheaded and have a strong sense of poise. At the executive or C-suite level, your professional maturity (or lack of it) sets the tone for your entire organization. You will need to have a real executive presence because your personal reputation is tied so closely to your organization's reputation.

Finally, you will also come to understand that the degree of impact you must deliver increases dramatically at each turning point. As you become a more senior-level leader, the impact you're having is easier to see. The flip side is that so are your mistakes. You will feel a self-imposed sense of urgency to have real impact (or at least you should feel it). You will come face-to-face with your core obligations as a leader, and you will need to take them seriously.

The reason you need clarity and commitment in making Big D and small d leadership decisions is that at each turning point, the heat and pressure rise. This is why you can't take on a leadership role simply because it feels like the next logical step. This is why you can't jump at an opportunity because it's going to pay you more, give you more perks, or offer a better title on your LinkedIn profile. This is why you can't simply click Agree without understanding what the fine print of the leadership contract is about. You need to pause and truly understand what you are signing up for.

A Real Leadership Decision Is Visceral

I spoke about leadership as a decision at a conference, and the CEO of the company I was working with had an interesting response. He said, “I found the idea of leadership as a decision to be really interesting. As I thought about it, I can tell you the leaders in my own company who have made the leadership decision and those who haven't.”

I believe anyone can tell who's made the decision to lead—most of us just aren't thinking about it in these terms yet. But when you make the decision to lead, I think you'll find that the change in you will be visceral—you'll feel it and know it, and so will those around you. Leadership accountability will ooze out of every single pore of your body. And when you make both the Big D and the small d leadership decisions deliberately and with clarity and commitment, your game will go to another level.

I believe you'll find that once you truly make your own leadership decision and commit to being an accountable leader, something will change inside of you.

Take the example of Lucia. She is based in South America and reached out to me on LinkedIn. She wanted to thank me for writing The Leadership Contract because the ideas were truly helpful to her. In our exchange, she shared that she'd always been the kind of person who played it safe in her career. But now there was a director position available in her company. Her first instinct was not to pursue the job because she felt she didn't have what it would take to be successful. She wrote, “But after reading your book, I decided to put my name forward, and I got the job!” I was excited for her. Lucia continued by saying it was the best decision she ever made. She would never have anticipated all the opportunities that opened up to her because of that one leadership decision. Lucia's story is a powerful one.

Deciding Not to Lead Is an Important Leadership Decision

People often ask me, “What if you decide not to be a leader?” I believe this is also an important leadership decision to make. Big D leadership decisions are important because what you do as a leader matters. But if you make those decisions lightly, if you feel pressured to take on those roles, if you do it only for the money or the perks, then you run the risk of becoming an empty chair leader. You can fake it for a while, but eventually your lack of clarity and commitment will start to show. So the question comes back to you: Do you know yourself well enough to decide whether leadership is for you? Do you have the maturity and courage to say no? I believe we need more people to have the self-awareness and personal maturity to make good leadership decisions, including the decision to turn down a role that is not right.

Steve Wozniak had the courage to say no. Long before he appeared on reality TV, Wozniak was the engineer who invented the first Apple computer. He was a programmer at Hewlett-Packard (HP) when he was approached about the job at Apple. He knew he didn't want to be a corporate leader, so he was worried about joining a new company. But Apple promised him that he wouldn't have to go into management—he could stay at the bottom of the organization chart as an engineer. Apple turned to Mike Markkula, Jr., a successful investor, to run the company, and it let Wozniak keep doing what he did best. Although Wozniak didn't have the title, he was still an important technical leader in the company.

Another good example comes from Phil Libin of Evernote. In June of 2015, he revealed he was stepping down from his role as CEO. I'm a big fan of Evernote and its online note-keeping service, so this story caught my attention.

Libin was remarkably candid about his decision. He said the company he'd led since 2007 would end up in the hands of “someone who is going to be better than me at it.” “I'm a product person,” Libin said. I'm sure you would agree with me—this isn't the kind of behavior we typically see from CEOs and senior executives.

When you track the ups and downs of business leaders, you're more likely to see leaders hanging on at all costs—even if the company suffers as a result. In contrast, Libin seems to be a pretty humble guy who understood what his company needed next. To me, the key part of this story is not, however, the fact that Libin is stepping down. It's that he knows he's more of a product guy, and his company needs a “professional CEO.” That is a powerful leadership decision. Did Libin's actions suggest that he no longer has what it takes to be a strong leader? Are his actions an admission of failure? No!

In my opinion, this story is about a leader who had the self-awareness and maturity to know where he added his greatest value, coupled with the self-confidence to admit where he did not.

Unfortunately, I've seen many leaders struggle in the same situation. Some let their ego get in the way—admitting they are not good at something just isn't possible for them. For others, their self-identity is so wrapped up in their title that they can't envision themselves in any other role. I've also seen leaders be so stubborn, digging in their heels to stick around, only to be humiliated when someone else decides it's time for them to leave.

The stories of Wozniak and Libin demonstrate the self-awareness that is necessary to make a leadership decision. Wozniak knew how he was wired, what he liked and didn't like to do, and where he could add value. Libin knew his company needed a different kind of leader for a new era.