Leadership at its core is about harnessing others' efforts to achieve something no one can achieve alone. It's about helping people go as far as they can with the talents and skills they have.

New managers sometimes ask me, “A decade into the job, what’s something you’re still continuing to learn?” My answer is, “How to be the best leader I can while staying true to who I am.”

Managers so often think of the role as being in service to something else—the mission of the organization, the goals of the team, the needs of others—that it’s easy to forget about the most important character in your management journey: you.

Helping others is leadership. It means noticing what is needed in a group, family, company, or community. It means noticing when others need assistance or attention and trying to provide it. It means cultivating empathy, listening, and being open to other people’s experience, and looking for ways and opportunities to be of service. Leaders regularly ask: How might I help?

Leadership is not about you, it’s about service to something bigger: the company, the team. Bill believed that good leaders grow over time, that leadership accrues to them from their teams.

Leadership, at its core, is about making other people better as a result of your presence — and making sure that the impact lasts in your absence.