Every so often, someone asks me, “What does leadership mean to you?”
I’ve heard this question in interviews, classrooms, and quiet one-on-one moments. And each time, my answer feels slightly different, not because I’m uncertain, but because my understanding keeps evolving. The meaning of leadership grows with experience, with the people we serve, and with the lessons life insists on teaching us.
When I think about leadership today, it centers around three words: influence, integrity, and impact. Those are the three pillars I return to again not as concepts, but as disciplines that must be practiced, tested, and refined daily.
Influence: The Power of Consistency
The longer I’ve been around leaders, the more I’ve realized that influence is rarely loud. It’s quiet, patient, and steady.
True influence isn’t about drawing attention to yourself. It’s built quietly, through consistency, trust, and clarity. It’s how you behave on the days no one watches.
Some of the most influential people I’ve known rarely gave grand speeches. Their words mattered because their actions already spoke clearly. You could feel their steadiness in how they handled pressure, how they treated people, and how they stayed grounded when things became unpredictable.
Influence begins the moment you realize that your behavior teaches louder than your voice. It’s the tone you bring into a room, the patience you show when others rush, the respect you model when disagreement appears. Those things shape culture far more than any memo or meeting agenda.
If you’re reflecting on what leadership means to you, pay attention to what you leave behind when you walk out of the room. That’s where influence lives.
Integrity: The Foundation That Holds It All Together
Integrity has always been my non-negotiable. Without it, everything else eventually collapses.
It’s what anchors decision-making when the pressure to bend becomes strong. It’s what keeps promises aligned with actions, even when there’s a personal cost. Integrity has little to do with appearance, it’s about internal steadiness.
I’ve met brilliant leaders who could drive results and inspire crowds yet struggled to sustain trust because their decisions weren’t anchored in consistency. The pace of success outweighs the pace of reflection. When that happens, leadership starts to drift.
Integrity restores direction. It reminds you who you are and why you’re doing the work in the first place.
If this idea resonates, I explored it further in What Is a Leadership Philosophy? Definition, Principles, and Real Examples That Inspire, a piece about building your own compass before the noise of life builds one for you.
Integrity doesn’t ask for perfection; it asks for alignment. When your words, intentions, and actions move together, trust follows. And trust, once earned, accelerates everything else.
Impact: The Echo You Leave Behind
In my early career, I measured leadership by outcomes: numbers, achievements, and milestones. Those things still matter, but over time I’ve learned they’re not the whole story.
The impact is what continues when you step away. It’s what remains in the culture, the people, and the mindset you helped create.
The real impact often looks small at the moment. It’s the colleague who later says, “You helped me believe I could do more.” It’s the moment someone applies to a lesson you shared long after you’ve moved on.
Every leader leaves an echo. The question is, what kind?
Impact deepens when the focus shifts from personal success to collective growth. The measure of leadership is not how many people follow, but how many people rise because of it.
Service: Where Leadership Expands
Over the past two years, I’ve experienced a different dimension of leadership while serving as a missionary for BYU–Pathway Worldwide’s Career Advisory Board (CAB).
This experience has been one of the most fulfilling chapters of my life. The spiritual energy that comes from connecting with people across the world: people who are lifting, learning, and striving to grow has reminded me that leadership begins with service.
Every conversation, every act of encouragement, every moment spent helping someone else discover their potential has reinforced a truth I often write about: leadership expands when it stops being centered on you.
The newly released BYU–Pathway Worldwide documentary captures that spirit beautifully. It’s a moving story of hope, optimism, and faith: a reminder that leadership has the power to illuminate even the darkest seasons.
Watching it reminded me why I’ve found such joy in serving with BYU–Pathway’s Career Advisory Board (CAB) over the past two years. Seeing the faces, hearing the stories, and feeling the determination of individuals around the world reaffirmed what I’ve always believed: leadership is about creating access and lifting others toward their potential.
President Brian K. Ashton expressed it perfectly: “Intelligence is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. BYU–Pathway is changing that.”
That single sentence captures the essence of leadership, turning compassion into structure, vision into opportunity, and belief into lasting impact.
What Leadership Means to Me Now
When I’m asked again, “What does leadership mean to you?” My answer today is simpler than it used to be.
Leadership is presence. It’s the discipline of being fully engaged with people, with purpose, and with the moment in front of you. It’s the responsibility of shaping environments where others can do their best work and feel seen while doing it.
Leadership is both privilege and responsibility. It demands awareness, not just goals and metrics, but emotions, tone, and timing. The way you lead becomes the way others feel about themselves. That’s the real influence we have.
And the truth is, leadership is never finished. It grows as we do.
Defining What Leadership Means to You
Each person has to define this question in their own words. Here are a few ways to begin that process:
- Remember who shaped you most. What qualities did they embody that you now value deeply?
- Reflect on defining moments. The toughest seasons often reveal your truest principles.
- Examine what you reward. The behaviors you celebrate in others often mirror what you believe leadership really is.
- Ask how people experience you. Leadership isn’t self-declared, it’s felt.
- Stay open. Your definition will evolve with time, humility, and new challenges.
Clarity comes from paying attention to your own patterns and allowing them to teach you.
Final Thoughts
So, what does leadership mean to you?
To me, it means choosing to influence that uplifts, integrity that steadies, and impact that lasts. It’s knowing that leadership isn’t confined to a role; it’s reflected in every interaction, every promise kept, and every person you help move forward.
If these ideas resonate, you’ll find more reflections like this along with frameworks for building clarity, consistency, and sustainable growth in Leadership Orbit.
Because leadership isn’t the moment you arrive at. It’s a way you move through the world.
