A common theme of all the listener questions we receive is bad leadership.

Many of you are working under a boss who isn’t interested in your ideas, opinions, and feedback. They don’t want any input from their employees and don’t want to know what’s really going on in the organization.

If that’s true, you don’t have a leader at all. You have a manager. There is a big gap between the two.

Leadership means being there for your people and trying to understand their points of view. It is always keeping your eyes and ears open for how you can improve. To be a leader, you have to be consistently trying to get better every day.

When people ask me what I did at Disney, I say, “Not much.” I just made sure that things got done.

All leaders should do the same. To be effective, they need to go to the lowest level possible, stop talking, and start listening. The value of having the people who work for you trust you, tell you the truth, and give you new ideas which are priceless.

However, if you don’t have a boss who leads that way, all you can do is be a great performer. Keep doing your best. This will make a huge impact on the people around you.

From there, you’ll build a good reputation. You will create strong influence through your consistent performance. Eventually, that may work its way up to top leadership. If not, your excellence will be welcomed at another place that better suits your performance level.

To hear more advice for leading from within, tune into this episode.