Don’t Just Lead — Be a Leader

The 4 Ways Successful Leaders Add Value to Their Communities 

Are you a leader, or simply someone who leads? 

By the time his reign as emperor concluded in 192 AD, Commodus had nearly bankrupted the city of Rome and set the Ancient Roman Empire on the destructive path of its eventual downfall. By the time her period as First Lady of the United States concluded in 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt had completely redefined the role of women in politics and pushed horrifying racial inequality into the public spotlight.

There are those who “lead” — then there are leaders.

National Leadership Day was founded just six years ago. It is a day to celebrate leaders of all ages who choose to add value to the lives of their workers, their clients, and their communities. You’ll notice the day isn’t set aside to simply “celebrate leaders.” After all, “leading” is ultimately nothing more than the actions of someone who finds themselves in a position of power. “Being a leader” means so much more. It means adding value to your constituents — building things up instead of tearing them down.

Those are the leaders this day is designed to celebrate. That said, what exactly sets a successful leader apart from someone who leads? What are the most important things a leader can do to add value to their communities? After decades of advising a wide range of executives from around the world, these are the four tactics that have stood out above the rest.

1. They safeguard an uplifting working culture.
   Workplace culture and its effects on employee morale have become hot topics for discussion in the past several years. Every organization, from the largest corporations to the smallest nonprofits, is trying to better understand the science of happiness at work. Why? For starters, happy workers are more productive — 13% more productive, in fact. Beyond that, more than half of employees report that emotional distress at work has hindered their ability to perform their job well. Simply put, a safe and uplifting workplace matters… a lot.

   This is why it’s so important for successful leaders to safeguard the positive, uplifting atmosphere that defines their organization. Successful leaders celebrate every individual triumph because celebrations feel good and bolster the entire team’s perceived social support. Successful leaders keep employees engaged because engagement and happiness are the two biggest drivers behind overall productivity. Also, successful leaders make everyone’s safety a company-wide priority because safety and security sit at the top of the U.S. Surgeon General’s “Five Workplace Essentials” for mental health and well-being.

2. They choose core values that enrich everyone.
   Did you know that nearly half of workers in the U.S. and the U.K. are considering leaving their positions because they feel their company doesn’t exemplify the values they hold dear?

   It’s important for your organization to have consistent and authentic core values. Core values are the guardians of your organization’s integrity, and they are also your means of outlining a community of support and potential new hires. If these values are well-chosen and steadfast, your company will not only succeed, but it will do so according to its own preconceived principles and achieve priceless employee buy-in as a result.

   That said, it’s not enough for these core values to simply exist. They also need to serve the individual and the team in equal measure. This is why successful leaders role model values that not only fulfill the organization’s mission, but do so in a way that improves the group as a whole.

   accountability. Understanding. Excellence. Each of these core values is a very personal priority; however, each of them is also absolutely essential to effective team dynamics. Accountability to keep everyone honest. Understanding for when failures happen. And excellence for driving productivity at the individual level.

3. They support the inevitable diversity of a growing community.
   Most leaders in 2025 are already serving a highly diverse community. If they aren’t, they will be eventually. In such a globalized economy, any growing organization is going to eventually achieve a certain level of diversity, and successful leaders are excitedly ready to support those transitions. Of course, racial and ethnic diversity is just one slice of the pie. By 2030, Gen Z is expected to account for over 30% of the workforce in the United States.

   Such diversity is directly connected to growth and productivity. Organizations in the top quartile of ethnic diversity have a 36% chance of outperforming their peers. Additionally, over 80% of executives recognize that a multi-generational workforce is key to their long-term success.

   So what’s the problem? Over half of those same executives don’t include age as a consideration in their diversity and inclusion policy. Meanwhile, many Fortune 500 companies are slowing down their reporting of new hire demographics, and those that are still reporting aren’t turning up very impressive numbers in terms of racial and ethnic distribution. It isn’t enough to clamor loudly about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) because of some passing corporate trend. As a successful leader who wants to add value to their community, you must seek it out, be intentional in how you approach it, and actively cultivate its success.

4. They actively encourage productive mentoring — no matter the pairing.
   Mentorships can benefit everyone. Struggling teens. Aspiring executives. Hard-working middle managers. When two people find a way to grow together — or even simply to grow one or the other — the results can be transformative. An interdisciplinary analysis of mentorships across youth programs, academics, and the workplace discovered one underlying truth: Mentoring yields positive outcomes across the board, both big and small.

   In that case, successful leaders are best served as simple facilitators — someone who actively encourages mentorships and removes any roadblocks standing in their way. This isn’t about squeezing schedules into some grand design, and it isn’t about perfectly pairing employee type A with employee type B. Instead, it is simply about finding those mentorships that encourage growth, then getting out of the way.

Successful leaders understand that more mentorships means more value for their community. After all, nine out of ten workers with a mentor are happy at work, and four out of ten people without a mentor have considered quitting in the last three months. All in all, mentorships make communities better and employees more productive and personally satisfied.

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Written by Dr. Sam Adeyemi (SAY: Ah Day yeh me).
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