WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A LEADER?

I love to shag, and if you've ever done it, I'm sure you love it too.

I once hired a guy onto our staff who had moved to South Carolina from the northeastern part of the United States.

During one of our early conversations, he was trying to figure out more about the area, and he asked me what people in our community do for fun.

I told him that a lot of people like going to the lake, hiking, fishing, or playing golf. But then I said something that caused him to look at me like someone had punched him in the throat: "And a lot of people around here love to go out in groups and shag."

Silence — dead silence.

My new employee looked at me like I had lost my dang mind. So I felt the need to continue to explain how awesome shagging is.

"A lot of people in our church shag."

His jaw dropped.

"I'm not that good of a shagger myself," I continued, "but my wife took shagging lessons in college, and she's really good at it."

At this point he thought he'd agreed to work for one of the most perverted pastors in the country!

I should let you know that in South Carolina, our state tree is the palmetto, our state bird is the Carolina wren ... and our state dance is called the shag, which after my conversation with my new staff member, I learned means something different in other parts of the world.

This exchange with my staff member reminded me of something a friend had told me years ago: "Words don't have meanings; people have meanings." So when we say certain words or phrases, they may mean something completely different to the person we're talking to than they do to us.

Based on my twenty-five years as a leader, I think there's no word more often misunderstood than leadership.

That's not because there's a lack of information. New books come out on the topic every year, and new blog posts pop up every day. I recently came across an article from CNN about the qualities that make a good leader. The article featured input from various leadership experts, and it's amazing how many different opinions are out there. The list included twenty-three attributes, some of which included confidence, vision, and influence.

Let's take a look at the following three viewpoints on leadership, just for starters.

I have a hunch many people would agree that leadership equals confidence, and I think there's some truth to that.

A leader has to be able to make tough decisions.

A leader has to be willing to go against p