“What Is the Role of a Leader?” - Kimberly Renner

When you think about what makes a good leader, what qualities come to mind? At first, I tend to associate leadership with power and confidence, but when I really think about the leaders who have been most effective in my life, I invariably find humility, patience, and willingness to listen.

Being a leader is not about being the best at everything; it's about being able to maximize the abilities of the people on your team. In many ways, it's about being able to foster community, bringing together different talents and personalities to pursue a common purpose.

TRANSCRIPT: As much as the house is an assembly of sticks and stones and concrete and asphalt, it's really an assembly of people. We all bring different skills to the job site, and part of my job as the leader is to help the people that I work with identify where their strengths are and facilitate their best work.

I'm not a plumber. I'm not a roofer. I'm a lousy bookkeeper, but I can help those individuals who are really talented in those areas do their best job, so that as a team we come together and can produce something that's really better than any one of us could have done on our own.