Leading is not telling or teaching. It's taking a lead with how to think, feel and act in a way that role models and helps others improve. Conceptually, the collaborator ecosystem model removes the boundaries between soft skills and hard skills in that the value of any given situation is in the applied knowledge and the continuous learning process that is created.
Being conscious and mindful of constantly applying new knowledge within self and in a collaboration creates a momentum for progression. This is the leading dynamic of innovators and advanced thinkers. To do what has been done before is to follow. True leadership breaks new ground and makes sense of the new so that others can follow.
While knowing the behavioural competences that create value for yourself or your customer is useful, actually actively applying them is where the true positive change happens. Being aware and conscious of the process means you can develop your leadership capacity as an applied skill, which translates into creating and increasing your own and the project's impact, measured in social value. This is not just creating a brand image in the conventional sense of the term, but creating an authentic product or service where the impact speaks for itself in how it functions and appears evident to others. You will never need to sell your project. If you find yourself in that situation, it means you are presenting yourself inadequately or communicating to the wrong audience where there is no match of interest.
As a framework, the collaborator ecosystem takes self-reflection and mindfulness as a given. Without them, personal development cannot take place. Using a hierarchy of competences, the model determines the value and impact of particular behaviours. Leading is bringing all of these positive behaviours into action all the time. While initially challenging, this becomes much easier with practice. With a focus on progression, any actions that used to cause friction soon become old habits and the competences become new habits, performed automatically. Thought patterns are habitual as much as physical actions. As new neural pathways strengthen, the ones that are no longer used are trimmed by the brain. This process increases momentum further and speeds up the development and ultimately, the value creation process.
True leadership comes from mastering this entire flow of creating and applying wisdom which helps yourself and others. Using behavioural intelligence you can perform this process with precision and on purpose.