> I wanted a leadership position at my company, but I was hired for a position that has no decision making power at all. Everyone here seems dumb and working on

> I wanted a leadership position at my company, but I was hired for a position that has no decision making power at all. Everyone here seems dumb and working on a few useless things. This sentence alone signals that you are not ready to be a leader. Contrary to what you probably think right now, being a leader sucks in many ways: - You should be empowering to those around you. This starts by being constructive instead of judgemental. Find out what are their strengths and weaknesses, and tell them how you think they can improve instead of poking at their weak spots. You should strive to always keep this attitude, even when under pressure and/or during bad personal times. - You must be a good listener. Try to understand your team member's motivations and desires, and how they think/react to what's coming to them. Be prepared to accept that other people's thought processes are very different from yours, and your job is to understand them instead of trying to change them. Even if you possessed the absolute truth about everything, trying to shoehorn that truth into their minds wouldn't work. They need to see that truth by themselves, so you can only try to steer them towards finding it. In some cases the way to do that is by providing arguments. Other times arguments won't do it and you must show them. Later on, once you're actually seen by them as a leader you'll be able to appeal to trust. Don't overuse that though because you are not perfect and will make mistakes, which will erode your trust if you used that to impose your opinion onto others. - You should be prepared to deal with the worse bullshit that's thrown to your team. You don't need to deal with all bullshit, but your team should be confident that you'll be first in line if/when shit hits the fan, and that you'll do your best to cover them. - You should lower your expectations about others. You must demand the highest standards from yourself, but not from others. Do what you can to help them improve instead. - Don't overreact when you get stabbed in the back (which will happen at some point). Attribute any bad situation to ignorance/stupidity before malice. Always try speaking with people first, and over time you'll develop a "sense" to discern bad actors from misunderstandings. In any case, being stabbed is an opportunity to improve that "sense", and is always a better situation than initiating work-warfare against a person who acted in good faith. In case you haven't noticed, you don't need any "leadership position" to put all that to practice. You can start doing it right now, and I assure you that leadership will follow naturally. People will start turning to you when they need help. People will start wanting and valuing your opinion much more. This will make you feel important and purposeful, but it will also be stressful and demanding. Be up to the task and the pay will follow.