What IS Leadership?
This
is one of the first questions that management trainees can be asked at the
start of their training. What usually
follows is an exercise on what they consider makes a “good leader”.
Some claim that leaders are born and that
you can’t make a leader through training.
I’ve seen plenty of articles and comments
on “leadership”, all of which stress different aspects (I even wrote a recent
blog on leaders’ communication skills). The
Royal Military College, Sandhurst, has studied leadership extensively (with
good reason) and business schools dedicate modules to teaching their students
to be “leaders”.
What is clear is that, whilst we all think
that we can identify the characteristics of a “good leader”, noone has an
all-encompassing definition. Equally, people
disagree on whether leaders are “born” or can be “made” (given the right
training). Basically, no one knows what
makes a leader, or why some people become leaders in certain situations.
One great question asked recently was “Is
leadership a position or action?” Pause
for thought here - what do YOU think? In
my view, people are elected as leaders because of the way people see them behave.
They are then appointed into the position
of leader.
Different people may be more or less
effective leaders at different times. Winston
Churchill was the right man for Britain in WWII, but was not so successful post-war. Equally, a company in a “Turnaround”
situation requires a very different kind of person as the CEO compared with one
in a “Sustaining Business” mode. Boards of Directors sometimes fail to
appreciate this when selecting a new CEO.
What remains clear is that there are people
to whom others naturally turn for “leadership”.
The question to ask is what makes people turn to one person instead of
another (particularly if the person to whom they turn isn’t necessarily as
knowledgeable” as the first).
In the past, the right to lead was granted
by birth (kings and queens and the aristocracy). This persisted more or less until the end of
the Second World War in England, and is still the case in certain countries
where monarchs rule with greater or lesser degrees of benevolence. This is leadership by “birth” or
inheritance. The more popular way of
becoming a leader is by “acclamation” or the vote of those who desire to be
led. The democratic process in many
countries where people elect a leader illustrates this.
Similarly, smaller and less formal groups
of people find themselves agreeing to follow a particular person as leader as a
“natural process”. The person chosen may
not even have been aware that they displayed the qualities that that group
considered desirable until they were chosen.
In some cases, it’s almost easier to say what
doesn’t make for a leader. Stories abound of those who don’t listen or
care, who are arrogant, who don’t “set an example” or who show no interest in
others. Taking these could well point us
to what does make a leader
The Royal Military College at Sandhurst is
one of the leading leadership development institutions and has found that what
most leaders have in common (apart from certain characteristics) is the ability
to balance three critical elements:
- Task
- Team
- Individual
Leadership is about getting things done
through others. The goal to be achieved
is the task. The group doing it is the
team. Teams are made up of
individuals. Those who fail to grasp
significance of all three elements are unlikely to succeed as leaders.
Labels: Career, Productivity, Teamwork
posted by William Martin @ 07:58
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