Day 3 of. Blogfest and today the focus is on leadership. What does effective leadership mean? What does it look like? Can it be described? Any review of leadership will reveal that there are hundreds of definitions, each highlighting a slightly different quality or perspective of leadership. Sorting through all the definitions can leave you confused that so many people see it so differently! But I think this is one of the beauties of leadership - there is no RIGHT definition, no RIGHT way to lead. Rather, I think, leadership is something that depends upon the situaton in which it is exercised. Consider these quotes from an array of people:
"Leadership is intentional influence." - Michael McKinney
"Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand." - General Colin Powell
"The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there." - John Buchan
"To lead people, walk beside them ... As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves!'" - Lao-tzu
They all sound pretty good, don't they? And yet each describes leadership differently. To the General, it is about solving problems, getting everyone on board, and if one were leading a group into battle or in a great crisis, it would indeed be important to be able to find that common denominator around which those you lead could mobilize. According to Lao Tzu, the most effective leaders are those who stay out of the limelight and empower their people to accomplish things and believe they did it without any leadership. But perhaps the one that resonates most with me is Buchan - the idea that all of us have greatness within us - or leadership within us - and effective leadership will bring it out, elicit from each of us the inate qualities and skills we already have but may not realize we possess.
The common elements in these different definitions is the dynamic that takes place between leader, those being led and the shared goal or purpose. This inherently means that leadership is situational & the leadership a group needs will depend upon the goals to be achieved. Sometimes the need is for strong individual leadership, but at other times collaborative group leadership, in which each person has a role to play is more effective. Effective leadership is understanding what is needed in a situation and playing your part to bring what is needed to the group, whether you hold a position or not.
That sounds hard, doesn't it? There are so many circumstances that we can't anticipate, so how do we know what's the right thing to do? For me, the answer to this question lies in having a strong central guiding core of principles and values that guide our decision making and indeed, for some, how we lead our lives. But that is a subject for another post......
What do you think? Can we all be effective leaders? Can you think of a situation in which you had to step up and assume that role? What did you do? How did you decide?
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