Determining Leadership Focus and Direction
The way you define leadership determines what you’ll do, where you’ll go, and how you’ll get there. Without definitions you’ll flounder. You must define your leadership.
Some leadership-definitions are relational, others situational, still others focus on being. In addition, you can think of leadership in terms of process, behaviors, learned skills, and/or innate qualities.
For example, Maxwell distills leadership down to one word, “Influence.”
10 Definitions of Leadership:
On April 8th I asked my Facebook Friends to share useful definitions of leadership. Watch how leadership definitions determine focus and direction.
- One who sees opportunity and takes the initiative to bring forth the idea for a greater cause. Harjas Dogra
- A person who serves through being trustworthy, inspirational, and passionate! Kayrnne Courts
- One who has followers. Ben Eder
- Being perceptive to the situations that exist, seeking answers to problems you find, marshaling resources to solve them, and rolling up your sleeves and joining in. Kurt Young
- Leadership is the ability to see both the forest and the trees, connecting the vision of where we need to be travelling and finding a compelling story to get us there. It is about inspiring and developing, coaching and mentoring… Tom Varga
- Leadership is the act, or process, of helping others become, or do, more than they ever thought they could. Kevin Campbell
- ”A relational process of people together attempting to accomplish change or make a difference to benefit the common good.” – Komives, et al. Chris Jachimowicz
- The grain of sand around which a pearl accretes. David Negaard
You can see the entire list at the Leadership Freak Coffee Shop on Facebook.
Two of my personal favorites:
***9. “Leadership is a matter of how to be not how to do.” ******Frances Hesselbein
**10. “Getting people to exceed their own expectations.” G.J. Hart
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What useful definition of leadership can you offer?
How does your definition determine leadership focus and direction?
These 10 definitions can be added to the 300+ that Warren Bennis has collected.
What use is a word with so many definitions? Everyone uses the word differently – like Humpty Dumpty they make it mean what they want it to mean.
So, if we’re talking about the good management of organisations, let’s stop using this useless word. Without it getting in the way, we can then teach managers how to be: inspiring; servants; strategic; transactional; transfoming or whatever.
As Mintzberg said in an HBR article: “…management has been submerged by leadership. No one wants to be a dull, boring manager anymore, they all want to be a bright, shiny leader.”
Organisations are run by managers. Let’s teach them how to provide everything that is currently taught as leadership without using that imprecise, confusing and unnecessary word.
All the best
John Nicholls
PS See my blog: http://www.johnnichollsassociates.com
As leaders, what we do and how we do it spans a spectrum. Some actions and beliefs are universal while others are situational. By reaching out across the @LeadershipFreak community you highlighted both similarities and differences. Nice job Dan.
I loved number 5 on your list by Tom Varga “Leadership is the ability to see both the forest and the trees, connecting the vision of where we need to be travelling and finding a compelling story to get us there. It is about inspiring and developing, coaching and mentoring…”
How can we lead if we don’t know at least the first steps to getting there? And how can we walk in the right direction if we don’t know where we are headed?
Leading requires sacrifice. If you don’t know where you want to go, you can’t decide what sacrifice you are willing to make in order to get there. When the sacrifice is required, you may stop leading because the cost is too great. Great leaders count the cost and determine when the gain outweighs the risk and they push through. They do this by knowing where they want to go and by what means they are willing to get there.
To me, great leaders are visionaries who inspire greatness in others while consciously striving for the goal. The visions grow as the team grows and the cost is always weighed in the process.
Thank you for sharing!
Melissa
I am with you Melissa on #5, created a great visual metaphor for me.
While on this journey, the ability to see the entire landscape (and possible paths) and, at the same time, to bask in/recognize the beauty and effort of a single flower. That blended vision is rare. Shared vision is another element to consider as well.
Leadership is being able to promote the people around you to their maximum potential, getting them engaged, transforming them from renters to owners all the while inspiring them to passion and purpose, all of this achieved with self perceived genesis of their journey.
‘renters to owners’—ka ching (to beat Dan to the punch 😉 ) Maybe even converting squatters to owners if you are really good at it Al!
Hey Doc, I am short enough that I will probably see the squatters first! I just hope the “landscape” is appropriate and conducive to persuasion and as Gary Hammel would say motivation “3.0.” 🙂
What useful definition of leadership can you offer?
How does your definition determine leadership focus and direction?
With these 10 interesting definitions I am at a loss for another.
I do think an important angle is that leadership can (and does) take other forms than the location of a box on an org chart. I see leadership qualities in children who are my children’s peers and think to myself, “that child is going to be an able leader as an adult.” If I had to define the quality that makes me think that, I suppose it is “steadfastness of values and the strength not to be swayed by opposing pressures from peers.”
Dan,
Nice post! It is simple and to the point, yet the it oozes significance! I think it is so helpful to have a personally defined leadership motto if you will to help you through the tough times when there going gets tough in the leadership process. One more I read, yet similar to #3 is: “If you think you’re a leader but no one is following you, then you’re only out for a walk.” Mike Melia.
Thanks for a good read.
Bernie
@bsoong
Leadership is an ability to take people along to achieve common goals that can benefit all. Right focus, dedicated efforts with good direction, motivation, sharing of fruits and moving towards yet another high goals are the essence of leadership.
Are leaders born or made? The answer can be both
A lot of interesting perspectives here.
This is a definition that I often think of when discussing leadership:
“Leadership is getting results in a sustainable way”
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Great post. For sometime now my definition of leadership has been centred around creating an alignment between personal goals (mine and those of people all around me: followers, peers, superiors) and organizational goals.
For me, it is not important that those around me have the same definition of leadership as I do, as much as that they understand my definition. In a lot ways, “leadership” as a concept, is like love, happiness, fulfillness, etc…: It is going to mean something different to each individual. However, that does not mean we cannot share it and enjoy eachothers’ journeys.
There are some consistent themes that cross the various defintions of leadership that exist. Words like trust, align, achieve, forward, integrity, show up frequently.
Thanks for sharing, and encouraging others to share.
Mark,
Thanks for leaving your first comment on Leadership Freak. I love your focus on alignment. It’s a central component of my own approach. 🙂
Thanks for jumping into the conversation,
Dan
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I like this blog and follow it.
It is easier to be a bad leader than being a good leader. There is so much written about great leadership, yet there are so many bad leaders. Check out 6 Habits of Highly Ineffective Leaders (insideoutio.blogspot.com)
cheers.