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.

  1. One who sees opportunity and takes the initiative to bring forth the idea for a greater cause. Harjas Dogra
  2. A person who serves through being trustworthy, inspirational, and passionate! Kayrnne Courts
  3. One who has followers. Ben Eder
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. Leadership is the act, or process, of helping others become, or do, more than they ever thought they could. Kevin Campbell
  7. ‎”A relational process of people together attempting to accomplish change or make a difference to benefit the common good.” – Komives, et al. Chris Jachimowicz
  8. 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?