Definition of a leader
by Miki SaxonPost from Leadership Turn Image credit: danzo08 CC license
It’s not unusual for me to come up with what I think will be a great post and then find someone else thinking about the same thing.
Last Thursday I was sorting through ‘leadership’ articles and blog posts, once again disgusted with all the references to ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’ that had little to do with leading and much to do with position.
Suddenly the proverbial light bulb went on and I realized that I could actually define my version of leadership without using the l-word (I hate words that are defined using variations of themselves). I decided to let the idea simmer for a couple of days and see if it still looked good Sunday.
Then Friday I ran across Dan McCarthy’s post challenging his readers to define leadership as well as offering up a number of famous definitions.
Now that you’re primed, here’s my epiphany, feel free to shoot it down, tell me why and offer your own, but first some background.
On April 29 I wrote Leader/manager = leadager and followed it up with a seven-day series arguing that Warren Bennis’ statement “There is a profound difference between management and leadership…” doesn’t hold true with today’s modern workforce, i.e., great managers have to embrace Bennis’ leadership traits in order to motivate and retain their people.
OK, here’s my definition.
A leader is a great manger who is also a mensch.
What do you think?
Your comments—priceless
July 7th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Miki –
OK, so if a leader is a great manager who is also a mensch, than what do you call a great manager who is also a schmuck? Or an incompetent manager who’s a mensch?
With all due respect to Mouton and Blake, I’m beginning to see the potential for a new 4 box grid here… maybe even a new leadership assessment tool!
July 7th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Hi Dan, I don’t think that a manager would be classed as great if s/he was a schmuck; schmuck’s aren’t great at stuff like productivity and retention. An incompetent manager can be a mensch, but s/he’d still be incompenent.
On the other hand, I did stick my foot in it, because I truly do believe that leadership is based on actions and not position.
So it looks like my definition only applies to positional leaders.
July 8th, 2008 at 3:25 am
I doubt that we can get agreement on what leadership actually is. Only if we can truly understand what it is can we then decide what good or bad leadership is. Take a look at my article, “Leadership, Good or Bad”, to learn my view.
http://www.bensimonton.com/Leadership,%20Good%20or%20Bad.htm
Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”
July 8th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Hi Ben, I enjoyed your good/bad post because it supports my premise that managing today’s workforce requires managers to employ so-called leadership skills.
All talk aside, I really believe that leadership is NOT positional and IS about what you do. The title of leader is conferred in the court of public opinion, whether that court is your team at work, your family or the members of a group. The leadership books and discussions provide the language with which to describe the actions.
July 8th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Thanks, Miki.
I agree that leadership is not positional, but with a caveat or two.
The leadership of bosses is more influential the higher the boss. Also, the higher the boss the more effect on support for employees that boss has and thus more control and responsibility for the standards that support projects.
The concept of leadership and sending value standards to employees is essential to understanding how to manage people to good effect. Actually, the most valuable leadership skill for any boss is that of listening and responding respectfully because it is only through the use of this skill that employees learn how to treat their work, their customers, each other and their bosses with great respect.
Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”
July 8th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Ben, You say, “the most valuable leadership skill for any boss is that of listening and responding respectfully,” but I would argue that that is one of the top three skills for being a human being.
Perhaps the world would improve if actions such as this were relegated back to everyman/woman and not ascribed to “leaders.”
July 8th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Although I agree, unfortunately most have no clue of how to listen and that includes a huge majority of bosses. I wish you well on trying to get every man/woman to develop said skill, but that goal is way beyond my pay grade.
Best regards, Ben
July 8th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
But of course. Not listening is an almost universal trait in the human race, a classification that includes most bosses. But you know what they say, DREAM (fantasize) BIG!
July 9th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
To be honest, I really can’t get behind the notion of “leadership traits” because I can’t imagine that a set stock of traits can materialize a universally valid definition of leadership. Given the leadership is actions and actions are carried out in response to certain necessities brought about by a particular context, I can’t help but think that leadership can be learned. That is to say, if a person can correctly identify particular situational factors operating in a given context that calls for affective leadership, then sure, good “traits” can help get things going from there. But the posession of these “traits” with a blind eye for context seems worthless. Of course, you could always argue that contextual perception is a “trait” but you would still have to grant that it is more of a learned “trait” and so more like a skill…
anyway, I did a three part thing on Leadership on my blog (hr-worldview.blogspot.com) have a look.
July 9th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Hi Eamon, thanks for adding to the conversation and supplying the URL for an interesting take on the subject.
I think that any/all skills and traits have a different effect depending on the situation in which they’re seen/practiced. I also believe that ‘menschism’ is learnable if a person believes that the components have value.
Of course traits and actions are learnable; they are also changeable if one decides that change is necessary.
However, there is never a guarantee as to how people will change or in what direction they will progress. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are subjective terms, with definitions subject to era, society and personal whim.
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I’m a little late to the game but I don’t think leadership and management have anything to do with one another. A manager is merely one who orchestrates the tasks of others to get something done. leadership, however, is the capacity for one to articulate a vision and inspire others to make that vision a reality. People flock to leaders, while they execute a manager’s wishes. That is not to say that a manager cannot be a leader. But, we would all agree that the majority of managers are not. Also, a leader may not necessarily manage anyone.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:42 pm
DA, We’ll just have to agree to disagree:) Given the sophistication of today’s workforce I don’t believe that managers can execute much of anything productively, let alone innovatively, unless they can communicate a vision of where the group needs to go, inspire their people to buy into it, and motivate them along the way. To do this requires most, if not all, of Bennis’ so-called leadership traits.
Very few of today’s workers produce for the kind of manager you describe, nor do they continue to work for them any longer than necessary.