Ducks in a Row: Defining Leadership
by Miki Saxon
That the things I read influence what I write as is obvious from today’s post and yesterday’s companion piece.
It started with summaries of, and links to, five major leadership research articles in The Washington Post, one of which concluded that “increasing team cohesiveness” was a far more important leadership act than the traditional one of “driving results.”
Other of the studies focused on the need for leaders throughout the organization, not just in the C suite, and the growing need for decision-making that considers more than the bottom line.
Next, a post by Wally Bock led me to Mike Myatt’s excellent post on defining leadership and the ensuing discussion, which is well worth reading.
But I have a question that I believe goes to the heart of any effort to define leadership.
Does your definition of leadership require the leader to agree with you?
Let’s look at Mike’s definition, since it is one with which most people would be comfortable.
“Leadership is the professed desire and commitment to serve others by subordinating personal interests to the needs of those being led through effectively demonstrating the experience, wisdom and discernment necessary to leverage trust & influence to cause the right things, to happen for the right reasons, at the right times.”
Would you consider the person a good leader if the right things happened at the right time, but for reasons with which you didn’t agree, i.e., their ideology was different from yours?
This distinction is most obvious in political and religious areas, but is present in business, too.
For example, if someone provided a solution to the oil slick who espoused an ideology the opposite of yours would you welcome the solution or would the differing belief/philosophy cause you to respond negatively?
Image credit: Svadilfari on flickr
