Definition of a leader
Monday, July 7th, 2008Post 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
