What is Leadership?

There is a lot of mumbo jumbo spoken about leadership, such as the oft quoted assertion that” leaders are born not made”.   But how much of it is true?

My purpose in this blog is to debunk all those myths and old-wives’ tales and show you what leadership really is.  I want you to learn the things about leadership that will enable you to be the best leader you can be. 

And on the way, I will show you want management is too.  Leadership and management are different to each other, but in many ways they are so intertwined as to be almost inseparable.  (But more of that later.)

So what is leadership? 

Leadership is the capacity to get people to follow you. (Duhh!)  It is the ability to influence people to work towards achieving collective goals, and to behave in ways that will support the achievement of those goals.   

In leaders there is a set of set of skills, values, attitudes and behaviours (collectively we call these the “leadership competencies”) that combine to enable the leader to lead.

But it’s not quite that simple.

Over the centuries many classical scholars, elder statesmen and leading military strategists in both the East and in the West tried to codify the list of traits that make up a leader.  And since the birth of psychology and the development of behavioural management research over the past century or so, the quest has intensified. 

Now there are hundreds of lists of leadership traits.  Some of the traits that frequently appear in these lists include vision, intelligence, awareness to the needs of others, initiative, drive, high energy levels, self-confidence, good communications skills, perseverance, the desire to lead, honesty and integrity, task-relevant knowledge, resilience, and the ability to handle complexity. 

Some of these lists are supported by greater evidence than others, yet none seem to apply universally in all situations.  None of the lists would fully predict or explain why some people are leaders and most are not.  For example, they cannot explain why the leader who is highly successful in a Western culture may be only moderately successful or even a failure in an Eastern culture.  Nor do they explain why some people seem to have all the traits on the list but are not leaders, or why some people rise up as leaders in a crisis but seem weak and ineffectual at other times.  . 

In response to this conundrum researchers concluded that there must be other factors that make leadership work or fail.  As a result we now know that effective leadership works because of many factors, some of which are beyond the control of the leader.  These are factors like the make-up of the group being led, their history and background, the stability of the membership of the group, the history of the group’s relationship with the leader, the situation, and the current circumstances surrounding them.   

Despite this, the leader does have a great deal of control how he lives his life and how he practices leadership.  He can skill himself and position himself to be the best possible leader regardless of the factors outside of his control.

The Salvation Army officer or local officer finds himself in a situation where he has to lead.  He has to point out where the people of God are now, where they should be, and how they are going to get there.  He has to persuade them to come with him.  There is no leverage that he can bring to bear, no punishment for those that will not comply.  He is 100% reliant on being able to lead.  It can only be done by influence.  He needs to develop his leadership competencies. 

Are you ready?

(To learn about leadership principles in the Bible read the book of Nehemiah.  Look out for the various leadership traits listed above.)