What is Leadership?
I’m starting a new tread of posts about leadership. Today’s post is my definition of leadership. In the next weeks, I will launch posts on Mondays and Wednesdays.
The Monday thread will be:
Leadership Skills
The Wednesday thread will be:
Leadership Perspectives: Reverse Paradigms
Today – Hugh’s Take on Leadership
Leadership is Authority – The conductor as leader is perceived to be a dictator. The autocratic leader creates a culture of underfunctioning in the team by his or her overfunctioning. This image of the authoritarian leader creates a bottleneck for decision-making and creates a low function, low productivity system. Transformational leaders lead by influence and not by power of position.
Leadership is Skill – Leadership is a learned skill. Leaders are not born as leaders. Conductors study music and how to empower choirs and orchestras to fulfill the vision by making the written music come alive. Leaders are born with potential to influence others, and then learn the skills to apply that talent of influence. Leadership is also a system where every person is a skilled leader and understands their role and responsibility as related to the overall strategy and organizational objectives.
Leadership is Culture – Leadership is embedded in the culture of high performance. This high-performance culture resembles the culture of a symphony orchestra in that all the players are very skilled, with very different skills and personalities, and they then use that skill to contribute to a larger result called “ensemble.” In non-musical cultures we call this “synergy.” Leaders inspire and empower synergistic, high-functioning cultures.
Leadership is Communications – Leaders communicate. No choice. However, communication is based on relationship and not on data exchange. The number one leadership skill is concise, specific communications.
Summary – Leaders are people who:
- Get things done
- Know how things get done
- Influence others
Get my online leadership program (ask me about CEUs for your profession).
Coming…
Monday, November 24
Leadership Skills: Learning from Failure
Wednesday, November 26
Leadership Perspectives: Obstacles are Opportunities
Hugh Ballou
The Transformational Leadership Strategist TM
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