What is leadership? Let’s find out.
What Is Leadership In A Nutshell?
We first started to scientifically explore leadership in the 20th century. This research has generated as many questions as it has answers.
However, one thing that researchers agree on is that leadership is a mysterious, slippery, and complex thing. Sadly, this consensus provides little practical value to real leaders.
Yet, while leadership is complex, it is possible to define it in a practical way. So, what is leadership in a nutshell?
What Is Leadership In More Depth?
The above answer to the question, ‘What is Leadership?’ has 3 core components.
Results
From Drucker to Goleman, experts agree that effective leadership is all about delivering results. Different academics use different words, such as shared objectives, common goals, mutual purpose or vision. Yet, they all agree that leadership involves getting people to achieve something together.
The nature of these results may vary from one organization to the next – and also with the nature of your own role within your organization. Yet all organizations (and units) exist to bring about some form of desired results.
Award-winning authors Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner go further. They claim that leadership is about achieving extraordinary results. Leaders push the frontiers of success beyond what has already been achieved.
So, what is leadership? It is, in part, an unrelenting focus on results.
What are the results that truly matter in your organization? As a leader, you are charged with the challenge of delivering those results.
Followers
Leadership is concerned with the achievement of results. But the same is true for virtually everyone in your organization. As a former school principal, I was responsible for improving how well my students did at school. But, so were my teachers, and so were the students themselves. What differentiates an effective leader from an individual star performer?
Management guru, the late Peter Drucker, was renowned for his insightful, to-the-point advice. Keeping in line with his reputation, he put it this way.
The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers
Peter Drucker
So, what is leadership? It is, in part, the state of having followers.
If you don’t have followers, then you are not a leader. It doesn’t matter whether you are leading a small team, an entire organization, or anything in between. You must have followers to be a leader.
Followers should include people who report directly to you. However, they can also include anyone you have some influence over, including colleagues and even your own boss.
So, what is leadership? It is, in part, the state of having followers.
Impact
Having followers is essential, but it is not enough to make you a leader. You must have a positive impact on those you lead. Impact is a crucial part of leadership.
How do leaders have an impact on their followers? Who you are, what you do, and why you do it all affect the impact you have on your followers.
You are more likely to have an impact on others if you:
- Possess certain traits
- Act certain ways
- Do so for the right reasons
You will find it easier to lead well if you are intelligent, extraverted, assertive, conscientious, and open to experience. It also helps if you possess integrity, an internal locus of control, and a strong desire to influence people and events. Particular traits can help or hinder your leadership. However, you do not need to possess all of these traits to be an effective leader (it just makes things easier).
Your actions are also critical to your success. In general, you need to balance your concern for people with your concern for results. However, there are situations where your focus needs to shift to one over the other. You also need to deliberately seek to influence your followers, appealing to both their heads and their hearts.
Your followers will also judge the intentions behind what you do. These judgments affect the impact that you have. A leader who is perceived to serve a noble cause and who is prepared to make personal sacrifices in service of that cause has more sway with staff than a leader who is seen to act primarily out of self-interest.
Leadership Is Just One Part of Your Job
It is important to realize that leadership is not your sole job. It is but one thing you are responsible for doing.
Most leaders must learn to balance leadership with other competing demands on their time. This includes things you are personally responsible for and managing the day-to-day operations of your organization.
The reality is that leaders perform a wide range of disparate tasks. They can go from a multi-million-dollar budget meeting to discussing how to fix the dishwasher in the common room, and all while receiving seemingly endless requests for information and help.
Leadership involves plumbing as well as poetry
Jim March
Summary: What Is Leadership?
To sum up, leadership is the act of achieving results through the impact you have on your followers.
The nature of the results will vary in different organizations, and with the specific part of the organization, you are leading. Followers include anyone you have influence over, and you can be both a follower and leader. Finally, the impact that you have is shaped by who you are, how you act, and why your followers believe you acted that way.
Hot Topics In Leadership
Now that you have an answer to the crucial question ‘What is leadership?’, you may like to explore some of the Hot Topics in Leadership.
References
Antonakis, J. Cianciolo, A. T. & Sternberg, J. J. (2018). The Nature of Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Drucker, P. (2004). What Makes An Effective Executive. Harvard Business Review.
Ferris, G. R., Bhawuk, D. P., Fedor, D. F., & Judge, T. A. (1995). Organizational Politics & Citizenship: Attributions of Intentionality & Construct Definition. In M. J. Martinko, Advances In Attributional Theory: An Organizational Perspective (pp. 231-252). Delray Beach, FL: Lucie Press.
Hesselbein, F., Goldsmith, M., & Beckhard, R. (1996). The Leader of the Future: New Visions, Strategies and Practices for the Next Era. Wiley.
Goleman, D. (2000). Leadership That Gets Results. Harvard Business Review, March-April
Judge, T. A., Bono, J. E., Illies, R., & Gerhardt, M. W. (2002). Personality & Leadership: A Qualitative and Quantitative Review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 765-780.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2007). The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Maciariello, J. A. (2005). Peter F. Drucker on a Functioning Society. Leader to Leader, 37, 26-34.
McClelland, D., & Burnham, D. (2003). Power Is The Great Motivator. Best of Harvard Business Review.
Mintzberg, H. (2009). Managing. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishets, Inc.
Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and Practice (Eighth Edition ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Yukl, G. (2013). Leadership In Organizations (Eighth ed.). Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Limited.