The older I get, the more unclear it becomes to me.
Thoughts about leadership have been circling around my head for over a year now. Until, last week,
a friend and fellow coach, asked me why I felt I had to have the complete answer before I spoke out
on the topic.
As the traditional Japanese aesthetic, Wabi-sabi, states, 'nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and
nothing is perfect'.
With that in mind, I'm going to write a few short thought-pieces about leadership in the coming
weeks. I encourage and welcome your additions to my thinking. I would be grateful to crowd source
the brainstorming.
So, to start, what is leadership?
Is it like pornography? When you see it, you know it?
I used to teach it. Some years ago, I built up the syllabus for Chatham House's Academy for
Leadership. After conversation with many leadership experts across multiple fields, I concluded with
four elements: a set of skills, knowledge, a strong network, and self-awareness.
Are you born with it or, as @Dave Stachowiak says in his Leadership podcast, is leadership made?
(He says the latter.) Is it both?
What does it look like? Do you have to be out in front? Or, quoting Ryan Lizza's 2011 New Yorker
article on President Obama's foreign policy, can you 'lead from behind'? Or, as my view on Obama
was, from 'within'?
Lots of people purport to know what leadership is. Some call themselves leaders: even great leaders.
Academics, writers, journalists, thinkers have studiously and thoroughly created a list of common
characteristics of great leaders from which we can all learn.
Perhaps it would be easier to define if I moved from the generic to the specific.
For much of my life, had someone asked, I would have said that, yes, I aspired to be a leader. Today,
this day at least, I cringe at the idea. Why? I dislike the idea of being put on a pedestal. I dislike the
idea of being held separate from others.
Oddly however, I don't feel the same about leading. I'm quite happy to lead, whether that is
standing in front of a group of people providing direction, mentoring someone, or jumping off the
edge of a swimming pool first.
What distinguishes, for me, being a leader from leading?
Being a leader, being seen to be a leader, feeling yourself to be a leader, implies being apart from,
different from others. For many, it suggests being better. Higher, faster, smarter. While it is a fact
that, at least in my case, I am some of these things to some people, I don't believe that therefore it makes me better.
I separate this from the act of leading. The act of providing or being a guide. The act of proposing a
vision or facilitating a conversation. Of bringing to bear your experience or your perspective.
Leaders can lead in both good and bad directions; distinguishable from being good (i.e., effective) or
bad leaders. Geopolitically, when asked, I find it hard to identify what I consider to be leaders
leading in positive ways. I can see many who are effectively leading in negative ones however (from
my perspective at least), Putin and Xi being prime examples.
I think the best leaders often don't lead from the front although they might stand there now and
again. They find ways to bring out the potential in their team and draw it together to achieve the
greatest good.
That, then, I think, is my definition of leadership – someone who brings out the potential in those
around them to achieve the greatest collective outcome.
They could sit anywhere in an organisation.
In order to achieve this outcome, they have developed skills, they understand the context (they have
knowledge), they have a network that they can bring to bear, and they have self-awareness.
What these skills and knowledge are, I leave for another time.
Other topics and questions I will leave for another time…
- How many of us lead our own lives (rather than being led by events and circumstances)? Do you
need to be able to lead yourself in order to lead others? What does that take?
- Is there a gender bias on leadership? Is our traditional idea of it (i.e., being out in front) more
characteristically male than female? Is my definition more female? If there is a gender
difference, how will future organisations look when there's more of the latter?
- Similarly, is there a cultural difference in leadership? (Answer: Without question)
If you have views, I'd like to hear them. Things I should read or listen to, send them my way.
Please join in the conversation. I (clearly) don’t have all the answers.
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