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| Photo by Dano |
I was tagged yesterday by John W. McKenna of The leadership epidemic. He tagged me for his “Does most leadership suck” challenge. Now being a positive guy, I didn’t like that title, but I sure can relate to the challenge.
Leadership vs. Management
Leadership is a word with a lot of definitions and perceptions. You can see this already in the enormous amounts of comments on the blog post where John announced this challenge. A lot of it deals with different perceptions of what is meant by leadership. So before I start to discuss it, let’s first define it.
Leadership and management are two different areas altogether. Management is about getting the job done, about doing things right. Leadership on the other hand is choosing which job to do, doing the right things. This difference is essential! Management is about efficiency, quality, productivity and leadership is about direction, vision and decision.
This is a definition of Leadership that appeals to me very much:
“Leadership is knowing who you are and what you want, and transforming that into value for others. “
Corporate Leadership
In a lot of companies there’s not a lot of leadership unfortunately. There’s always management, but leadership is rare. Management takes care of everyday business and ensures that the company does what it has always done, but a little better than last year. As long as the business model is viable and there’s a profitable market out there, this can last a long time. Management has more of an inward focus than an outward focus. In case of changes in the market, management often finds out from a reactive mode. They did not foresee it, and it was discovered because this year was a little (or a lot) worse than last year.
Leadership on the other hand has more of an outward focus. It has a long term vision on the market and knows how to position the company in such a way that it plays an important role. Leaders know the company and know what they want with it and find ways to create value now and in the future. Effective leaders also know how to communicate this vision of the future to their organization and align the employees to that vision.
Personal Leadership
If leadership is about direction, vision and decision, and finding ways to add value now and in the future, but why only apply it to companies? This is a strong concept to apply to your own life as well. It’s the concept of Personal Leadership.
- who you are…
What are your values? What makes you happy? - what you want…
What do you want to experience in life? What do you want to accomplish? - value for others…
How can you provide value for others, based on who you are, in such a way that you get what you want?
It’s an outward future-oriented focus, based on inner knowledge. If you align your life based on those three points, you’ll get what you want, based on things you do that are aligned with who you are, by adding value to other people’s lives.
So does it suck?
If the absence of Leadership makes it suck, then yes. There are a lot of companies and a lot of people not aware of who they are and what they want. So they start to manage, let’s make this year a little better than last year. More revenue, more efficiency, more profit for companies and more income, more free time, more luxury for people. And for quite a few companies and people, this is OK. They are satisfied with their lives and are generally happy. But let’s hope for them that the environment doesn’t change…
But Leadership in itself does not suck! If you apply these concepts to your company or to your life, you will enrich them. Having a clear sense of direction and knowing how to transform what you want into value for others is a very powerful concept. Tom Peters states that leaders create leaders, not followers. Leadership empowers people to develop leadership, it doesn’t enslave people to accomplish the plans of their ‘leaders’.
What are your thoughts?
How do you feel about Leadership? Does your organization have a clear direction? Does it have leaders? Are you a leader for yourself? I’m interested to read your thoughts on the subject.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Well, somehow I see it all depends on ones viewpoint (and personality).
If you’re talking personal, it depends on the person. Is he/she willing to lead himself and perhaps others, or is he/she happy with the status quo.
In corporate environments you have to deal with a lot of different personalities, and a lot of personal (and, perhaps conflicting, corporate) goals. In this case you better have leadership that doesn’t suck. Getting the message across and being able to lead the company is of course key. If the leader(s) of the company (be it personal or a corporation) is not able to communicate the directions, it does suck.
Then there are those that defy any leadership or authority. That’s a different ballgame though.
(btw, preview button didn’t work for me…)
Hi Tom,
I think leadership is about setting a clear direction. One of the challenges for organizations is to find a group of people that have a direction that’s more or less aligned with that of the organization.
If what the people want to do contribute to what the organization wants to achieve, there has to be an acceleration in accomplishing goals. Simply because people want to do what needs to be done, because it helps them achieve their own goals and dreams.
(the preview button works again)
I like what you did with the challenge. I didn’t like John’s title either because it implies negativity to begin with. I don’t want to choose negativity by focusing on it. I chose not to do an article. I left a comment on Priscilla Palmer’s blog when she asked me to contribute. I came to visit from your email of last week. Yours will be a site that I subscribe to when I get back from my upcoming trip to India. I won’t have access to a computer for the 3 weeks that I will be gone so I am not starting any new subsciptions until I get back home. I do find your words of interest.
Thanks Patricia, I look forward to having you around.
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