What we mean when we say "leadership"

At the beginning of a recent leadership seminar I taught, I asked the class—a group of employees at a government agency—what major problems should be fixed to improve their workplace and their daily experience at work.

The usual answers surfaced: better communication, clearer policies, people who took ownership for their mistakes.

Then one of the students raised her hand and declared emphatically, "what we need around here is leadership!"

Many of the other students in the class nodded emphatically—yes, leadership is exactly what we need! But some students were more skeptical.

"When you say leadership, what exactly do you mean," I asked.

"Well, we need more leadership," she responded.

"So is it a question of quantity?" I asked.

She thought for a moment. "Not just more leadership, but also better leadership."

More heads nodded around the room.

"So, it sounds like it is a matter of both quantity and quality, but leadership means a lot of different things to different people," I said. "Can you tell me what you mean when you say leadership?"

She thought some more, then she said, "I want to have fun when I'm at work. I want to show up and work for someone that is going to motivate me."

Now, some of the skeptical students spoke up. "But shouldn't you be self-motivated?" they asked. "Yeah, it's not your boss' job to make sure you have fun," another chimed in.

The discussion continued, but unbeknownst to this student, she had hit on an essential problem when trying to discuss leadership, namely, no one can seem to agree exactly on what leadership means. In fact, as one group of researchers observed, "the longer we spend looking at leadership, the more complex the picture becomes" (Grint et al., 2017).

Here are just a few definitions of leadership:

• "The process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts toward goal accomplishment" (Hersey et al., 1979, p. 418).
• "The function of leadership...is to catalyze a clear and shared vision for the company and to secure commitment to and vigorous pursuit of that vision" (Collins & Lazier, p. 40).
• "Leadership is the process of persuasion or example by which an individual (or leadership team) induces a group to pursue objectives held by the leader or shared by the leader and his or her followers" (Gardner, p. 1).
• Leaders are people "who can shape and elevate the motives and goals of followers" (Bennis & Nanus, p. 202).
• Leadership involves "opportunities to raise important questions, speak to higher values, and surface unresolved conflicts" (Heifetz & Linsky, p. 2)

Regardless of how leadership is defined, three common elements persist:

1. Leadership necessitates other people, i.e., those being led.
   It is impossible to be a leader of one's self only. This does not mean leaders cannot be solitary actors, but only that leaders must exert their influence over someone, whether directly or indirectly. "Thought leaders" may not lead other people directly, but their writings or ideas can influence the behaviors of people they have never even met.
2. Leadership requires change.
   Leaders do not maintain the status quo; they evaluate it and make changes necessary to move people from their current position to a new one. Some may contend that leadership involves progress, but progress indicates a forward movement. Some of the world's most vilified leaders arguably didn't create progress, but they certainly brought about change.
3. Leadership requires overcoming challenges or obstacles.
   Changing the status quo, by definition, requires change. And any time change is attempted, resistance is not far behind; therefore, one of the necessary roles of a leader is figuring out how to move people away from the status quo toward a new goal, all the while avoiding or solving challenges and obstacles.

Beyond these three elements, the style, quantity, behaviors, and ideologies of successful leaders is up for debate, not to mention the very notion of what "success" means in the first place. This blog examines leadership through a number of lenses, not to attempt to be the definitive answer on leadership, but to help shed light on how leadership is viewed so that, when you encounter a situation where you expect to find leadership, you can evaluate if leadership is what you have found, or if it is something else entirely.

References

Bennis, W., & Nanus, B. (2007). Leaders: Strategies for taking charge. Collins Business Essentials.

Collins, J. & Lazier, B. (2020). BE 2.0. Penguin Random House, LLC.

Grint, K., Smolović Jones, O., & Holt, C. (2017). What is leadership: Person, result, position, purpose, or process, or all or none of these? In Storey, J., Hartley, J., Denis, J-L., Hart, P., & Ulrich (Eds.), The Routledge companion to leadership (pp. 3–20). Routledge.

Heiftez, R., & Linsky, M. (2017). Leadership on the line: Staying alive through the dangers of change. Harvard Business Review Press.

Hersey, P., Blanchard, K. H., & Natemeyer, W. E. (1979). Situational leadership, perception, and the impact of power. Group and organization studies, 4(4), 418–428.