Week Of Leadership: What is Leadership?

Leadership is a really big subject…

• ‘Leadership’ web search: 135,000,000 pages
• ‘Leadership definition’ search: 113,000,000 pages

Source: Google – 22 April 2014

Defining Leadership is a difficult task.  A simple search on Google willl

give you...

Some Key theorists have attempted to define it:

"The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers"

Peter Drucker – Management theorist

"Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well

communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realise your own leadership potential"

Warren Bennis – Co-founder, The Leadership Institute USC

One of the functions of leadership is to integrate individual goals and targets, department goals and organisational objectives.

Management skills versus Leadership skills

Management Skills (short term): planning, organisation, control of resources, budgeting, resolving staffing issues, problem solving, team structure, policies and procedures.

Leadership Skills (long term): motivating staff, setting team direction, open communication, building co-operation, encouraging questions, allowing freedom to work on own initiative, growing and nurturing talent, support and encouragement.

Strong management without leadership can result in:

• Bureaucratic and hierarchical teams
• Robust polices
• Clear job roles and defined responsibilities 
• Control which can stifle innovation 
• Routine and maintenance with little change   

Strong leadership without management can result in: 

• Innovation but detached from reality
• High motivation and energy but little formal planning
• Personal development at the expense of the task
• High degree of open communication and change which is not well focused

The result of a balanced approach is: 

• Innovation and direction
• Change which is well planned
• Logical implementation and clear policies
• Staff who are motivated and understand their roles

Fresh Learning offers a range of training and support with Leadership  and Management courses . For more information, send us a message using the contact form on the right-hand side of this post or email hello@freshlearning.eu.

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