Leadership is the most poorly understood area in modern management theory, yet it is clearly among the most important. Writing about leadership has been weak and contradictory. There are too many unresolved tensions among the many descriptions of different “types” of leaders: the traditional leader/general at the head of a hierarchical pyramid, the “visionary” who controls a wide, flat organization through core corporate visions and the “coach” who “empowers” his people. There are too many prescriptions for “how to be” a “leader” in “today’s” organization.
But there is far too little discussion of what, at bottom, leadership is all about.
What is it all about? What does it do?
Is it a program of behaviors that will generate desired responses from your employees or help you “get ahead” of your peers? Is it all about how you dress, speak or look? Is it about changing the specific ways you deal with others? Is there a checklist of things you can “do” that will make you a leader?
Is it that easy?
No, it’s not. It’s not a part of your work life that you can attend to periodically, like your wardrobe or your technical skills. In fact, it isn’t even solely about you. And that fact is the central message of this site.
Rather, it’s about you and everything and everyone you deal with. It’s something that comes from you, at you, that is in you and all around you. It’s a process in which you are a participant, an environment in which you live and work and a fundamental element of your character. It’s all of these things or it’s nothing. You will perceive it in all of these ways or you’ll never quite get it at all.
Please see the “Must Read Posts” at the upper right (or here, here, and here, if you are viewing this in a reader or email), for more on this.
We will be spending parts of the coming weeks revisiting this subject. I will attempt to describe what leadership is and what it does. I will then endeavor to remake my case that the people we think of as leaders today are typically more destructive than creative of it.
I hope you will join us.
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Today’s tip: Please stop over to Robert Cenek’s eponymous site for a refreshingly level-headed view of the putative differences in the ways the various generations engage with work; you will also find an astute observation about what lies behind many of the niches in the consulting industry.
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If you look at the contents section on the sidebar of the main page of this site, you will see a listing of the article series that have been published here. You can click through to view summaries of the pieces, and then read the full series or selections that are of most interest to you. Enjoy!
And while you are, please also subscribe by email or RSS reader - thanks!
Similar Posts:
- Leaders and conflict
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- Where are you going, again?
- Creativity and leadership
- What are you going to the board meeting as?
Technorati Tags: management, theory, leadership, leader, visionary, organization, corporate, vision, coach, empower, employee, work, Robert Cenek, generation, consulting, industry
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