Let’s take another try at getting a handle on what leadership is by considering where it comes from. The standard belief is that it comes from people – in particular, from the boss, the “leader.” As we’ve noted over the past couple of days, this seems particularly obvious in times of crisis, when the leader decisively casts aside paralyzing confusion and sets the organization into enthusiastically focused forward motion.
Actually, there are a number of potential problems with this view, even if it accurately describes leadership. But let’s just consider here the issue we touched upon at the close of last Friday’s post: when that decisive leader dispels enervating fear, where is the displayed leadership really coming from?
Consider the leader in question. We clearly viewed the behavior we saw, when she electrified everyone with her call to action, as the injection of leadership, originating in her, into the organization. Moreover, we likely have seen evidence of this leadership in various other, albeit less striking, circumstances during her stewardship of the outfit. So, we conclude, she is a leader.
And I don’t question that she is, or was, in the moments when she demonstrated leadership. My question is: did the leadership she demonstrate come from her?
Imagine this person in any other circumstances. Walking down the street, let’s say. Is she displaying leadership? If an event occurs – one with which she has no more personal connection than any other pedestrian, but that demands decision or action – will she inevitably exhibit the leadership required to resolve it. Because, after all, she is a leader?
What about a situation in which she might have somewhat more personal identification? For example, watching a child’s sporting event, or a social gathering of friends. If something occurred that required a leader to step in, would everyone turn to her, or would she instinctively assume the role?
That is to ask, for all that there is a display of leadership in one or another set of conditions, does the leadership arise from the leader who expresses it? Or, does it come from the conditions in which it is displayed?
Is the “leader” the source, or the vehicle, of leadership?
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Today’s tip: Speaking of leadership, if we’re not sure where it comes from, there certainly is one place where we can get a lot more insight about it: the second Leadership Development Carnival has been posted by Dan McCarthy, author of Great Leadership. This one includes a recent post from these pages on Leaders and Conflict, as well as dozens more from the likes of Wally Bock, Michael Wade, Steve Roesler and many more. Please stop over for a truly worthwhile selection – a carnival – of thought-provoking and engaging reading on this important topic.
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Jim,
Some leaders ‘always’ take charge of a situation, meeting, event, etc. Others wait, and set into ‘leadership gaps’ as needed – when the situation presents itself.
Both are leadership styles and valid at various times. The similarity is that both types of leaders are open to leading – to being ‘the one’ to commit to a decision.
Ultimately, the leader is the vehicle, the conduit, for leadership.
Hi Jim, I think you’re thought that circumstances drive leadership is dead on. I wrote about this at http://www.leadershipturn.com/doing-in-the-moment/ quoting an Michele Goins, HP Imaging CIO, “Leadership opportunities are presented to everyone, what makes the difference between being a leader or not is how you respond in the moment.”
No matter how you plan for the future or analyze the past, the only time you can act is the present.
Hello Joe,
I think the key idea here is what you call “open to leading.” My concern is that the instinct to be “the one,” or to seize chances to be what we grandly call a “leader” in the sense meant by the modern leadership movement (rather than the more “secular,” if you will, sense of interchangeability with “boss,” or the like) is an unwelcome one in the world of organizations.
If, on the one hand, one is peculiarly sensitive to opportunities to insert one’s self into a leadership role, we may – actually, we are likely to – have a problem. On the other, if one is peculiarly sensitive to opportunities to advance the organizational cause without particular reference to one’s self, then we have the distinctly beneficial asset of organizational leadership being expressed through an individual.
This approaches why I agree with your conclusion – that the “leader” is the vehicle (I like the use of “conduit” here) for organizational leadership.
Thanks for adding this element to the discussion!
Hello Miki,
I linked through to your post – it’s excellent and highly recommended – thanks!
The way you describe “leaders in the instance” is very close indeed to the argument I am trying to make – it is the recognition as events unfold of something that can or should be done – a recognition that is only possible in the context of the individual’s membership in a purposeful group. It is the difference between an individual being a leader in the moment – or imagining that he or she is the source of leadership.
I hope everyone who reads this will link through to your excellent post.
Thanks for stopping in with this!
Hi Jim, I’m glad you enjoyed the article. I’m very glad that you stated the case so well. I have a theory that before it was called ‘leadership’ it was called initiative?
A new paper ”Shaping and generating powerful relationships at work. How our conceptions of reality are forming our ways of organizing the workplace in either vertical or horizontal relationships”,
by Rune Kvist Olsen 2009
The paper “Shaping and generating…” differ from the previous paper “The DemoCratic Workplace” in the way that this paper gives a more detail description of the terminology and the respective features concerning “leadinghship” and “leadership”, provides a textual understanding placed in a historical perspective on the evolution of management, and presents visualized models and corresponding definitions.
I have during the years since I introduced the “leadingship” concept for the first time, been met with bewilderment and sometimes irritating and averse reactions. The reasons vary of course from mere dislike to a more deep rejection of a word and a term that is unknown and contradictory to the incorporated term “leadership”. Ignorance and prejudice can be a significant element of how people conceive new and alternative directions of thinking, especially when the new contradicts and threatens old assumptions, beliefs and convictions. The presentation of a conceptualization about the applied terminology should preferably be aligned with transformation and transition of “leadership” into a new sphere of thinking, since my perspective is the transformation from the traditional “leadership” conceptualization to the new and alternative” leadingship” conceptualization. The necessity in developing a new term, should accelerate the start of a transformation moving out of the box. The opposite angle is through keeping the “leadership” term remaining inside the box. A change can never be fulfilled even if we rename words and terms in making changes of the general notion of “leadership”, as for example to integral leadership, influential leadership, spiritual leadership, self leadership, authentic leadership etc. Whatever modification we are creating of the “leadership” term in the sense of a mere adjusting of the cover, the same prime essence of principles are sustained and are founded on the same philosophy as I have stated in my latest paper:
1. A relationship among leaders and followers
2. The structure of the relationship is organized vertically with the leader above and the followers below.
“Leadership” disciplines do not go into how workplaces in fact are organized. They deal with the leading of persons from above to below in a multiple ways of actions, and are showing how leaders should or could perform leadership in handling the followers. Even self-leadership is not focused on workplace organizing, it deals with personal ways of handling the job, and not with the corporate structures of power that set the standard in organizing relationships. “Leadingship” however deals with the structures of power and how leading is effectuated by side-lined individuals on equal footing and on mutual ground of relating through power-sharing..
The paper is posted by the link:
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/shaping-and-generating-powerful-relationships-at-work/2009/12/07
Rune Kvist Olsen,
December 2009
Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful contribution. I certainly wish you the best in your work in the coming New Year, as well as a Happy Holiday for you and yours.