Following are some implications flowing from the five points I used to define a leader, together with a few starting remarks.
Being a leader vs Leadership
The five points I raised in yesterday’s post relate to being a leader; they do not relate to leadership per se. There are a few reasons:
- I’ve just finished Joseph C Rost’s Leadership for the Twenty-First Century and I’m taking his point that the terms “leader” and “leadership” are often conflated
- at present, I’m more interested in people being leaders than in leadership
- talking about people being leaders is easier and more productive than talking about leadership; once we human beings start talking about concepts rather than people, the concepts have a way of becoming progressively fixed and abstract. Think “justice”, for example, or “freedom” or “socialism.” This applies even where the concept is defined as a process or relation, as Rost and others have it.
Being a leader doesn’t require others
Yes, it’s counter-intuitive, and lots of leadership people will baulk and think I’m a nutter, but I cannot see that the definition of being a leader requires others.
Most often, other people will be involved. However, there’s nothing in being a leader, as I’ve defined it, that makes other people essential. One can be being a leader on a deserted island with only an old boot for company.
In other words, followers are not essential to being a leader. When it comes to leadership it may be a different matter, and that’s a topic for another day.
The five points and their implications
1. A leader is someone choosing to be a leader at this moment and in this situation.
A person may be being a leader in one situation, and not a leader in another situation. For example, a person may be being a leader in a community project such as a campaign to build a local bike path, or a project to secure employment for long-term unemployed people, while not being a leader in her friendship group or her Rotary club or job. In the following month, she may take on being a leader amongst her friends or at work, and have someone else be a leader in the bike path campaign.
Being a leader is a proposition, a malleable, changing proposition.
2. A leader is given by that choice, and not by other people and their choices. In other words, a leader is a leader by virtue of his own choice or declaration.
A person is being a leader because he is choosing being a leader. Being a leader is not given by some quality or characteristic dispensed at birth. Or by training. Or by reading “how to become a leader” books and blog posts.
Being a leader is given by a choice. Moreover, it’s a choice made by the person being a leader; it’s not a matter of being “anointed” a leader.
For example, say the CEO asks you to become the Program Director on the project to develop a new type of credit card and you say “yes”. It can look as if the choice for you to be a leader was the CEO’s.
Not so. For at least two reasons:
- you said “yes”; until you gave an answer it wasn’t a choice, it was an offer
- every day, you still have to get up and go to work and make something happen; every day, every moment, it’s you who is making the choice to be a leader.
Consider something else. Say a colleague, M, is hired as one of 10 business analysts on the credit card project. M too might choose to be a leader. For example, M might start talking to his colleagues and you, the Program Director, about using a new method of developing a prototype he’s seen work well elsewhere. No-one asked M to investigate a new method. M just chose to do so, to be a leader on the project.
… to be continued
Next post: More implications
Image: The flight of the dragonfly in front of the sun, Joan Miró, 1968
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I like the idea that being appointed a “leader” in the work environment doesn’t necessarily make one a leader–you have to choose to lead even if you are called a leader from an organisational perspective.
But–a potential challenge: Under your definition, M is a leader and is choosing to be a leader. The change that M is working toward is a new way to develop the prototype. So all that works in your definition. But what is the boundary between just doing one’s job and being a leader? As our buddy Woody Allen said, “80% of success is just showing up.” By making the decision to just show up and participate (and effect change in the dynamic of the group) could one claim leadership? It seems like it trivializes the concept because if M is a leader for suggesting the idea are N, O, P and Q leaders if they suggest modifications to the concept? Maybe yes according to your definition. Or what if someone fights tooth and nail because “we’ve never done it that way.” Are they a leader? Potentially they could tick all five points and claim a leadership role?
OK, good. A potential challenge. Joseph C Rost knew this one too.
Here’s my view at the moment:
(1) our buddy and the great onanist, Woody is not talking about leaders; just showing up, just participating is out; you have to be in the business of making change
(2) yep, according to my definition N, O, P and Q can be leaders too; it’ll depend on what Seth Godin calls their “posture”; they have to have a leader’s posture, ie, not be in the business of obstructing, wrecking, etc (mmm … more and more terms … not good)
(3) our delightful colleague, the person who says “we’ve never done it that way”, is not a leader and will be a leader over my dead body …
What do you think? It’s creaky, huh?
1. Concur–I just wanted to include that onanistic quote to see your reaction!
2. Yes, that is the sort of qualification of N, O, P behaviour I was thinking of.
3. I agree that people like that are not leaders, but as I say technically under the current definition the naysayer could claim:
a. they are choosing to be a leader
b. it is their choice to be a leader
c. they are setting out to make change (by preventing the travesty of instituting something new)
d. they are willing to be attacked and criticized (those people always are)
e. they could say they are courageous in the face of opposition, etc.
So maybe you need either a qualification (like that of 2 above). But I think that qualification isn’t enough for these sorts of people because they may honestly think they are doing the right thing (or just be too stupid to know they aren’t). So maybe you need a sixth characteristic that says something like a leader doesn’t make decisions without evaluating differing viewpoints, is open to change, is flexible, etc. This could be a case where the solution creates new problems so don’t hesitate to tell me if I’m making it unnecessarily complicated.
haha, and I was including it for you ;)
Mmm … I’m going to have to pull out something sharp in the next post about point 3 :) People can give a perverse reading to the word “change”, but then couldn’t you say all the other words are just as liable to be read perversely? Or is it something like a bad experience with a “change management program” that’s making you leery? As we all know, those three words could turn anyone’s stomach …
I appreciated your points about leadership. Being a leader can’t be inherited, donned like a jacket or assumed with a “just add water” approach because you read a book. I think that leadership or being a leader ultimately comes to the willingness to take responsibility (not to be confused with blame) wherever you see a need. In addition to being tapped on the shoulder for leadership, there are also those times when no one is looking. I’ve noticed that the leaders I admire are unassuming, but also always leave any situation in a better condition than they found it. We can also be a leader whether we are following or visibly leading. I have found that an effective leader doesn’t care how they look, as they are more concerned to reveal the characteristics of leadership than receive accolades for their deeds.
What a great summary. I esp like what you say about the willingness to take responsibility, and distinguishing it from blame. And about the times when no one is looking, and also when following. This is what I’m committed to communicating about leaders too. Thank you for putting it well.
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Yes, I do believe people will be more apt to following leadership when they are perceived as leaders themselves. It sort a does away with titles and gives others opportunities to be leaders in their areas of expertise or give them a chance to develop in a variety of ways.
Exactly!