LEADERSHIP

"Leadership " is dificult to define.  An enormous about has been written on the topic, and many different types of leadership have been identified.  These include traditional leadership, pragmatic leadersip, transformational leadership, servant leadership, generative leadership and more.   There is some truth in all of these.

The key point for me is the starting point.  My experience and research, much of it in the world of education, suggests that leadership is a state of being - a way that a person is in the world.  A leader is someone who has decided to take personal responsibility for his or her own life, and who consistently works towards that goal.  From this perspective, a leader is someone who takes to heart the message, "to thine own self be true."

That is when a person is able to satisfy the definitions offered by others.  For example, according to Don Clark, leadership is

   a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective

   and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and

   coherent.

And according to Alan Keith of Genentech, leadership is

  ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something

   extraordinary happen.

The challenge, then, is to do the personal work that allows a person to be effective when he or she is reponsible for others.  For this to be possible, some core capacities must be developed.  The work that I have done with my wife and colleague lead to the conclusion  that a leader is a person who:

• Engages in personal process so that he or she is always intentionally learning from experience, both about work and the outside world and about his or her personal qualities and attributes;
  

• Has broad cogntitive horizons, so that he or she has expertise in a field or profession, can act in both the short term and the long term, can see how things interconnect and has an open mind;
  

• Lets go of control and builds a community that is willing and able to take care of itself most of the time; and
  

• Empowers others so that their choices and interests are acknowledged, expressed and pursued by them in the context of the work of the larger organization.
  

Caine R and Caine G,  (1997). Unleashing the Power of Perceptual Change: the promise of                                        brain based teaching. ASCD: Virginia.  Available at Caine Learning.

As these capacities are developed, it becomes possible for a person to

• develop and share a vision that others want to follow,
  

• build trust and respect between people,
  

• remain centered in the midst of competing interests and points of view,
  

• manage people and logistics while still being inspirational,
  

• see alternatives and generate possibilities, and
  

• grasp the way to work both with and for others in the true spirit of servant leadership.