Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right.
– Professor Warren G. Bennis
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
The word "leadership" can bring to mind a variety of images. For example:
A political leader, pursuing a passionate, personal cause.
An explorer, cutting a path through the jungle for the rest of his group to follow.
An executive, developing her company's strategy to beat the competition.
Leaders help themselves and others to do the right things. They set direction, build an inspiring vision, and create something new. Leadership is about mapping out where you need to go to "win" as a team or an organization; and it is dynamic, exciting, and inspiring.
Yet, while leaders set the direction, they must also use management skills to guide their people to the right destination, in a smooth and efficient way.
In this article, we'll focus on the process of leadership. In particular, we'll discuss the "transformational leadership" model, first proposed by James MacGregor Burns and then developed by Bernard Bass. This model highlights visionary thinking and bringing about change, instead of management processes that are designed to maintain and steadily improve current performance.
Note:
Leadership means different things to different people around the world, and different things in different situations. For example, it could relate to community leadership, religious leadership, political leadership, and leadership of campaigning groups.
This article focuses on the Western model of individual leadership, and discusses leadership in the workplace rather than in other areas.
Leadership: A Definition
According to the idea of transformational leadership Add to My Personal Learning Plan, an effective leader is a person who does the following:
Creates an inspiring vision of the future.
Motivates and inspires people to engage with that vision.
Manages delivery of the vision.
Coaches and builds a team, so that it is more effective at achieving the vision.
Leadership brings together the skills needed to do these things. We'll look at each element in more detail.
1. Creating an Inspiring Vision of the Future
In business, a vision is a realistic, convincing and attractive depiction of where you want to be in the future. Vision provides direction, sets priorities, and provides a marker, so that you can tell that you've achieved what you wanted to achieve.
To create a vision, leaders focus on an organization's strengths by using tools such as Porter's Five Forces Add to My Personal Learning Plan, PEST Analysis Add to My Personal Learning Plan, USP Analysis Add to My Personal Learning Plan, Core Competence Analysis Add to My Personal Learning Plan and SWOT Analysis Add to My Personal Learning Plan to analyze their current situation. They think about how their industry is likely to evolve, and how their competitors are likely to behave. They look at how they can innovate successfully Add to My Personal Learning Plan, and shape their businesses and their strategies to succeed in future marketplaces. And they test their visions with appropriate market research, and by assessing key risks using techniques such as Scenario Analysis Add to My Personal Learning Plan.
Therefore, leadership is proactive – problem solving, looking ahead, and not being satisfied with things as they are.
Once they have developed their visions, leaders must make them compelling and convincing. A compelling vision Add to My Personal Learning Plan is one that people can see, feel, understand, and embrace. Effective leaders provide a rich picture of what the future will look like when their visions have been realized. They tell inspiring stories Add to My Personal Learning Plan, and explain their visions in ways that everyone can relate to.
Here, leadership combines the analytical side of vision creation with the passion of shared values, creating something that's really meaningful to the people being led.
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