Leadership

Definition of Leadership

Leadership means many things to different people.  Whether world leaders, political or community leaders or business leaders, there are many definitions.  

Nevertheless, there are some common factors which define what being a leader means.  Factors such as:

• Leading a group of people or an organisation
• A Leader needs followers
• Leaders take people on a journey

Qualities of Leadership

Read our article The ABC of Leadership containing contributions from readers which set out what qualities and attributes we expect from leaders. There are around 300 different named qualities.  Just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the qualities needed by leaders are in the eye of the perceiver.

Leadership Skills

Like qualities, the skills required by leaders depend on the situation they find themselves in.  Leading a small specialist team requires very different skills than leading a country.  This is one of the reasons there are literally thousands of published books on how to lead.

Leadership Styles

Most styles depend on the personality of the leader, as well as the culture of the group or organisation.  Some of the most common leadership styles

• Democratic/Participative
• Servant
• Task-Oriented
• Transactional
• Transformational
• Autocratic
• Bureaucratic
• Charismatic
• Laissez-Faire

Leadership vs Management

Leaders and managers are often discussed interchangeably.  There are leaders who manage, and managers who lead.  So where do the boundaries lie?  Managers are often constrained in the way they lead their team. The parameters they work within sometimes don’t give them sufficient scope to bring their leader skills to the fore.  Conversely, leaders sometimes don’t have management skills or don’t have time to manage.   There will always be some overlap.  However, both leaders and managers need to understand how to manage and lead themselves.

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