Dear Leader.
I keep battling with this concept of leadership. Who is a
leader? Many articles, books, journals and other words of wisdom has been
written on the concept of leadership; what is leadership, who is a leader, how
to be a successful leader, leadership approaches, leadership types, transformational
leader, servant leadership and so on and so forth.
Leadership is about leading, leading is done by a leader,
so who is a leader? There are many interesting definition of a leader and types
of leaders. At We CAN Leadership Institute our definition of a leader is ‘one
who influences other people by the content of their character and the quality of
their work.’
This simple definition sees two aspect to a leader; their
‘being’ (their character) side and their ‘doing’ (work output). These are two
sides of the same coin, both sides has to be in sync and must reflect each
other; if not there would be weaknesses that negatively impacts people. If a
leader focuses more on their character (being good, honest, and charismatic)
and does not achieve result, the leader would be deemed a failure. At the same
time, if the focus is on achieving result by any means possible, even dishonest
ones, the leader would lose the respect of their followers. It looks as if you
can’t really win, doesn’t it? But I believe you can achieve result still having
a character worthy of emulation.
This is the aspect of leadership that these leadership
nuggets focuses on, as we develop our skills, abilities and capabilities on our
doing side, we want to also give the same attention to the content of our
character; who we are.
The world sees a leader as someone in a position of
authority; to make decisions that affects or impacts peoples’ life directly or
indirectly. That position of authority could be through selection, election or
even self delegation. This position gives you the authority to make decisions
that impacts lives; through policies, systems, laws & regulation, decrees
etc. I respect positional leaders because they such tremendous responsibility;
they are judged by their ability to deliver on expectations.
People who are leaders because of their position of
authority have to go an extra mile to become an inspiration to people; by the
content of their character. It takes more than just achieving ‘result’ on
tangible output, in addition touching the hearts of people. I have observed
many positional leaders focus so much on meeting targets and objectives that
they forget that the people who would help them to do this are human beings
with feelings, motivations, aspirations and emotions.
Each one of us has strengths, as a leader it takes self
awareness to know which areas you have strengths and where you are lacking. If
you are a result oriented leader, you need to work on your ‘people skill’. The
leader who puts people first at the expense of achieving result needs to find
the right balance; a leader who does not achieve result or deliver on their
promise would soon be defined as a failure.
A leader would know how to find the
right balance. Take this tip from Albert Einstein;
"Try not to become a man of success but a man of
value."
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