How
would you answer that question? What, actually, *is* leadership?
I mean, we’ve all heard of things like servant leadership, transformational
leadership, and situational leadership. But if you’ll notice, those are
adjectives to show *types* of leadership, that don’t inherently reference what
leadership, itself, is. It’s like discussing red cars vs blue vs green ones,
without really knowing what a car is. Crazy, right?
People
say “you
know a good leader when you see one.”
But, for those looking to grow into excellence as a leader, that
statement is quite the opposite of helpful.
This
bothered me enough that many years ago I took the time to get a Masters in
Leadership, which gave me the time to study the topic from many angles and find a way to apply that in a modern setting.
I have always had a deep love for both business and emotional
intelligence. And, I recognized that leadership is at the
intersection of those two passions. Perhaps that is why it especially bothered
me that the most commonly referenced definition of leadership was from a very smart man... who was born in 1915.
With
all due respect to Sir Prentice (and honestly, he does deserve a LOT of
respect), in today’s world leadership is much more than “the accomplishment of
a goal through the direction of human assistants.” I mean c'mon, not even "assistance"?!? Cold, my friend! ; )
Fortunately, in recent years Harvard notated their features of Mr Prentice's thoughts to add what they felt important to be a more modern flair. But here's the rub; they cite Daniel Golman's insights on leadership styles from the 90's and Abraham Zalezenik's work on managers vs leaders... from the 70's. *sigh*
The good folks over at The Rewild Group did some excellent work in recent years applying Daniel's work in some fresh ways. His research essentially observed that there are a handful of leadership styles that people naturally show up with, each of which have their pros and cons. Even if, for a moment, I stop pointing out that we are back to "colors of cars" thing without talking about what a car is, the info is more observation than direction. It doesn't give us a clear core on what good leadership looks like. But in The Rewild Group's Stages of Growth Matrix, and their Leadership Across the Stages of Growth map, you'll see some solid info on when to ensure you step into the various versions of leadership Goldman defined in order to ensure the health of your company as it grows.
While all of those traditional and more recent researchers certainly informed my perspective on leadership, so did my 30+ years leading teams, building companies, and studying emotional intelligence.
I've served as a CEO, COO, Entrepreneur in Residence, Head of Finance, Head of Marketing, Head of People Operations, and was an Executive Director (most senior 1%) in an org with 11,000 employees. I even ran the Center for Entrepreneurship in the business school at the largest public university in the US. I've led global teams across dozens of countries and built and sold a couple of my own companies. I've run CEO and COO peer groups and coached + interviewed hundreds of leaders across the full lifecycle of leadership levels. And, one thing stands out to me above all.
Business is all people. So, getting good at inspiring and motivating those humans around us to do big things together is a wildly valuable skill.
Leadership is both and art and a science.
I'm here to break it all down for you.
See you inside!
Christie
