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What Is Leadership?
Leadership isn't about a word in your title, a certain salary band, or any one specific characteristic like charisma or extroversion. There are a lot of great definitions of leadership out there, especially by those who embody it.
In the Entrepreneur's article What Really Makes a Good Leader?, the author, Travis Bradberry, shares a quote by Peter Drucker: “The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers" as well as one by Bill Gates :"As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others".
And he also gives his own: "Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others toward the achievement of a greater good."
Another interesting quote on what being a leader means is one from Dwight Eisenhower. He said, "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he/she wants to do it." That sentence encapsulates all the elements of what leadership is.
Leadership is an art — which means there's no right way to do it. Leadership is an attitude, an intuition built over time.
And because there are multiple ways of getting to one outcome, you can be creative about it.
Leadership involves "someone else," even if they don't have to be direct reports or people who have a financial or social obligation to do what you tell them to do.
There's always a purpose, something that needs to get done. There's a goal at the end, and you and someone else are working together to achieve it. And finally, to what John Maxwell said, "leadership is influence." That's the last piece of the puzzle in Eisenhower's quote.
We've known for a long time that internal motivation is the strongest driver of behavior.
Getting people to do things (and having them go above and beyond) doesn't come from authority or power. It comes the ability to socially influence them — to show them why something is important or meaningful and light a fire within them to contribute to that.
What Makes a Great Leader?
Even though there are many styles of leadership, you can judge if one certain approach works or not by one simple metric: is that leader getting the outcome he or she wants?
Specifically, it's about the purpose and the people: is the goal set out by them being achieved, and are the people they're leading happy as they work towards that goal?
To do these, a great leader has to be someone who can identify and strike the right balance between what are usually two opposing ideas.
Here are what those balances look like:
1. Communicating top-down, but also bottom-up
Leaders have to be great communicators. They have to talk to the people they're leading regularly and have a consistent message that resonates. This is what creates alignment and trust between people.
Empathy is also important when it comes to leadership. As Kate Pritchard, a consultant specialized in leadership management and employee engagement, told us, "To improve engagement, leaders need to demonstrate that they care about their employees, to listen to them, involve them, and respond to their views".
The feeling of collaboration is essential. Everyone wants to feel like they're contributing something, that they're not just a cog in the wheel or a robot taking orders.
2. Having strong convictions, but continuing to learn
Balancing communicating well with taking in feedback goes hand in hand with having strong ideals while being willing to put those head-to-head with new data points you're taking in.
3. Risk-taking, but not reckless
Because leaders have conviction around some idea or some insight into how the world works, they're willing to make bets on that.
In a TED talk by Rosalinde Torres, a leadership expert from the management consulting firm BCG, she talks about leadership in the 21st century as being defined by three questions, distilled from a study of 4,000 companies and her 25 years of experience.
4. Ability to influence others
Leaders need to be able to influence other people through authentic and transparent communication. This is why many organizations today are engaging leadership in workplace communications, and making it an important part of their corporate communications strategy.
Leaders should be the role models and continuously encourage others to live by the core company values and align with the ultimate business goals.
5. Building trust and transparency
Building trust and driving transparency is one of the most important leadership characteristics. Today, employees expect their leaders to be trustworthy and share all the important information and company updates.
Great leaders have a very good understanding of the generational differences among employees in their organizations.
Yet, only 6% of organizations strongly agree that their leaders are equipped to lead a multigenerational workforce effectively. This shocking statistic shows that leaders have a long way to go in understanding, supporting and managing organizations with various generations.
The Importance of Great Leadership: Facts and Statistics
A whopping 79% of employees will quit their jobs due to lack of appreciation from leaders.
Only 18% of people believe their company has a transparent and open approach, while 37% are worried about their ability to create trust.
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