What is Leadership and What Makes a Good Leader?

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute

There are many definitions of leadership. The Collins English dictionary defines leadership as the
leader(s) of a party or group. Yet true leadership is much more than that. A leader can be the CEO of an
organization, or a first year employee who leads his or her team to success behind the scenes. A leader
might lead through official authority and power, yet just as often great leaders lead through inspiration,
persuasion and personal connections.
So what is leadership? One great definition is:
Leadership is the art of leading others to deliberately create a result
that wouldnt have happened otherwise.
Its not just the creation of results that makes good leadership. Good leaders are able to deliberately create
challenging results by enlisting the help of others. They can single handedly turn failing companies into
Fortune 500 organizations. They can change company cultures. Good leadership is an essential key to
corporate success.
The Characteristics of a Good Leader
What makes a good leader? Here are some of their most important characteristics:
Self-Awareness. You have an intimate knowledge of your inner emotional state. You know your strengths
and your weaknesses. You know when youre working in flow and you know when youre over worked.
You know yourself, including your capabilities and your limitations, which allows you to push yourself to
your maximum potential.
Self-Direction. Youre able to direct yourself effectively and powerfully. You know how to get things
done, how to organize tasks and how to avoid procrastination. You know how to generate energy for
projects, to calm yourself when angered. You can make decisions quickly when necessary, but can also
slow to consider all the options on the table.
Vision. Youre working towards a goal thats greater than yourself. It could be something small, like the
success of the team, or a larger vision like world peace. Working towards a vision is far more inspiring
than working towards personal gain.
Ability to Motivate. Leaders dont lead by telling people what they have to do. Instead, leaders cause
people to want to help them. A key part of this is cultivating your own desire to help others. When others
sense that you want to help them, they in turn want to help you.
Social Awareness. Understanding social networks and key influencers in that social network is another
key part of leadership. Who in the organization has the most clout, both officially and unofficially? Who
moves the hearts of the group?
These are some of the most important characteristics of good leaders.
Emotional Intelligence and Leadership
Most of these traits tie directly into emotional intelligence (EQ). Leaders with high EQ are intrinsically
more self-aware. They understand their mental processes and know how to direct themselves. Theyre
more in touch with what theyre deeply passionate about. They naturally care more for others and receive
more compassion in return. Theyre more socially in tune.
Leadership is more often than not about soft skills rather than hard skills. Yes, a leader who understands
what drives the bottom line is valuable. Yet its the leader who can get others to perform at their best who
ultimately creates winning organizations.

Defining Leadership

Leadership Defined
Leadership is at its best when its vision is strategic, the voice persuasive and the results
tangible. In the study of leadership, an exact definition is not essential but guiding concepts are
needed. Useem1
Definition of Leadership
Establishing a single definition of leadership has its challenges:

Leadership has many contexts: from political, military, business, sports and culture, right
through every level and section of society, our communities and families
We all have our individual experiences and expectations of leadership: from vision and
inspiration to serving others or power and control
Views on what effective leadership is have evolved over time e.g. from issuing orders to
inspiring and empowering
Successful leadership is defined by the situation e.g. Winston Churchill is not viewed as a
particularly successful peacetime leader. Also, it is often remarked that the leadership styles and
strengths of CEOs employed in a crisis to turnaround failing organizations are very different to
those needed to grow them.
At its most basic, leadership in an organization can be defined as influencing others to achieve
the organizations goals and deliver its vision.
Many writers have observed however, that in order to inspire and motivate people to achieve
these goals, the goals themselves need to be viewed as worthwhile or for some greater purpose.
Delivering the organizations goals needs to deliver a benefit to customers, the community or
society that is viewed as worthwhile.

Define Leadership - What is leadership?

Leadership is not an end in itself, but a means to bring out the best in people, to inspire and
motivate them to commit their energies, skills and talents to delivering the organizations vision.
As leadership is focused on the Vision it is all about the 'future' focus. Leadership seeks to find
new opportunities for individuals and the organization to be a success in the future . That might
mean dealing first with very difficult situations that threatened survival today. In tackling those
threats leadership still seeks to create the better future and seize opportunities.
As leadership tackles the future it needs to empower and harness the capability and potential of
the people and other resources which can come together to make that future.
To make the future and vision a reality and create and siee new opportunities leadership is about
delivering successful and useful change.
In all of that a key message is that leadership is all about behaviours that take the people and
organisation to a new future.
In making change work Leadership influences the behaviour and actions of others.
Modern views of leadership have moved away from influence using authority, position,
command and control, to a focus on influencing by:

Relating to and connecting with people

Building trust

Motivating, inspiring and empowering people

Creating a compelling vision of the future

Communicating that vision in a way that builds commitment to it

Role modelling honesty and integrity.

One important footnote here is to recognise that Leadership is a set of competencies and should
not be thought as a particular personality trait or perceived charisma.

Leadership and Management

It is very important to get to grips with the fact that Leadership is different from Management.
Quite simply they are not the same.
Unfortunately common language and parlance in business and the use of organisational titles like
'Leader' and 'Manager' add to the confusion about Leadership itself and Management itself.

This means than when looking to improve your 'leadership' or 'management' skills and
capabilities you must first stop using the terms as 'the same thing' or interchangeably and
recognise differences. This differentiation allows you to focus to the specifics needed to enhance
capability and performance in each area.
The other issue to get to grips with is the use of the terms 'leaders' or 'manager' to refer to
different layers in an organisation i.e. 'the leadership did x, y, z...' meaning those in the top
positions did 'x,y,z...'. Just because a person is at a certain level does not mean they are a
'Leader'. They will require different 'leadership' and 'management' skills in their position to be
effective. This is true of all positions as 'leadership' and 'management' will exist at all levels.
Considering the contrast between leadership and management provides another way to arrive at a
definition of leadership.
As with leadership, there is no single definition of management. Some common themes around
management include:

Getting work done through other people to achieve stated objectives

Planning, organizing, leading and controlling - Fayols Management Functions

Clarifying objectives, problem solving, planning work, managing resources, organizing

and co-ordinating activity, measuring and controlling performance
Management is a complex set of interrelated skills and difficult to execute successfully in a
sustained manner.
Management in many ways seeks to ensure an organisation can deliver consistently and
predictably and produces outputs, products and services that meet the customers needs for
quality, at the costs required, within the budget time and time again. With the complex nature of
organisations today, their complex structures and supply chains delivering this consistent
performance in changing worlds and markets in not easy.
Going to back to Leadership we see it is more closely associated with:

Creating a vision for the future and

Communicating it, as well as the strategy or direction that needs to be taken to achieve it
to people in a such way that they will support it, commit to it and are motivated to achieve it.
and Management with:

Planning and budgeting

Delivering quality to meet customers defined requirements and targets

Minimising waste

Delivery consistency

Delivering against budget

Delivery to plan

Organising resources, staff, jobs and systems.

Measuring, monitoring and reporting performance.

Problem solving to ensure the targets are met and changing conditions are tackled.
all aimed at consistently delivering to the plan and budget and tackling issues as they arise.
Of course, skilled management is required to plan, co-ordinate and control the activities and
resources required in order to implement the vision.
Sources of confusion
Another source of confusion is some writers that write about 'Management' include Leadership
as a subset. This takes the grand view as that 'Management' is all a 'Leader' or 'Manager' does
and is the overarching concept.
This view of 'management' being the overarching concept is sometimes viewed as useful by
some practitioner managers and others that see the need to distinguish between Leadership and
Management as purely an academic exercise with which they get bored.
Unfortunately this argument can distract from the fact that there are Leadership competencies
and Management Competencies and most roles individuals perform require some of both.
However, the emphasis and strength of need for each set will vary considerably depending on
the job you are doing, the situation and the needs of the customers. stakeholders and
organization.
Understanding the difference between the skill sets and their focus and impact is useful in
helping peopel obtain and develop these competencies and impact their organisations, others
around them and their own careers in the most impactful manner.
People versus things
Another focus is the people element of leadership as Miller et al make the following distinction
between leadership and management:
Management involves using human, equipment and information resources to achieve various
objectives. On the other hand, leadership focuses on getting things done through others. Thus
you manage things (budgets, procedures and so on), but you lead people.2
Whilst this can help with the mental view of the two areas of Leadership and Management it can
confuse people 'on the ground' as they say 'I manage people' as well as 'I lead people'.
Interrelated

Leadership and management are closely related and it is not easy to distinguish them as separate
activities in some situations hence the confusions which can occur.
Todays organizations are complex and need to be able to respond to increasing economic,
market and competitive pressures.
To succeed, they need effective management to control and improve performance, processes
and systems and effective leadership: to align their people to the organizations vision and
motivate them to want to give their best to achieve it.
Leadership involves a set of executed competencies that define a better future, seize and creates
opportunities and new models and inspire, enable and empower other people to commit to
delivering it. It sees the changes needed and makes and delivers the transition from now to the
new future with all is processes, systems, resources and people.
Management involves a set of executed competencies that plan, budget, controls and coordinates the resources, people, processes, systems and activities that will make those plans a
reality and then deliver consistently the goals and targets required dealing with problems along
the way.
Leadership and management can exist at any level in an organization within any specific role
reqgardless of the roles title.
Roles will vary in the depth, breadth and complexity of the Leadership/Management
combination of competencies that need to be exhibited and executed in a successful manner.
To develop these competencies (Attitudes, Skills, Knowledge and Behaviours) it is best to see
Leadership and Management as separate competency/skill domains which are then used by an
individual according to the organisation and role requirements, the situation/opportunities
they face, the role they are in and their own capabilities and abilities.
Leadership Skills and Qualities
Being a successful leader depends not only on your qualities and skills, but also on the needs and
expectations of the people you lead and the needs of the situation itself. Understanding yourself
and others will help you understand and respond more effectively to these needs and
expectations.