LEADERSHIP

On Leadership
 Leadership is not a person, a leader is a person

 Leadership is a process that involves a person, a leader and some followers

and organizational environment where leader and followers interact

 Leaders don’t exist in a void, Leaders can’t lead without followers

 Leadership requires the cooperation and approval of the
followers or in the case of totalitarian dictators, their
submission and compliance

 Leadership is an organized social process that leads to certain

outcomes and involves a person, the leader, followers and the
organizational environment where leader-follower interactions
occur
 Elements of leadership like public speaking, time
management, or running effective meetings, can be
taught
 Leadership must also be learned
 Not everyone master leadership
 Not everyone wants to master leadership
 Not every leader is good
 Becoming a leader
 Self-awareness and rhythm of life
 Mentoring and developing talent
 Communication and difficult conversations
 Ethics, integrity, and credibility
 Diversity
 Vision, sense-making, and culture
 Crisis management
 Teams
 Creativity and innovation
 Motivation and conflict
 Toxic leadership
 Leadership – Organized group process with associated
goals resulting in a set of outcomes
 Comprised of Three Elements:
◦ A Leader
◦ Followers or Stakeholders
◦ Organizational Setting or Broader Context
 A Leader

Organizational
Followers or Settings or
Stakeholders Broader
Contexts
 Group Process – Requires a leader and followers
 Goals and Objectives – Required to give the group
direction
 Environmental Contexts – Define the nature and
effectiveness of the leadership process
 Globalization
◦ Integration of economies, societies, and cultures linked via
travel, communication and trade, creates challenges for leaders
because it blurs national boundaries
 Innovation and Technology
◦ “Shrunk” geographic distances and connected new cultures
and traditions
 Political Changes in World Order
◦ Changes to governments and economies affect leadership
 Leadership outcomes operate on a continuum from
great to terrible
 Outcomes are never perfectly good or destructively bad
 Even well-known leaders make some mistakes along
the way
◦ Coca Cola former CEO is remembered fro the “New Coke”
marketing disaster
 Three types of outcomes:
derailment, constructive, and destructive
 Constructive/Destructive – Impacts the team and/or
organization but can have effects outside the
organization
 Derailment – Associated with a flawed leader or a poor
fit between the leader and the organization
◦ Affects the leader, family, and associates, but the organization
continues
 Emergence: refers whether an individual is viewed as
leader-like or as having potential as a leader
 “This person acts and looks like a leader”
 The leader-centric emphasis is related to three things:
◦ Fascination with toxic/destructive leaders or highly successful
leaders
◦ Conception of leaders that looks to the top of organizations and
political structures for answers to organizational problems
◦ Simultaneous analysis of leaders, followers, and environments is
difficult due to changing variables such as how leaders change over
time or how leader-follower interaction vary depending on the
situation
 Power in contemporary nations and organizations is
about persuasion and not about domination
 Are great people always good people?
 Manipulation is tied to control and personal interest,
while persuasion tends to be collaborative and
consensual
 Top leaders are figureheads, constantly “on stage”,
being watched and analyzed
 Top leaders symbolically dramatize mission, values,
and strategies
 Communication is the real work of top leaders
 Communication is the tool to shift and focus a group on
adapted goals and shifting conditions
 Sense-making – understanding situations, events, and
trends and the effects on the group plans and actions
 Can unethical/immoral behavior be leadership?
 Is successful leadership measured by effectiveness
regardless of purpose (i.e., good or evil intentions)?
 Getting “buy-in” for group objectives and goals from
team members is a challenge for leaders
 Commitment to group objectives can be strengthened
in two primary ways:
◦ Transactions or exchanges
◦ Giving authority and responsibility to team members toward
group goals
 Leadership has universal elements (context,
communication, sense-making, decisiveness) that are
common in any culture
 Political boundaries, cultures, histories, and traditions
mediate how leaders and followers interact
 Hard to describe definitively
 Leadership is a dynamic and interactive process
involving a leader, followers, and environmental
contexts
 Leadership can have constructive or destructive
consequences
 Leadership is mostly about persuasion, not domination
 Leadership is a temporary activity