Revisiting Leadership [2]
Over twenty years of research and study has persuaded me that much of our present understanding of leadership is somewhat flawed. It certainly lacks both philosophical and empirical rigour and is beset with contradictions that tend to lessen the possibility of any positive consequence that the exercise of leadership could bring to our communities, businesses and organisations.
Mention ‘leadership’, and the word invariably evokes images of leaders, boards of management, heads of industry as well as leading political figures etc. Following more that twenty years researching leadership, and particularly social, business and organisational leadership, I have arrived at the conclusion that any concept of ‘leadership’ that is intrinsically linked to ‘leaders’ or to ‘management’, is essentially flawed, and therefore of little, or no, benefit regarding sustainable success.
I suppose my real concern is about the lack of common-sense relating to much of our present use, or indeed misuse, of the concept of leadership, a concept whose heritage goes back thousands of years before the dawn of management speak.
The origins of the word leadership are closely associated with the word path, and the leader, or more correctly, the elders not so much directed as accompanied others on their journey through life. Here, the exercise of leadership was very much allied to having the knowledge and understanding, along with the empathy necessary when people felt lost and sometimes frightened, or when they thought the journey too difficult and maybe so long that the sustaining aims and objectives of the group became difficult to hold onto, and thus were in danger of becoming unreachable.
At such times the elders inspired enthusiasm, articulated the common aims of the group and kept the goals alive so that those tasks that needed to be achieved in order to survive were indeed accomplished.
Meanwhile, the exercise of leadership provides a sense of direction, a focus, it also permeates the entire enterprise with values, purpose and integrity for the ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ of improvement. It could be further argued that without the exercise of leadership learning, and certainly shared-learning, is much impaired. In addition, the exercise of leadership allows communities, businesses and organisations to act early in accommodating necessary change. It also mobilizes positive elements of human interaction.
The Leadership and Learning Pathways (LLP) posts will resume in mid-September 2011
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