Many people mistakenly assume that if they have power and authority they are exhibiting leadership. Often those in these roles where they have power are not really leaders. I think of leadership as inspiring, motivating and bringing out the best in people consistently over a period of time. I think a real leader would be someone people look up to and someone who leads by example. I sometimes look at people in high positions and hope that I never turn out like them. Page 182 discusses the blur between authority, power and leadership. Leadership does not have to happen at the "top" of an organization; leadership can exhibited by anyone...
3 comments:
It really is a pet peeve of mine with individuals go on a power trip and start bossing around others and then blindly believes that they are a good leader because they tell us what to do all the time. I had a bad experience in a group project back in January. Our team of 4 consisted of 3 individuals that were the same age, give or take a few months, and then one more individual who was older by 10 years. The elder individual viewed himself as having seniority and decided to take on what he believed to be a leader. He would demand for things and made decisions without consulting the group. This made the group’s moral fall and none of us were happy with the project because it was no longer ours and just his. After 3 weeks of this type of behavior and him lecturing us on how he is the leader and telling us what to do, we broke the news to him. We told him that he did not consult with the group before making decisions, expected us to only do things his way, and never once gave us the chance to express our own ideas or opinions. This came as a huge shock to him but he backed down immediately and began to ask for our opinions and listened to our ideas. I think we all learned something about leadership from that experience and we were able to walk away with an A on our project too.
I completely agree. Leadership is often independent of hierarchy. I've had peers who were at the same level or even lower than myself exhibit tremendous leadership attributes. I'd venture to say that most of the great leadership moments that I've seen throughout my brief career have originated from peers rather than managers.
It is unfortunate that many managers equate power with leadership. As stated true leadership is about "inspiring, motivating and bringing out the best in people". There are many ways in which a manager may make strategic decisions to better the company; however, it is the empowerment of his/her employees that reflects true leadership.
My uncle was drunk one Thanksgiving and grumbled to me about the Air Force (he's Army). His comments were to the effect of "you can bomb all you want, but an area isn't captured till you occupy the ground." I think of that like management. You can make all the changes/decisions you want, but unless you have employees who want to support and carry out the ultimate goal... it's not complete.
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