To truly understand what leadership is we must first define it.
Leadership i.e. To Lead, to go before or with to show the way; conduct or escort; to conduct by holding and guiding; to influence or induce; cause; to command or direct; to go at the head of or in advance of; to be superior to; have the advantage over; to have top position or first place in.
Leaders rally others to a better place. That is the only goal of a leader. They cause a belief that some objective, goal, attitude or frame of mind can be achieved that was otherwise not thought possible or simply never before reached. The idea that great leaders need to be the best managers or coaches or have a laundry list of other qualities I found to be both true and false at the same time. Great qualities may be great assets of a leader, but that’s like being good looking and rich at the same time. It’s a bonus.
Study the great leaders over the past 1,000 years and you will find that most of them were quirky at best. Many of them were not the best managers and they were not always the most politically correct. Yet, they still inspired massive change and rallied colossal support from people around them. Study the greatest figures of our time and you’ll find some great leaders wrapped around some weird people.
Kurt Cobain, for example, led and inspired a music revolution that many historians say was greater than The Beatles. All this from a guy who wouldn’t pass anyone’s “10 Point Test” of a leader.
This is an important fact to face because we can’t fabricate an ideal leader for the car business just so we feel safe and get “buy-in.” Only by looking at the reality of what a leader really is can we apply it to our lives and businesses.
In today’s business society, “leadership” is held out as that ultimate greatness everyone wants wrapped around them. To be a leader supposedly means to be the best of everything to everyone, is now sexy and since books on the subject fly off the shelf, the concept must have merit.
I think the waters are murky at best so let’s define what leadership really is and is not. Let’s set aside today’s desired character of a leader and look at the actual results of a leader. What does a leader produce in the universe? Then the real qualities of a leader will become significantly simplified and we can then spend less time striving for the qualities of a leader and more time producing the results of a leader.
Here are the key outcomes produced by true leaders. The final valuable products of a leader that leads to something substantial being done, which in turn creates a legacy. You should find yourself amazed at how these few things create the surface qualities we look for in today’s leaders and how the subject today is in essence studied backwards.
A Clear and Correct Vision
Regarding What Is Possible
The only way a leader rallies people to a better place is first having a clear vision of what that place is but there’s more to it than that. The true leader has to see the end goal so clear that he or she develops a razor sharp ability to explain it or demonstrate it to others in an explicit manner. If the vision and or goal is not clear it cannot be communicated and then duplicated with exact understanding in the mind of the people that are listening.
Telling someone about what is possible is only effective to the degree that the recipient of what you have to say understands it exactly as it was intended. You understanding alone doesn’t cut it. Historically great leaders surround themselves with people who serve as translators having the ability to describe the leaders vision to people of different personalities and points of view so that a great number of people can see the goal clearly.
Communication is the universal solvent in life but for a leader, great communication stems simply from a clear and correct vision regarding what is possible. Leader’s need not be good at making or maintaining decisions. The clarity of their visions and goals will do it for them.
Agreement
Now that the leader has an absolute clear vision of what is possible and can produce a freakishly clear understanding, agreement can exist. Leaders produce large amounts of agreement plain and simple. Agreement exists in life only through communication that is understood. What’s more interesting is the fact that agreement is the single factor responsible for creating affinity and or fondness between people. Only to the degree that people see the world the same in some fashion do they actually like each other. So no, a leader is not a people person by nature that simply created a ton of agreement along the lines of their vision.
Teamwork
Once a group of people clearly understand the vision and agree on it, they all become equal in the drive forward for a period of time, which makes them a team by default. Once a team is formed, people with the ability to manage and place people in their proper positions take over and help to push for the realization of the goal.
Conclusion
So in the end the natural order and sequence of things surrounding leadership becomes: Vision leads to clear communication, which leads to exact understanding. Understanding leads to agreement. Agreement leads to teamwork. Teamwork leads to management. Management of the team cultivates physical results. The leadership to results formula in the order of priority is thus: Vision = Communication = Understanding = Agreement = Teamwork + Management = Physical Results.
There we have it. The mystery of leadership revealed. I hope it makes reaching your next goal a little easier.