Understand What Leadership Is And Its Important Roles

It was once said, ‘Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth’. I can’t agree more with the statement. We may know much about the leaders we admire, but we seem to know little about what true leadership means.

Thousands of theories, practical approaches, training and development about leadership are available nowadays, the aftermath is more critical, we read and get inspired, so what? Yet we still find it hard to apply what we learn in real scenarios successfully.

The definition of leadership: What does leadership mean to you?

Leadership definitions are many. It is often understood as an act of a person we call a ‘leader’ giving guidance and instructions to a group of people to achieve a common goal. Yet while the importance of skills and capabilities of individual leaders are always emphasized, the true meaning of leadership is pulling people to work together and attain results they could never accomplish working alone.

The key word here is ‘together’ as no one on earth is believed to survive without any human cooperation. In this sense, it avoids putting the entire responsibility on a few individuals and limiting the leadership potential of others. By working as a team, a multitude of skills, experiences and expertise work are compiled and expected to produce greater work outcomes. Practically, any individual’s weaknesses are overshadowed by the strengths of others, therefore, the team thrives.

Sound harsh-free? The underlying challenge of a leader here is how to talk so other people will get inspired and follow. The art of how and when to lead with a purpose. The commitment to spend time listening to someone attentively to get to know them better. The ability to deal with conflicts and work with as many types of people as he can. The list will keep going on as the complexity of leading increases with work scope and team sizes.

Leaders and Managers. Are they different?

Frankly speaking, leaders and managers are very different types of people, even though the terms are often used interchangeably because they both serve the meaning of accomplishing goals and making change happen.

Goal setting

• Management refers to a process of planning and controlling. They have a checklist of day-to-day operation tasks to ensure everyone knows what to do and how they do it.

• Whereas leadership involves people as a team to achieve something together. Leadership roles are broader, usually setting a clear vision, encouraging innovation and supporting personal and professional growth in others.

Personality

• A manager is truly a problem-solver who directs their energies towards goals, organisational structure, people or resources. With a huge amount of work stress, he or she needs to be persistent, tough-minded, hard-working, intelligent, analytical and perhaps highly tolerant.

• In contrast, a leader often carries a bigger purpose, having an imaginative capacity and influential power to inspire others to follow. More than anything, he or she has a brilliant personality and high self-awareness as a necessary part of controlling self before controlling others.

Conceptions of work

• The HBR has an article explaining how a manager handles conflicts by acting as a mediator who has to balance opposing views and get people to accept limited solutions to a problem.

• Opposingly, leaders don’t work that way. They neither compromise among conflicting values nor limit their choices of solution. They confront by developing fresh approaches to long-standing problems and being open to new options as issues arise.

Sense of self

• A manager’s sense of self is defined through the role they are performing and from which they gain extrinsic rewards. Their identity is attached to the existing organisation.

• On the other hand, leaders’ sense of who they are does not depend on memberships, work roles, or other social indicators of identity. In other words, they may work in organizations, but they never belong to them. And that perception of identity explains why these individuals often seek opportunities for change, either through technological, political or ideological methods of change.

Why does leadership tend to fail?

Leadership failure has long posed a significant financial risk to an organisation, given the cost of recruiting and replacement leaders as well as the negative spillover effects on the productivity of other members, the company’s morale and reputation. This is especially true when the study of leadership is often mistaken as a star performer’s popularity, power or wisdom in long-range planning. Some leaders may have these, others may have very little influence, little authority, none or little skills.

When the leader succeeds, he or she might have learnt two basic lessons: Men are complex and men are different. An effective leader’s unique achievement is a human and social one that stems from his understanding of his fellow workers and the relationship of their individual goals to the group goal that he must carry out to create these wants and find ways to channel existing wants into effective cooperation.

In a similar context, while there are many attributes of good leaders, there is one overriding and immutable factor – good character. It is defined as being consistent and honest, truthful, committed from the start and genuinely caring for the well-being of others. History is full of leaders who cared only about themselves, lied to their followers, and used any means available to retain power. Nevertheless, it’s essential to understand that a leader’s role is not only to leave a lasting legacy or achieve personal success but also serving for the organisational purpose. The well-being of the team, the company and the leaders themselves must always be taken into account in order to be able to make decisions with perspective.

Moreover, with ever-increasing demands at work, the ability to get things done quickly is a key driver of success. However, it can become a leader’s downfall due to highly efficient leaders’ belief that people-based focus will slow them down and impede their capability to execute and ultimately be successful. These leaders can also incur high costs themselves, such as having a promotion blocked, or even being fired — not to mention the costs to their personal lives and relationships. As a result, great leaders should be able to balance task- and people-focus to both strive for results while keeping the broader organisational needs in mind. 

References

ACCIONA 2023, Leadership Success: Key Factors for Good Leadership, ACCIONA, available at <https://people.acciona.com/professional-development/leadership-success/>.

Center for Creative Leadership n.d., What is leadership? A definition based on research, Center for Creative Leadership, available at <https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/what-is-leadership/>.

Finkelstein, S 2004, Why Good Leaders Fail, MIT Sloan Management Review, available at <https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-good-leaders-fail/>.

Goffee, R and Jones, G 2004, ‘Understanding leadership’, Harvard Business Review, 82(1), pp. 124-131, available at <https://hbr.org/2004/01/understanding-leadership>.

Grand Canyon University 2023, Why Failure Is Important in Leadership, GCU Blog, available at <https://www.gcu.edu/blog/business-management/why-failure-important-leadership>.

Hill, L.A & Lineback, K 2024, 8 Reasons Why Co-Leaders Fail, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2024/07/8-reasons-why-co-leaders-fail>.

Kellerman, B 2004, ‘Why highly efficient leaders fail’, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2004/12/why-highly-efficient-leaders-fail>.

McKinsey & Company 2021, What is leadership: A definition and way forward, available at <https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/what-is-leadership>.

Northouse, P.G 2010, Leadership: Theory and practice. 5th ed, Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, available at <https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Leadership/lhrPS_s7EawC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=leadership&pg=PT12&printsec=frontcover>.

Richardson, R & Denton, K 2002, The Failure-Tolerant Leader, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2002/08/the-failure-tolerant-leader>.

Sosik, J.J 2023, When Leaders Fail in Character, Psychology Today, available at <https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/head-strong/202310/when-leaders-fail-in-character>.

Zaleznik, A 2004, ‘Managers and leaders: Are they different?’, Harvard Business Review, 82(1), pp. 74-81, available at <https://hbr.org/2004/01/managers-and-leaders-are-they-different>.