Definition Of Leadership

Definition of Leadership

The definition of leadership is "Guiding Intent with Integrity".  

I found the definition back in 2007 while working on my Masters of Science in Business Management, and working with the Man Kind Project. Over the years I've  collected information to help prove the definition. But this blog is not about proving the definition, but helping you understand how to use the definition to help yourself.

So, what does it mean to guide?  How does intent affect this guidance?  And, why does whether or not a person has integrity affect their ability to lead people?  

To guide someone could be as simple as providing advice, or providing directions, or doing nothing at all while that person struggles to figure something out.

Intent is the reason why that person is doing what they are doing. Is there guidance to help or hurt the person?  

Integrity is the hardest part of this equation to understand, until you understand how integrity and the social contract are intertwined.  The social contract or the gentleman's agreement is the understanding between two people on what is expected from the agreement.

And what is the goal?  Why do you need someone to lead you? If there is no place to go? That place to go is your goal.

Now comes the hardest part of the definition. There are many ways to guide, many versions of intent, and just as many people with different levels of integrity. How can all these people be leaders?

There is another set of questions that must be asked about leadership.

Who is guiding who? 

Where are they guiding you?

Why are they guiding you?

What will they get in return for guiding you?

How are they guiding you?

What purpose does this guiding serve?

Or put another way:

The Guide

The Guiding

Where

How

Reasons

Purpose

These six (6) different categories create 1000's of different types of leadership styles. Which is why after decades of searching for a definition of leadership many scientists gave up.  No plausible pattern emerged that described what a leader was, since just about everyone can be a leader at any point in their life.

While the general understanding of a leader was someone that lead a group of people, a simple store clerk leading you to a can of tomatoes is just as much a leader. This flies in the face of what many people understand about leadership, since they expect a leader to be in a position of power, but isn't that what's happening with the store clerk?  Have you given them control of your life for just a moment to guide you to that can of tomatoes?

As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, the purpose of this article is to help you understand what leadership is.  So in the blogs that follow, hopefully I can provide additional detail into the nuances of leadership.  There's a lot to talk about, and most of that research that scientists have collected can now be reviewed in light of this definition.  Maybe along the way, we'll find a way to prove the definition as well.

Strategic Thinking

Why would General Mills, originally a single cereal manufacture, decide instead of creating new cereals, it would purchase other companies that are making cereals?  What was the strategic decision making process behind that decision?  

What I have found in my years of examining companies is that many people misunderstand three (3) parts of a companies objectives.  The first is the problem (business or personal) that the company is trying to solve for it's customers.  The second is the vision statement which demonstrates what a world would look like if this problem were resolved.  And the third is the mission statement, which describes how the company intends to achieve its objective.

It is the first part that most companies can't quite articulate, have missed articulating, or leave it assumed - we are in banking, what more do you need to know?  This however, allows the company to veer way off course due to a lack of understanding of the reason why the company started initially.  This like the United States Constitution provides a basis from which all decision are made.  And, when this problem is solved, so then is the company.  

A strategic decision then becomes a debate about, "What is in the client's best interest?"  Employees are encouraged to examine the client's problem from all perspectives, and determine how best to solve the problem.  All arguments require the client's business problem to be the central issues to be resolved, not an after thought.  

If new products or services are added to the business, then they in some part are there specifically to address either the client's business problem, or the daily business activities needed to support the business processes involved in solving the client's business problem.  This is what strategic thinking means to me.  Looking at the ship either in total or in part and determining what is the best course of action to help everyone work towards solving the client's business problem.  

Who's Involved in Leadership?

The obvious answer to this question is, "The Leader".  But, Leadership, doesn't happen in a vacuum  So, what may not be obvious is the other people that are involved in leadership.

The next obvious person or group that is involved in leadership is those being lead.  Those individuals that want to be guided to the goal.  This group is called the followers.  And those that don't follow are called non-followers.

Now there are levels of followers, from the fanatical to those who could care less.  If the leader said, "Jump off the cliff", there would be some who would jump and some who'd jump with a parachute, and other's who ask, "Why?"

Now if we look at the press around all the national elections that recently occurred  we can see that there are groups of people both inside and outside those that want to be guided.  This group is called the observers.

The last group are people who don't wish to be part of the group, and don't care about the goal or the leadership towards the goal.  They are outsiders.  

It may be hard to differentiate outsiders from non-followers. The key is whether or not the outsider is championing causes that are against the leader's efforts. This then would make the outsider a non-follower.

To summarize, the individuals involved in leadership are:

The Leader

The Followers

The Non-Followers

The Observers

The Outsiders

Measuring Performance

There are many ways to measure performance.  It can be on the task performed or the goal to be reached. How quickly and easily it was reached.  The other measure that could be applied is how quickly customer improvements are applied.  But the best measure is whether or not everyone ... customers, employees, and associates ... would recommend Yahoo on a scale of 1 to 10 and then why.  One provides the quantitative value, while the 2nd question provides a qualitative value which may contain additional information to further improvements.

But let's get back to Goals and Objectives.  What drives these?  A CEO's vision of a better future, or a customers feedback?  Or both?  How do you measure these?  

One of the biggest mistakes that most people make is that they create rules at the 50 yard line.  50% you win, 50% you loose.  But what's at the 100% yard line.  If there was a rule that stated what the best possible outcome could be, wouldn't you prefer to strive for that? 

This objective, the 100 yard line, is more than a fantasy.  It's actually a statistically proven psychological fact.  Two hockey coaches each trained a team. One told his team what not to do. Another told his team what to do.  Each team did exactly what their coach told them to do.  Exactly .. but here's the catch.  The team that was told NOT to do something, did it what they were told not to do.  The team that was told to do something did exactly what they were told to do.

So you can set goals at the 50 yard line or the 100 yard line.  What type of Goals and Objectives would you prefer to set and have set for yourself?

The Truth About Leadership - part 1

“The Truth About Leadership”, (2010) by James M Kouzes and Barry Z Posner, ISBN 978-0-470-63354-0.

“The Truth About Leadership” talks about 10 truths.  They are:

You Make a Difference

Credibility is the Foundation of Leadership

Values Drive Commitment

Focusing on the Future sets Leaders apart

You Can’t Do it Alone

Trust Rules

Challenge is the Crucible of Greatness

You Either Lad by Example or you Don’t Lead at All

The best Leaders are the Best Learners

Leadership is an Affair of the Heart

The book claims to be about “Fundamentals” and how they are the “building blocks to greatness”.

So let’s put these truths to the test against the definition of Leadership, which is, “Guiding Intent with Integrity”.

The book starts by making a fundamental mistake.  It does not define a definition of leadership from which these truths are based in.  This mistake allows for many other misunderstandings to follow. An explanation follows as each truth is examined.

The Truth About Leadership - Part 2

You Make a Difference

This truth presumes that only leaders make a difference.  The problem with this truth is that it’s too narrow.  The definition of leadership allows everyone to be a leader at one moment or another.  In addition it doesn’t recognize personal leadership, “You leading yourself.”

A simple street cleaner being asked for directions suddenly becomes is a leader, as easily as the waitress who is asked how they would prepare a dish to their liking.  Even athletes who recognize that they are giving up on their training because it’s too hot and muggy suddenly step into their own leadership roles.  Why do leaders have to be people who motivate and guide 100’s of people to do something that improves the lives of others?

There is a question posed in this chapter, “What difference will I make?”  This question opens the discussion about intent.  While this is an interesting question for someone who is actively engaged in leadership, most leaders don’t consciously realize that this question is occurring.  Take for example the street cleaner that was asked about directions.  What difference is he making in the lives of the individuals who are asking for directions?  He is not consciously thinking about how his guidance will affect anyone else, and just as easily those asking for directions may not realized the release in anxiety.  But it happens.  The difference is small.

Most of this chapter is dedicated to demonstrating how positive leadership can improve an organization’s inner levels of piece and throughput. It fails to examine the affects negative leadership has on similar organizations.  For example, several positive leadership roles are: Modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, encouraging the heart.  While Negative Leadership would: discourage reviewing models, disparage a shared vision and focus on a singular vision, it may challenge the process only to prove that the new process is worse than the existing process, allow others to act and fail as a way to demonstrate how the current process is better, and discourage people from caring about clients and customers as a level of separation is needed in order to respond objectively.

Page 13, the discussion turns to: “Improving the Quality of Life”, “The Social Contract”, or put another way, “Whose responsibility it is anyway?”  This discussion opens into the integrity of leadership. A second question is posed on page 14, “If you are not willing to follow yourself, why would anyone else want to?”  This is a question posed in “Leadership 101” (2002) by John C Maxwell, ISBN 0-7852-6419-1, chapter 3, page 25.

As the story goes, Jerry Rice was in high school practicing football. The last exercise that his coach assigned to the team was to sprint up and down a forty yard hill 20 times. On a particularly hot and muggy Mississippi day, Rice was ready to give up after eleven trips.  As he sneaked toward the locker room, he realized what he was doing.  He returned to the hill and continued to sprint up it.  Rice realized that if he quit, he would get into the mode of quitting again and again. 

This is what personal integrity is, “Holding your self accountable.”