Read “Three Circles of Effective Leadership”

Most leadership courses discuss ways to improve the leader. Topics include developing more effective interpersonal skills, liaison abilities, motivational skills, and the like. While such skills are very important elements in expanding leader effectiveness, they are not enough.

You see, leadership is more than just a leader's traits, attributes, skills, or abilities. Leadership is a relationship between leaders and followers. As the saying goes, if you think you are leading and look over your shoulder to find no one there, you are just out for a Sunday walk. Effective leaders lead different people differently. As Ken Blanchard wrote in Leadership and the One Minute Manager, "There is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequals" (p. 33). Effective leaders take the appropriate time to understand the individual needs, skills, and maturity of their constituents.

There is an another aspect regarding the relationship between leaders and followers. While the word follower may imply a passive role, being a follower is hardly passive. Followers play an active role in the leadership process. They must be willing to learn and improve themselves and be open to new ideas and change. Most important, they must be willing to actively engage in the leadership process themselves. As leadership is about influence at any level, followers sometimes lead and leaders sometimes follow.

The process toward effective leadership does not stop here. Have you ever observed a leader use the same leadership style with similar constituents and enjoy success with one group but failure with the other? Effective leaders understand that leadership is a relationship among leaders, followers, and context. Context may be a situation, circumstance, event, person, or even era. Context may refer to societal, organizational, or other cultural perspectives. Context also may be viewed in terms of how leaders influence—organizationally, in a group, or one-on-one.

No leadership skill or set of skills will work with every audience in every context. Effective leaders understand that leadership is action. It is making positive influence with a thoughtful understanding of behavior and skills of the leader, needs and expectations of the follower, and the context of the potential intervention.

Based on the readings for this unit, your independent research, and your self-reflection, writes a paper that addresses the following prompts: what is your definition of leadership? How important is it to have a definition of leadership? How does your definition support your perspective on the concept of leadership? What is your approach to understanding leadership? Does it start with a definition, or do you simply follow your instincts? What is your definition of management? What do you see as the differences between leadership and management?

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Definition of Leadership Definition of Leadership In my personal opinion leadership refers to the ability to guide others without using force into a decision or direction that would leave them feeling ... View the full answer