…Leaders are made

My first leadership role was an abject failure. I had no idea what to do. My only development came from personal experience as an employee. I treated my first team member as I perceived current and previous leaders had treated me. Starting on her first day, I made mistakes from which I would never recover. My relationship with that team member and other colleagues was irreparably damaged. I wish I could say that my first leadership experience taught me how to lead. It did not. Instead, it piqued my curiosity. However, I did not explore my curiosity until years later. What went wrong? What should I have done differently? In truth, I was just a bad leader.

Welcome to “My Leadership Journey,” a blog that explores theory, reflection, practice, and refinement to learn how leaders are made.

Theory

As I explored the concept of leadership, I realized that my first opportunity to lead lacked focus, knowledge, and understanding. We think everyone understands the term leadership, but few can clarify it. Academic and popular authors seem to focus on “parts of leadership,” resulting in many logical definitions that communicate the writer’s values, beliefs, and research. Stephen Covey focused on communication to elevate team member value. Kouzes and Posner highlighted behaviors, skills, and abilities. Rost and Burns espoused traits, and Northouse favored process. In a 2006 Regent University article, Winston and Patterson identified over 90 variations of the term, leadership. Their research resulted in the following definition.

A leader is one or more people who selects, equips, trains, and influences one or more followers who have diverse gifts, abilities, and skills and focuses the followers on the organization’s mission and objectives causing the followers to willingly and enthusiastically expend spiritual, emotional, and physical energy in a concerted coordinated effort to achieve the organizational mission and objectives.

B. Winston and K. Patterson

Reflection

Decalō Leaders favors the Winston and Patterson definition. It acknowledges choice within the leader-team member relationship. It recognizes that leaders choose team members with diverse gifts, abilities, and skills to achieve a vision. It also recognizes that team members choose leaders who communicate a vision that guides team activity and commitment. As a new leader, I understood my role in selecting and developing my team members. However, I did not understand the importance of a vision that focused and inspired my team members to follow me.

Practice

Therefore, what makes an effective leader? While there are many variables to consider, these three things are essential to understand, remember, and practice.

1.      Leadership is a leader-follower partnership. Team members impact leaders just as leaders influence team members.

2.      Team members choose whom they will follow. Not every member of a team will follow the appointed leader. While leaders choose team members with specific gifts, skills, and abilities to accomplish team goals, followers result from a belief in the leader’s vision. A communicated vision that inspires creativity, discretionary effort, commitment, and accountability for outcomes creates willing and enthusiastic followership.

3.      People are drawn to leaders with vision. Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Vision provides shared direction, which creates cohesion and community. A shared vision inspires and enlivens creativity and innovation. Team members without vision are hardly followers but workers plodding through their assigned tasks within their assigned time, lacking the creative energy to excel with others.

Refinement

Here is the opportunity to examine your leadership practice and beliefs. How do you define leadership? How do you influence your team members? How do team members impact you? Why would team members choose to follow you?

Additional Reading

Covey, S. R. (2009). Leadership is a choice, not a position. https://www.business-standard.com/article/management

Kouzes, J. M. & Posner, B. Z. (2017). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations. (6th ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Northouse, P. G. (2022). Leadership: Theory & practice (9th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.

Rost, J. C. & Burns, J. M. (1993). Leadership for the Twenty-First Century, Bloomsbury Publishing

Winston, B. E. & Patterson, K. (2006). An integrative definition of leadership. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 2(1).  https://www.regent.edu/journal/international-journal-of-leadership-studies/an-integrative-leadership-definition/