Leading From Within: Building Organizational Leadership Capacity

by David Kolzow

What is Leadership? Some view leadership as a series of specific traits or characteristics. Others see it as comprised of certain skills and knowledge. And some, me included, think of leadership as a process. This view of leadership, as a process, places an emphasis on social interaction and relationship. This is the idea that leadership is a type of relationship, one that typically includes influencing others in a certain direction. This leads to my current working definition of Leadership is a relationship that involves the mobilizing, influencing, and guiding of others toward desired goals. This definition does not assume that the goals are shared or even explicit. The word desire simply means that someone in the relationship, perhaps just the person in a leadership role, wants a particular outcome. The following are some definitions that have a bias toward leadership as a “Leadership is a process of giving purpose (meaningful direction) to collective effort, and causing willing effort to be expended to achieve purpose.” (Jacobs & Jaques) “Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts toward goal achievement in a given situation.” (Hersey & Blanchard) “Leadership is an attempt at influencing the activities of followers through the communication process and toward the attainment of some goal or goals.” (Donelly) “Leadership is defined as the process of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal achievement.” (Rauch & Behling) “Leadership is interpersonal influence, exercised in a situation, and directed, through the communication process, toward the attainment of a specified goal or goals.” (Tannenbaum, et al) It has been my experience that many organizational leaders, knowingly or unknowingly, view leadership as a set of specific traits or skills. Below are a few definitions that are grounded in skills and, to a lesser extent, traits. “Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential”. (Bennis) “Leadership is about articulating visions, embodying values, and creating the environment within which things can be accomplished.” (Richards and Engle) “Leadership is the creation of a vision about a desired future state which seeks to enmesh all members of an organization in its net.” (Bryman) “It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good.” (Ciulla)

Kindle Edition

Published November 13, 2020

Reviews

[Tina Parlato · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course I loved this one, and I feel like most teams understand the potential here, but the TLDR jumping-off for anyone dedicated to leadership-growth-mindset-development:

"No one unfortunately can fully master each and every one of the attributes of an effective leader. Therefore, an individual needs to begin the leadership development process by coming to grips with the kind of leader he/she wants to be. This begins by asking such questions as:
• Who am I?
• What are my values?
• What leadership competencies and skills do I want to acquire?
• How should I proceed to move forward?"