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EXCELLENCE
Moumita Mukherjee
LEADERSHIP: Searching a Definition
Step 1: What Leadership is NOT!
• Leadership has nothing to do with seniority or one’s position in the
hierarchy of a company. Too many talk about a company’s leadership
referring to the senior most executives in the organization. They are just that,
senior executives. Leadership doesn’t automatically happen when you reach a
certain pay grade. Hopefully you find it there, but there are no guarantees.
• Leadership has nothing to do with titles. Similar to the point above, just
because you have a high-level title, doesn’t automatically make you a “leader.”
You don’t need a title to lead. In fact, you can be a leader in your place of
worship, your neighbourhood, in your family, all without having a title.
• Leadership has nothing to do with personal attributes. Say the word
“leader” and most people think of a domineering, take-charge charismatic
individual. We often think of icons from history like Prime Ministers or Presidents.
But leadership isn’t an adjective. We don’t need extroverted charismatic traits to
practice leadership. And those with charisma don’t automatically lead.
• Leadership isn’t management. This is the big one. Leadership and
management are not synonymous. Good management is needed. Managers
need to plan, measure, monitor, coordinate, solve, hire, fire, and so many other
things. Typically, managers manage things. Leaders lead people.
LEADERSHIP: Searching a Definition
Step 2: Successful Business-Thinkers’ view of
• Leadership
Peter Drucker: “The only definition of a leader is someone who has
followers.” - Really? This instance of tautology is so simplistic as to be
dangerous. A new Army Captain is put in the command of 200 soldiers. He
never leaves his room, or utters a word to the men and women in his unit.
Perhaps routine orders are given through a subordinate. By default his troops
have to “follow” orders. Is the Captain really a leader? Commander yes,
leader no. Drucker is of course a brilliant thinker of modern business but his
definition of leader is too simple.
• Warren Bennis: “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into
reality.” - Every spring you have a vision for a garden, and with lots of work
carrots and tomatoes become a reality. Are you a leader? No, you’re a
gardener. Bennis’ definition seems to have forgotten “others.”
• Bill Gates: “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be
those who empower others.” - This definition includes “others” and
empowerment is a good thing. But to what end? I’ve seen many empowered
“others” in my life, from rioting hooligans to Google workers who were so
misaligned with the rest of the company they found themselves unemployed.
Gates’ definition lacks the parts about goal or vision.
LEADERSHIP: Searching a Definition
Step 3: What Leadership is!
• DEFINITION (Forbes): Leadership is a process of social influence,
which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement
of a goal. Notice key elements of this definition:
1. Leadership stems from social influence, not authority or power
2. Leadership requires others, and that implies they don’t need to
be “direct reports”
3. No mention of personality traits, attributes, or even a title;
there are many styles, many paths, to effective leadership
4. It includes a goal, not influence with no intended outcome
SELF LEADERSHIP
• Self-leadership is having a developed sense of who you
are, what you can do, where you are going coupled with
the ability to influence your communication, emotions and
behaviors on the way to getting there.
• Self-leaders have a drive for autonomy, can make decisions, are
more creative and persist, even in the face of adversity.
• Some of the intentional behaviors that characterize Self-
leadership are; self-awareness, self-goal setting, self-
motivation, positive self-talk, assertive communication and the
ability to receive and act on feedback.
SELF LEADERSHIP VIDEOS
Links to Self Leadership Videos
• Generic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGbvFkDhJXg
• Ted Talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlpKyLklDDY
WHAT IS SELF-LEADERSHIP?
There are four different aspects to self-leadership.
1. Self-awareness: The ability to acknowledge, understand and be conscious of
one’s own values, perspectives, strengths, weaknesses, leadership propensity
and emotional needs.
2. Self-management: The ability to nurture and harness one’s own passion,
abilities, emotions and leadership capacity in decision- making.
3. Other-awareness: The ability to acknowledge and recognize the passion,
gifting, strengths, weaknesses, potential and needs of others.
4. Other-management: The ability to grow and motivate other people to
develop their potential and/or fulfill the organization’s objectives.
• Great leaders begin with self-awareness and move to self-management, then
proceed to other-awareness culminating in other-management. It is not a
linear but an interactive effect among all four factors.
STRATEGIES OF SELF LEADERS
• Reflecting on intention to achieve focus
• Clarifying what they are responsible ‘for’ and what we are
accountable to?
• Becoming the author of the inner narrative to tell an empowering
story
• Confidently taking action and seeking feedback
• Communicating authentically to achieve win/win
• Being mindful and managing emotions
• Influencing through understanding the intentions of others
LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES
• Leadership competencies are leadership skills and behaviours that
contribute to superior performance. By using a competency-based
approach to leadership, organizations can better identify and develop their
next generation of leaders. Essential leadership competencies and global
competencies have been defined by researchers. However, future business
trends and strategy should drive the development of new leadership
competencies. While some leadership competencies are essential to all
firms, an organization should also define what leadership attributes are
distinctive to the particular organization to create competitive advantage.
• Managers, aspiring managers, and top-level leaders are all concerned
with developing the competencies they need to become more effective
leaders.
LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES
1. Autocratic
2. Democratic
3. Collaborative
4. Laissezfaire
5. Transformational
6. Transactional
LEADERSHIP STYLES
Autocratic
• Autocratic leadership style is centred on the boss. In this
leadership the leader holds all authority and responsibility. In
this leadership, leaders make decisions on their own without
consulting subordinates. They reach decisions, communicate
them to subordinates and expect prompt implementation.
Autocratic work environment does normally have little or no
flexibility.
• In this kind of leadership, guidelines, procedures and policies
are all natural additions of an autocratic leader. Statistically,
there are very few situations that can actually support
autocratic leadership.
• A famous personality who matches this kind of leadership
styles is: President Donald Trump (USA, Trump Organization).
LEADERSHIP STYLES
Democratic
• In this leadership style, subordinates are involved in
making decisions. Unlike autocratic, this headship is
centred on subordinates’ contributions. The democratic
leader holds final responsibility, but he or she is known
to delegate authority to other people, who determine
work projects.
• The most unique feature of this leadership is that
communication is active upward and downward. With
respect to statistics, democratic leadership is one of the
most preferred leadership, and it entails the following:
fairness, competence, creativity, courage, intelligence
and honesty.
LEADERSHIP STYLES
Collaborative
• A collaborative leader tries to involve everyone in the organization in
leadership. She is truly first among equals, in that she may initiate discussion,
pinpoint problems or issues that need to be addressed, and keep track of the
organization as a whole, rather than of one particular job. But decisions are
made through a collaborative process of discussion, and some form of either
majority or consensus agreement. Toward that end, a collaborative leader tries
to foster trust and teamwork among the staff as a whole.
• A collaborative leader has to let go of the need for control or power or status if
she is to be effective. Her goal is to foster the collaborative process, and to
empower the group - whether the staff and others involved in an organization,
or the individuals and organizations participating in a community initiative - to
control the vision and the workings of the organization. She must trust that, if
people have all the relevant information, they'll make good decisions...and she
must make sure that they have that information, and provide the facilitation
that assures those good decisions.