There’s so much bad leadership out there.
(I’m looking across the pond, specifically)
It’s easy to spot.
It’s easy to point fingers and lambast.
But how much harder is it to spot good leadership?
When we talk about good leadership, we tend to focus on individuals.
Whether it’s Nelson Mandella, Jacinda Ardern or Steve Jobs, we can fall into the trap of looking for a “great man”*
For me, leadership isn’t a position; it’s a process.
It’s relational.
That might be the relationship between followers and a single individual.
But it can also be the multi-faceted connections between a high-performing team, where leadership comes from multiple memebrs at different times.
The commonality is the purpose behind it.
Those individuals didn’t set out to lead.
They didn’t seek power and influence.
They saught to make a difference.
That is leadership.
* I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with these individuals as great leaders. I’m purely offering them up as commonly cited examples.
“Great man” is a theory/model of leadership; it is gender agnostic, despite the phrasing.
