Are You a Leader? (Hint: It Depends on How You Define Leadership)

Are you a leader?

I asked this question to a group of Atlas Corps Fellows last month and almost all of them raised their hands. I was impressed. Right before that, I had asked them to share their own definitions of leadership. While everyone had a slightly different take on what it meant to be a leader, it was clear that most of the Fellows were able to see themselves in whatever definition they were using.

But I did notice that there were a few in the group who did not raise their hands. (Surprisingly, they were both men.) When I asked them why they didn’t consider themselves to be leaders, one Fellow said it was because he didn’t see himself as the kind of person who tells people what to do. His response drove home the point for me that our perceptions of ourselves stem from our own definitions of leadership. In short, whether or not you perceive yourself as a leader depends heavily on how you define leadership.

These are some of the ideas about and definitions of leadership that I use in my life and work:

Margaret Wheatley: scholar, author, organizational consultant and researcher

“Leader: anyone who wants to help, who is willing to step forward to make a difference in the world.”

Frances Hesselbein: CEO of Girl Scouts from 1976-1990

“Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do.”

Warren Bennis: scholar, organizational consultant, author, and pioneer of leadership studies

“Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. That simple, that difficult.”

Otto Scharmer: Senior Lecturer at MIT and the founding chair of the Presencing Institute

Leadership: The capacity of a system to sense and shape its future. The Indo-European root of the word “leadership,” leith, means “to go forth,” “to cross a threshold,” or “to die.” That root meaning, which suggests that the experience of letting go and then going forth into another world that begins to take shape only once we overcome the fear of stepping into the unknown, is at the very heart and essence of leadership.

How do you define leadership? Do you consider yourself a leader?

Image credit: Third Sector Magazine

Barbara Saunders

These expanded notions of leadership address two existing problems: that of bosses whose definition of leading begins and ends with commanding and that of people without official managerial or executive status or authority who feel unempowered about pressing forward with original ideas.

I see another sticky problem getting seeded here, though. It is imprecise to call any and every kind of important contribution “leadership.” Is the field really divided into “leaders” and “passive losers”? Or is “leadership” one gift among many that are just as worthy and just as needed?

I would be one of those people who would not have raised my hand. My strength in an organization is usually that I introduce and clarify ideas so that other people can make decisions. In a certain sense, I tend to take on an “objective” stance as a generator and tester of ideas not so much a person who makes decisions about what to do with them. I believe many people professionally skilled in domains (IT, marketing, logistics, etc.) other than management take similar positions.

I think that calling that “leadership” reflects the same kind of title inflation as what I’ve seen in the corporate world where a senior writer and editor (which is what I am) is now handled by “executive search firms.” I feel no need to call myself an “executive” and similarly no need to call myself a “leader.”
@Thomasstanley

I follow the definition:

“Leadership is mobilizing people to do difficult work.” this describes the kind of skills you must have to get people to make progress on deep difficult issues. This is tricky especially when there are some people who don’t want to do it.
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http://www.haasjr.org Lindawood

Thanks, Rosetta. At the Haas, Jr. Fund we've been experimenting for five years with different ways to support the leaders of the groups we support — not just executive directors but the second tier leaders and board leaders. I really appreciate how you've put a spotlight on what it means to be a leaders, how to emerge as a leader, how to become more resilient. These are the questions of our time for folks who have stepped into leadership.
http://twitter.com/thomasstanley thomasstanley

I hold to the definition that Leadership is mobilizing people to do difficult, daunting work. something severely hard to do. And because I believe leadership is an action, not a position or authority. I by no means, consider myself a leader but rather one who tries to practice leadership.

T