1. Leadership is Not Character-Specific
Throughout the breadth of literature written about leadership, the word ‘leadership’ has several different meanings. For some, the definition of a leadership is embodied in a person you know that was a great leader. And anyone who can do what he did is considered a leader.
Often times, we hear the word ‘leader’ used in conjunction with qualifiers describing what kind of leader a person is – “he’s a good leader”, “she’s a true leader”, “a successful leader is”, and so on. These qualifiers are useful for identifying the quality of leadership one provides. But why use these qualifiers? Because logically speaking, these qualifiers ‘good’ and ‘true’ are inherently contrasted against their opposite qualifiers, ‘bad’ and ‘untrue’. So if there’s such a thing as a ‘good leader’, then there must also be such a thing as a ‘bad’ leader – otherwise you wouldn’t need to qualify a leader as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. He would just be ‘a leader’.
Like I said, these qualifiers may accurately describe the quality of leadership someone’s provides. But they also muddy the waters when it comes to understanding what ‘leadership’ is. For our understanding of leadership leaves open the possibility that there can exist both good leadership and bad leadership. There can be an effective leader and an ineffective leader. In fact, the same person can hold both titles at the same time…to the same person – depending on the context (i.e., good father but horrible husband). So this notion that a ‘good leader’ is a leader, but a ‘bad leader’ isn’t a leader, just isn’t true. They both are leaders. That’s because leadership is not character specific.
Simply put, a ‘leader’ is the one who’s providing leadership.
This definition is not real deep or earth shattering. In fact, it’s very simple. Without muddying up the definition of a leader with a bunch of qualifiers, the person who has occupies the role and responsibility of providing the leadership is the leader – good, bad, or otherwise.
Which one are you?
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