So what is leadership???
Ninety years of research, hundreds of university curricula, thousands of professors, hundreds of thousands of published articles, and millions of dollars have been spent trying to answer this question.
Throughout the past nine decades, depending on who you asked and when you asked them, researchers have come up with over 220 definitions of leadership to explain their theories of what leadership is and isn’t. However, certain elements kept repeating themselves throughout the various definitions of leadership.
So a better question is: what common themes have been repeated throughout the 90+ years of research and 220+ different definitions of leadership.
I found 4 themes repeated throughout the decades. The 4 themes are:
1. Process
Process includes multiple steps, defined or undefined, or a series of steps or actions, as opposed to a single action
2. Influence
The act of controlling, persuading, causing an entity to move, respond, act, or not act in a certain way
3. People
A group of people, implying more than one person
4. Purpose
A specific direction, result, defined goal, or outcome
In all 220+definitions of leadership, one or more of these themes exists.
As I said in a previous article, Leadership vs. Leaders, my aim here is not to coin a new definition of leadership. 220 is more than enough.
Rather, I have identified a definition that already encapsulates all four of these themes of leadership.
Ralph Stogdill’s 1950 definition of leadership best encompasses all these themes in one simple definition. His definition is:
‘LEADERSHIP is the process of influencing the movement of a group toward a particular outcome’
As you can see, each theme is represented in Stoghill’s definition. Therefore, this will be our working definition for leadership.
Knowing the definition is only the start. Do you know what influence is…or the process of influencing…or how to properly do it? Do you know what a group is…compared to an organization? Or do you know how to define a specific outcome…and the proper way to communicate that outcome to a group so they will follow you?
I didn’t. In fact, I’m still learning how. And if you’re anything like me, you need to hear things more than once, and in different formats in order to get it down pat.
Do this, read the next article on “…And officer, That’s When the Fight Started” to learn the only place where leadership exists and where leadership never exists. You will learn why His Leadership will only work in this situation and will never work in that one.
CLICK and READ the article now.
Lead & Trust!
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