The objective of this article is to show that leadership cannot be conceived either as a role or as a type of person. Let’s start with the idea of role.
To say that leadership is not a role is very counterintuitive. Most of the so-called leaders we admire or hate are in roles of authority over people.
If we say that they are not leaders by virtue of their role, then what are we to call them? How about managers, executives, chiefs, coordinators or facilitators?
The problem with viewing leadership as a role is that it becomes the exclusive domain of people in positions of authority. We do have a concept of “informal leadership” but that’s the same basic idea: a person informally taking charge of a group and is thus an authority figure.
We need a more empowering concept of leadership, one that encourages ALL employees or anyone outside of organizations to recognize how they can SHOW leadership, which is something different from BEING a leader.
Leadership Shown Without Authority
Here are some instances of leadership that do not involve positional authority, formal or informal.
- Leading by example. Senior executives often say they lead by example but what gets overlooked is the fact that ALL employees can lead by example by working smarter or more efficiently.
- Promoting a better way. MLK Jr, had a leadership impact on millions of people by advocating for better treatment of African Americans, not by getting work done through a team. Innovators can show bottom-up leadership by developing and promoting new products or services to management.
- Outsider leadership. As soon as we see that leadership is a process of influence, not a role, we can allow that outsiders can show leadership. Innovators in AI or green energy sources can lead others around the world both by example and by actively promoting their innovations.
- Engaging leadership. Anyone can show leadership by asking people what they want and how they think they can get there in a way that fosters shared ownership of a decision. This is a coaching style of influence that can be a one-off set of actions, not an ongoing role.
- Group leadership: No, this is not leadership OF a group but leadership BY a group. Just as individual innovators can have a leadership impact on colleagues in other parts of the world working on the same technologies, whole countries can also have a leadership impact on other countries, either by promoting a better way or simply by example. For instance, we look to Sweden as a model of happiness or social program excellence. This is leading by example as shown by a country to other countries. Such leadership is evidence that leadership does not have to be shown only by individuals.
Leadership Cannot be Defined as a Type of Person
The last example, Group Leadership, shows that leadership can come from groups not just individuals. So why do we think of leadership as a type of person in the first place? It’s because we see leadership exclusively as being an authority figure over a group of people. Having authority for anything depends on responsibility. All role occupants have responsibilities: parents, lighthouse keepers, school janitors, doctors, repair technicians. We expect role occupants to carry out their responsibilities in line with our expectations.
People in charge of groups, regardless of whether we call them leaders or managers, have serious responsibilities to use resources in an ethical, efficient and productive manner. This is the source of seeing leaders as types of people. We can define their responsibilities in task effectiveness terms as well as in the need to have desirable human qualities of consideration and respect for others. They need to be well-rounded, good people. It's easy to see how thinking in terms of responsibilities leads us to define leadership as a type of person. But when we separate out the act of occasional influence from any roles, then this connection is not so clear, especially in leading by example where those showing leadership in this way totally lack the qualities necessary for authority roles over people.
Leadership Lacking Responsibility Factors
Great artists, musicians and sports figures throughout history have shown leadership by example. Lesser beings strive to emulate them. This is what leading by example means.
However, many such people may totally lack the personalities or skills to manage other people. In fact, some renowned artists are notoriously obnoxious people who don’t even have close friends. They are often irresponsible with money, relationships and their own health, so they could never be responsible for a team of people. Yet, we can’t deny that their actions and work have set a leadership example for their imitators.
The Place of Responsibility
We cannot dispense with our need to work with responsible people. We just need to call people in charge managers or executives rather than leaders. Managers occupy authority roles and are better at their jobs if they are responsible in all the ways we need them to be.
So What?
Leadership conceived as an occasional act of influence is extremely empowering. Making this change to our thinking has the potential to unleash the enormous talent of all employees who currently feel that leadership means being the boss which in turn means having all the answers and the right to call the shots. This leaves us with the old myth of “heads” and “hands” – the idea that the boss is the “head” who does the thinking while the “hands” are just there to do the work, to obey the “head”. How disempowering is this?
Searching for Leadership Opportunities
Normally, looking for leadership opportunities means seeking a position of greater authority. Here, it means looking for opportunities to make improvements in the way work is done or to the organization's products or services. Like Martin Luther King Jr, you can have a leadership impact on your organization by promoting better ways of doing things, thereby elevating your profile and potentially advancing your career. How empowering is this?