What is Leadership?

There are hundreds of answers to the question, "What is leadership?" Some practical observations drawn from experience working with effective leaders include:

• Leaders have followers. If you are charging up a hill, saber drawn, and no one’s behind you, you are not a leader. You are an individual contributor with a big problem on your hands.
• Leadership is in the person not the title. A title can confer authority but not leadership.
• Leadership ability is best judged by followers, constituents and results over time
• Some leaders stand the test of time, others do not, even though we may pay them enormous speaking fees in the interim.
• Not every one wants to be a leader but some accept the title in order to get a raise
• Not every one can be a leader, pop psychology to the contrary. Self mastery can make you a strong individual contributor and is necessary but not sufficient for leadership.

M. M. Chemers

Kaiser, Hogan and Craig add "leadership involves influencing individuals to willingly contribute to the good of the group" and "coordinating and guiding the group to achieve its goals."

Effective leadership adds a visionary touch to the relationship between leader and follower. These are inspiring answers to "What is leadership?"

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

John Quincy Adams

A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go but ought to be.

Roslyn Carter

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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