Leadership.
Methods, Models and Theories
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Leadership.Methods, Models and Theories |
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Leadership. Methods, Models and Theories (A-Z) |
Leadership Community of Interest
Leadership Forum
Leadership Education & Events
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| ● Patrick Patrong (USA) | Are Leaders Born or Made? | "To say that Leaders are born, would also say that criminals are also born. Leadership like most attributes are learned behavior. True, some have these learning experiences earlier in life and as a result have more practice. Yet, other have been practicing leadership skills, without a formal definition of leadership." | |
| ● (India) | Are Leaders born or made? | "Leaders can certainly be made and one should possess these following faces to become a leader: Charisma, Consideration Intellectual Stimulation Courage Dependability Flexibility Integrity Judgement Respect for others " | |
| ● (USA) | Leaders: born or made? | "A leader is born out of the circumstances surrounding the problem. You can train and groom anyone for anything. If they're unwilling to stand up and take the consequences of their actions however, they won't lead. Leaders are usually those who have the best skill set fit for the given issue that feel the most confident to lead (relatively speaking about those around them). It doesn't matter how they got the confidence to do so, it only matters that they can demonstrate to others that they do." | |
| ● (UAE) | Can leadership be generated or is it born gift? | "I strongly believe that leadership is sure a born gift. One may attempt to develop it but a natural leader only is an effective leader. I would hesitate to recommend learning leadership as a course, one may only refine the skills. During our class projects, sometimes the project leaders were picked up at random. In all such teams where the so called team leaders were not the "leaders", it ended up with a poor output. You can not make somebody to lead. To lead requires certain inbuilt characteristics. How come one may learn to sacrifice? How come one may learn to be visionary? It is not possible. Have you ever noticed when children play the game of teacher and students, why only one or two prefer to become the teacher, not all? There lies the answer. To lead is a passion, and it is better if it is by heart and natural." | |
| ● (Canada) | Anyone can lead if they have passion | "Absolutely anyone can learn to lead... if they really want to. I think 2 things can make a leader out of anyone, and you can easily find examples of unlikely heros and leaders all around. First you need to really care about the cause you are leading (everyone is passionate about something - but you need to find it). Second there are some skills you need to learn, and don't ever let anyone tell you you cannot learn them and learn them well. Don't get stuck on one idea of what a great leader is. There are charismatic motivational leaders, commanding directing leaders, empathetic collaberative leaders and analytical leaders who are followed because of their undeniable proof of results. Randomly chosen leaders for school and work projects fail because they lack passion about the project, not because they are missing the leadership gene." | |
| ● (England) | Leadership: some are more talented than others... | "Like physical skills cognitive skills can be developed to make individuals successful in life including leadership. However some individuals are born with more talent than others. As Woody Allen would say "life is a bitch". There there will be variance in leadership ability which is a mixture of talent and developed skills. A good read is Malcolm Gladwell's "The Outliers" and "Blink" in this aspect. Regards" | |
| ● Sherry Lambrecht (USA) | Leaders are made and born | "Good leaders normally have to have a leadership quality or instinct. The rest is old fashion hard knocks, learning from your mistakes, and what is done with that information." | |
| ● (India) | Leadership | "Leadership is not a born gift it is more based on the traits, experience,l earning and the perception. Leadership is an art or a skill to get the things done accurately and timely. Leadership is a style of influencing others and convince them to follow you. It is basically more of an individual approach that means how a person perceives the things and use his/her skills." | |
| ● (India) | Leaders | "Leaders are by birth (Political), but good leaders are by good practice (To lead others towards good). Don't get confused." | |
| ● Gerard Gielkens (Netherlands) | True leaders have the best of both worlds | "True leadership is a golden combination of natural skills by birth and a life-long training of these competentions. Everyone has his own conpetences by birth which are nursed and developed in the first period of childhood. That explains why people without these natural competences don't develop true leadership even if they follows all courses on leadership, and some peolple are great leaders without any training. Therefore, in my opinion true leadership is a combination of natural competences regarding cognition and intuition combined with a continuous proces of learning bij experience and reflection." |
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| ● William (Botswana) | Power Aspect of Triadic Leadership | "This is an insightful contribution towards leadership matters. On the power aspect may I add by saying leaders should work hard on learning how not to use power and then that's when the people they lead will see them as human beings something which can bring good relations at work!" |
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| ● ganesh tiwari (India) | Leaderships for Ethics or Ethics for Leadership | "Leaders don't do different things, but they do things differently ! It's here that one must demarcate the thin lining of self-actualization & self-realization for leaders. Whether (s)he is practicing leadership for ethics or ethics for leadership. In the former case it is self-propelled inner motivation which brings Value Based Development, while in the later case it may be forced or compulsion from external forces where there is every likelihood for deviation & thus imbalanced or unethical development. It is up to the leader to decide which way (s)he goes." | |
| ● William Gomes (Brazil) | Creating and mantaining a culture of continuous improviment | "Yes! The new age will not bring any possibility of less organizational pressure. To do the right thing, right, at the right time is not sufficient from now on, so the leadership challenger is directing the organization collaborators focused on clients, improving and innovating their activities. We are seeing that every one should get the importance of perfect understanding of business process management to transform the ambient in a process oriented organization." | |
| ● Hashem Hamad (Egypt) | Inherited or Acquired | "Ii guess the question "is leadership inherited or acquired" remains unanswered. If leadership is an attitude, then it tends to be inherited rather than acquired." | |
| ● Prakash rao (India) | Learners are leaders | "Learners are leaders. Delearning is also a learning process. Leaders must do "5S" of their mind. It should be kept free for receiving inputs from others. They should constantly change the process." | |
| ● (Nigeria) | Environment of the Leader | "It might necessary to note that the extent to which a leader uses his or her attributes will depend on the dynamic and fluidity nature of these attributes with respect to the local environment of the leader. The issue on ground at each organization is important. Most leaders acquire all sorts of skills but could meet up with resistance with implementation in the organization. Adaptation of learned and acquired skills is important. Another major aspect to address in the issue of staff motivation especially in developing world like Nigeria where I work and every staff is concerned about what goes home with him or her. The level of poverty and the high illiteracy level poses big challenges even to the best of leaders. The best category of people to lead, manage or govern are the uneducated sets. Their motivational needs are not expensive and mainly physiological but the issue is whether they are the type of group to achieve the organizational goal." | |
| ● Nwene Anthony (Nigeria) | Motivate your Subordinates | "I think to be a good leader, you should also motivate your subordinates adequately for their positive input into the organization. In so doing it's easier for them to key into your vision and help you achieve it and more with little effort." | |
| ● (Netherlands) | Trait Leadership Theory page | "See also our Trait Leadership Theory page for more on traits of leaders." |
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| ● (India) | Quick Win Paradox | "True, no companion will give you a walk over or smooth ride, still those who manage earliest break through, get recognition and followers in the organisation. You can be a winner through optimising the use of your team." | |
| ● Venkatakrishnan (India) | Short to Long Term | "Yes, individual to collective is true, at the same time the 5 traps are short lived. Think and act for long term be part of the team. Support, monitor and celebrate the team win." | |
| ● Frances (USA) | New Management Position | "I lived that New Management position and I found that listening and asking a few questions to understand those who work for you and those you work for is key in the first 6 months of a new mgmt position. People don't always want you to solve their problems, they want you to listen and let them bounce off ideas to see that they are managing situations correctly or fairly. Being positive, non confrontational and seeing the big picture is key." | |
| ● Charu (India) | Individual vs Collective | "I am not fully satisfied with this. Acc to me in order to be successful you need to be situational: it is not always true that only teamwork matters, your individual efforts also matter a lot. If you think that only by motivating your subordinates you will make it, this is not always true. To win something in your life you also have to put your best to get something in life." | |
| ● Ram (India) | Leadership Success depends on Team | "Leadership success nowadays is a one way ticket, where the leader talks and talks, sets his goal and gets it done by his team. His ability to get accepted as a leader depends on how his team delivers." |
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| ● Gurmeet (India) | The incomplete leader | "Very sensible observation. The concept of distributed leadership is practicable and also ensures participation and ownership across the team." | |
| ● Zdzislaw (USA) | Incomplete Leader | "The idea presented by Donald is such an important idea. I see too many leadership coaches come in and create expectations that no one could ever satisfy. The idea of building a leadership team to complement strengths is important. Not only does it address limitations of each leader but it also enhances the organizations capability to respond to emerging situatons better. Different situations require different leadership styles, by building a team with complementary strengths dramatically increases an organizations ability to deal with different circumstances." | |
| ● Debbie Payne (Canada) | The Incomplete Leader | "The question, should we stop expecting so much of leaders in organizations, as related to being the "perfect leader" strikes me as odd in some ways. My sense is we should be expecting more of leaders, not perfection, but more different leadership and leadership that is holistic, with a stronger focus on development of employees as leaders. We need the the right leaders in the right positions at the right time AND we need them to recognize this, and recognize when they need to move to another place/time to contribute in new ways." | |
| ● Odukoya S.O.A. (Nigeria) | Incomplete Leader | "I think what we should be talking about is not a perfect leader but perfect leadership, and I will like to inform you that there is perfect leadership BUT that is something only the Holy Spirit can do in a mortal man." |
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| ● Erik Ottosson (Sweden) | Leadership and Ownership | "Dr Hemjiths reflection on leadership is truly beautiful. I´m greateful for his contribution. As I understand the essence of "Leadership with Ownership", a leader can make use of the individual energy of the followers, who will react spontaneously as soon as they become "owners". This view on leadership clearly brings the issue of individual responsibility to the surface. A leader can have good or bad intentions, but as soon as the threshold of ownership is past, people will follow their leader, the logical reflections will come later, in the light of the factual events and with second thougt. Often too late, Hitler, Mao et.al have proven this." | |
| ● Paulo Caius (Spain) | Leadership deals with people | "Leadership is something related to people and how they are organized in order to achieve goals. During past decades, we could see many theories and all of them can fail or win according to our skills commanding people and generate wealth to be distributed according the culture of each organization. BSC is a fundamental tool as well as Business Intelligence. Many case studies in the world can be analysed and all of them depend on the capability of approaching the social science of the organization. So, before incorporating all of these great practices, please try to understand if you will be able to engage humans on that." | |
| ● Ahmed Altaf (India) | Leadership and Ownership | "I truly agree with the concept of non-existance of leadership without Ownership only when we talk in terms of Organisation and Business. But leadership as a whole does exist without Ownership. A good example we have is 'Gandhiji' who was not the owner of anything but he took a step further for Freedom and succeeded." | |
| ● Al Gates (Canada) | Leadership | "I think Leadership is 'Emotion in Motion'." | |
| ● Patric Hohl (Germany) | Ownership | "last sentence of Dr Hemjith reflection is for me the strongest one. Leader will influence world, companies, but if their behaviour, and use of their powerfull skills, are self oriented and not people or company, it will not help the system in a sustainable way. Ownership is adding value to the whole, not the one." |
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| ● Gerald C. (UK) | Universal Leadership Concept | "I agree. Interestingly, there is a leadership theory that actually says there is no universal best leadership method or style. The best leadership approach depends on various internal and external constraints (factors) or as you call it: the context. See "Contingency Theory" on this page for more info." | |
| ● Alex Lowy (Canada) | Leadership and Decision Making | "There is a view that still prevails in many places that effective leaders are especially capable of making tough decisions, even in the face of time pressures, little data and much ambiguity. The best leaders resist doing this however, recognizing that higher levels of complexity and uncertainty often demand patience, dialogue and sustained attention from a host of affected parties. Great leaders recognize the difference between decisions, problems and dilemmas, and treat them differently. They make decisions, solve problems and manage and exploit dilemmas." | |
| ● K. Venkatesh (India) | Leadership means Influence | "Leading is influencing without coercion or authority. Leadership demands an ability to sell a vision and create a consensus and realizing the vision. For people to buy the leader's vision, the leader has to exercise influence over the team. Mahatma Gandhi's leadership is an excellent example of influencing masses to buy his vision of satyagraha struggle for Indian independence. It was unusual to follow such a path. Ernst Shakleton showed resilience and poise in face of adversity to show his mean what grit means. Few would have had Shakleton's strength of mind in his failed attempt to reach South Pole when his ship hit a ice formation. He converted every adversity into opportunity and brought all his men back alive despite harsh conditions. Any leader should show what it means to reach the goal and lead by example. Mahatma Gandhi and Ernst Shakleton showed extraordinary skills of leadership to realize their dream." | |
| ● Leo1 (NZ) | Leadership is what you want it to be | "Rely more on our feelings and doing the right thing" | |
| ● Eddie (UK) | Leadership is context specific | "The old saying that no one size fits all, truly holds in this case - "no one leadership style fits all situation". This is the essence of the contingency theory!" | |
| ● Souvik (India) | Leadership styles | "Leading from the front in different situations applying different styles that suits each situation develops a leader." |
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| ● Barbara (USA) | Bennis viewpoint on Leadership | "More recently Bennis mentions 4 somewhat different factors that are essential for leaders in an environment of complexity and turbo-change, regardless of culture and context: 1. Adaptive capacity (sense of resilience, hardiness and creativity, seizing opportunities, learning)(~Management of Attention?). 2. Capacity to engage followers in a shared meaning (~Management of Meaning). 3. Finding out who they temselves are (emotional intelligence, ~Management of Self). 4. Rely on a moral compasss (a set of principles, a belief system, a set of convictions). Depending on the context these 4 factors need to be supplemented with other factors. (Business, The Ult. Resource, 2nd edition, p259)" |
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| ● Barbara (USA) | Background Bennis | "To appreciate the leadership thinking of Bennis well, you should know that he grew up during WWII, at the time when iconic figures such as Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler and Mussolini were dominating the world. Furthermore, Bennis was an admirer of Douglas McGregor (Theory X Y). Bennis' thinking implements Theory Y from the perspective of leadership." | |
| ● Stan Heard (USA) | Management and Leadership | "It seems that Leadership has been successfully removed from the work of Management in most everyone's mind. Management was once seen as the blending of four functions - Planning, Organizing, Leading and Auditing. Leadership was seen as the work a manager does to inspire others to pursue the goals of the organization. Since Bennis has a new POEM for management, I wonder if anyone has ever successfully Executed in an organizational environment without Leading. Once you remove Leading as work that a Manager does, you can and must create all sorts of plausible reasons for failure. In the end it is all Leadership Failure. Maybe we should re-unite the concepts of Leadership and Management." | |
| ● David Arnold (USA) | Natures of Managers and Leaders | "Maybe a more fundamental viewpoint of management versus leadership perspectives lies within their Manager - Tactics, shorter scope, objective based, detail driven (reacts to situations, plans based upon more immediate objectives) Leader - Strategy, broad based, long range, directional (views threats, opportunities, resource needs, needed compentencies, etc.)" |
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| ● (South Africa) | Nature of Managers and Leaders | "The two must go hand in hand for me and I agree with Stan. For me a Leader is some one who has operational involvement in the acronym Planning Organising and Execution Monitoring. I wouldnt really seperate the two. Thanks" | |
| ● (Greece) | Managers and Leaders | "When the two have ever been separated, the two functions are one. You can't have one without the other, like love and marriage. One needs the other to exist. It is a simple case of good cop (leader) and bad cop (manager). Hey, even Mr. president elect, is using this." |
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| ● Uma Shashikumar (India) | Leadership barries for Women | "Women in Leadership role is challenging. Especially when she is at the Core level. She has to face the ego problem with the male in the top. When she proposes the valued views or ideas, she is been pushed down, ignored and criticized. Leadership role as women is challenging." | |
| ● Ellie M. (USA) | Labyrinth instead of glass ceiling | "In a HBR article (Sept07) Alice Eagly and Linda Caril say there is no glass ceiling (one reason that women cannot reach top functions), but rather a labyrinth of obstacles (at various management levels). They mention the following leadership obstacles for women: 1. Vestiges of prejudice (men still earn more) 2. Resistance to woman's leadership (due to gender stereotyping as described in the comment by Elaine) 3. Issues of leadership style (women struggle to adopt an appropriate leadershipstyle, because of issue #2) 4. Demands of family life 5. Underinvestment in social capital (lack of time to invest in networking: the core work activities plus issue #4 consume all their time)." |
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| ● Ellie M. (USA) | Women reaching the C-Suite | "In another HBR article (June 2008, p.36) , Louann Brizendine adds another reason as to why women don't make it to the C-suite: according to her it's a timing issue. In many companies, the selection for C-suite candidates takes place when managers are in their forties. For men this is a good time, for women not, because at that moment their stress levels are high and their multitasking capabilities are challenged to the maximum. At this age, their preadoloscent and teenage children require a lot of attention at unpredictable times, and also women are beginning to experience normal hormonal changes leading up to menopause. Brizendine recommends to open the window of promotability wider - especially for women." |
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| ● April K (USA) | An Observation | "Ellie, #5 struck a chord for me. I think part of the problem resides with women and scarcity. I do not see women supporting and networking in the same fashion that men do. Social pressures and messaging has developed a false sense of scarcity at the top which puts women in an adversarial position with each other. The results of this are very destructive. I think women hold part of the power to change this equation." |
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| ● Terry (South Africa) | Unlearning | "Good idea unlearning. Ever heard the saying that "Old ideas only die, when the people who hold them die"? Unlearning should be replaced with shuffling - move leaders to new areas regularly - maybe their old ideas will die when they move, having no currency in the new environment." | |
| ● Arun (India) | Vision and strategy planning | "A CEO selection is also based on the past performance, and what he got and can get to the table a major criteria, his/her past baggage of ideas and practices get carried as a baggage from a different service environment. A change of place or task does not necessarily change the outlook, it acts on most counts as a silent backdrop, and gets splurged in discussions, as past historical data as a benchmark. Hence many CEO's with the change in seat of power have been far from succesfull achievers." |
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| ● Pam Brooks (USA) | Bad CEO | "Yes you can tell if you know what you are looking for. I am a certified behavior analyst and work with a large executive staffing firm here in the US. I have helped them with all of their top placements and they have been amazingly accurate for the past three years. (Thinking, Behaviors, Motivation) the three keys to understand." |
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