Key points
Defining leadership and management
Definitions of leadership are many and varied. The Leadership Trust talks of “a responsibility to create a culture and climate where people want to work and to be… The key to effective leadership is to know, control and understand ourselves as leaders. Then, and only then, will we be able to lead and enable others”. The Trust puts forward a view of leadership which uses personal power – as opposed to authority power, earned purely from hierarchy - to win the hearts and minds of people and achieve a common purpose.
The Windsor Leadership Trust defines the objective of leadership as ‘direction setting’ based on “persuasion, intuition, and sheer bravado just as much as sciences of analysis, synthesis and design”. Cranfield University takes a similar view, arguing leadership is about an intangible mix of individual qualities and behaviours: “There is no magic formula for high performance leadership. Strategic vision alone is not enough. The high performance leader must possess the courage to live their vision to the full and the ability to motivate others to follow. They inspire colleagues to take difficult decisions guided by their vision.”
The Centre for Leadership Studies concludes that leadership is a process with three key elements:
- It is non-coercive: people voluntarily follow the leader, because they recognise their authority, vision and the value of their approach.
- It is goal-directed: leaders define and communicate a purpose and a vision to be achieved.
- It is group-based: quite simply, leaders need followers.
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