Why do we have leaders?

Leadership is all about enhancing and enabling people to develop to their fullest potential by developing their abilities and empowering them to become their best versions. Here is why.

“I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers’
Ralph Nader

If you were to Google ‘leadership’ you will get millions of results. They will cover such a wide range of qualities, attributes, traits, and skills that are simply impossible for one leader to acquire and excel at.

One more issue is that leadership is often confused with ‘management’.

Management is the ability to get results, meet targets, set performance standards, build systems and define processes; these are all about managing the organization and its people.

That involves actions such as building rapport and developing relationships.

It requires the leader to build an understanding of personalities, values, and beliefs of their teams and stakeholders.

It demands that a leader listen to people and unearth perspectives, concerns, ideas and feelings and build consensus, alignment and collaboration.

Leaders have to focus on both aspects. The first aspect is the technical or functional dimension of being a manager and ensuring that the organizational wheels are moving in an aligned and consistent manner

The second aspect is to build the human skills required to motivate, influence and inspire people.

The one true responsibility of a leader is to enable others to grow and develop to their highest potential

Image credit Tom Geraghty