What sort of leader are you?
In most walks of life a good skill to have is the ability to lead people. Whether it is as a parent with children; a Coach or player in a local football team; a manager/owner/employee in a small business; a member of a team within a larger business; a member/organiser of a book club; a member/organiser of a rambling group etc...
Daft (2005) states that:
Leadership has been a topic of interest to historians and philosophers since ancient times, but scientific studies began only in the twentieth century. Scholars and other writers have offered more than 350 definitions of the term leadership, and one authority on the subject has concluded that leadership is "one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on Earth.
(Daft, 2005, 4)
Some definitions by famous business people also suggest there are many ways in which it can be characterised:
A good leader is not necessarily the most popular person in their business, but the best ones are liked because they are respected for their clarity and vision... Effective leadership is about earning respect, and it's also about personality and charisma
(Alan Sugar)
The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay
(Steve Jobs)
So it is not easily definable and means different things to different people. But, over the years, some interesting ideas about how to be a good leader have been written and you can take them on board and decide on what sort of leader you are going to be.
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This resource was developed as part of an Erasmus+ project, funded with support from the European Commission under grant agreement 2016-1-SE01-KA203-22064.
The project was a collaboration between:
- The University of Borås, Sweden
- The University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland
- The University of Alcalá, Spain
- Digital Connections, Scotland
This resource has been released under Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA 4.0.
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