What is Leadership

            What is leadership?  A simple question yet most people do not know the actual meaning of leadership.  If you type what is leadership in Google search, you will get a basic definition that only scratches the surface of the true meaning.  According to Google, leadership is the action of leading a group of people or an organization.  Prior to this leadership class, the only word I thought was most important in that definition was leading.  After this class, I now realize that “people” is the most important word in that definition.

            I’d like to start with what leadership is not.  I feel that it’s essential for people to recognize what leadership isn’t before they establish a great foundational of what leadership is.  Leadership has nothing to do with one’s position in the hierarchy of a company.  Becoming a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a fortune 500 company does not make you a leader automatically; title is irrelevant to leadership.  Also, leadership has nothing to do with personal attributes.  Personal attributes are traits that define who you are as a person, not a leader; leadership is not an adjective.  In addition, leadership is not management.  Leadership and management are two terms that have no common denominator; they are not the same.  Managers plan, solve, hire, fire, coordinate, and many other tasks; however, one task that is not under their portfolios is lead.  Managers are not leaders; only leaders lead people.

            So, now that we know what leadership isn’t, let us get down to business and answer this simple question:  what is leadership?  Before, I thought the meaning of leadership as someone who has power and total control over a task; I didn’t do the terminology justice.  Leaders are individuals who empower and influence their followers.  Leaders need followers; followers need leaders.  Both parties are equally important; they coexist.  Leaders and followers define each other; they complete the equation.  Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal.  I came across that definition a long time ago and I never bothered to fully understand what it meant; however, the day has come.  Bill Gates, an inventor and a philanthropist, once said, “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.”

            Let us analyze this definition and see if it supports my understanding of leadership.  The first sentence states that leadership is a process of social influence.  As I’ve stated earlier, leaders influence their followers to get the most out of them.  The definition continues, “…which maximizes the efforts of others.”  Leadership requires others; your teammates, your followers.  This implies that the success of a team should be the top priority on any leaders’ list; leaders should always think about the good of the whole team.  Furthermore, I mentioned that leadership is not about your rank or personal attributes.  Frankly, I was right.  The definition doesn’t say a thing about what defines you or your title.

            After the pipeline activity a few weeks ago, a classmate made a comment that stuck out to me.  She said that because she did not the golden voice, she was ignored.  Frankly, she was spot on.  The pipeline activity was quite interesting.  Matthew had divided the class into two teams:  one that couldn’t talk, and one that could.  He selected all the students who often talk on the quiet team, and the ones who normally don’t talk on the talking team.  The first task was fairly easy; however, Matthew challenged the class in the second task.  At first, it felt like team b, the talking team, was really trying to overcome the challenge.  The team was getting multiple feedbacks from some members.  Some were heard; others were not.  That is due to the fact that some people do have the golden voice, and some just do not.

Another comment that stood out to me which was made by another classmate is about the importance of actually listening to your peers.  Listening is an active process by which we make sense of, assess, and respond to what we hear.  The listening process involves five stages: receiving, understanding, evaluating, remembering, and responding.  If we didn’t understand the topic, we didn’t evaluate it properly; therefore we weren’t actually listening.  We all like to say that we are good listeners, but are we?  Honestly, this is a skill that I need to improve on.  Here is what usually happens:  during interviews or talk sessions, people ask questions or make comments about a specific topic, and they expect the listeners to actually listen.  Only problem is, some of us would listen to key words, think about a response, and ignore the rest of the question or comment.  This is due to multiple reasons:  topic is not interesting, very hard to comprehend, not relatable; the list can go on.  Maya Angelou said, “When you know better you do better.”  I say, “When you listen better you know and do better.”

            Patience was also a crucial factor.    It is something that I need to work on for many reasons.  Patience is a virtue; the ability to wait on something without getting frustrated is an amazing quality.  As I’ve mentioned in the first paragraph, both parties were very interested in the success of this activity; however, after multiple failures, classmates lost patience and wanted to give up on the activity.  Robert H. Schuller once said, “Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come.”  This is one of my favorite quotes; it explains how patience is essential to making the right decisions.  Another quote that I like is by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  He said, “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”  No matter what situation you are in, the outcome will always be rewarding when you are patient.