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Thursday, November 30, 2017

Simple Definition of Leadership

Leadership - Much has been talked about it both in the scholarly literature and the professional circles. Job roles, such as the Team Leader, also requires one to take leadership of a team. Similarly, various functional roles and strategic business units advance the notion of leadership inherent in them. For instance, a product owner is expected to be a leader in understanding the strategic nature of the product although the role itself doesn't have any leader tag associated. Similarly, account manager to lead the client and project manager to lead the client, team, and performing organizations mandate leadership qualities in them - yet there is no tag "leader" associated.

In a number of training classes, such as PMP training and Agile training that I have done, classes that I have facilitated in the academic setting for adult learners, as well as in the corporate and professional circles that I associate with, the questions of whether one is a leader or not comes up! So, how can we define leadership in its simple form without attributing terms such as charismatic, transactional, situational, transformational, and servant definitions so that anyone regardless of any professional or personal role can relate to being a leader!

When I was traveling to Vietnam, I stopped by Hong Kong where I had to wait for the connecting flight. It is there that simple definition really clicked to me as I saw a picture of a flying character with the slogans written in Chinese. Now, I don't know what the transcription reads on that board but the definition of leadership as, "a superpower seeing the people beyond what they see themselves and supporting them to raise up to their capabilities!" came up in my mind.

Please see the video linked here to hear my thought! (If the hyperlink does not work, please visit https://youtu.be/YYE76ZQjEV0 ) Would you agree with this definition?  Share your thoughts.

Thanks.
Sriram