Comments on: Leadership Myth #1: we are all leaders

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:49:09 +0000

A couple of key points on the subject.

1. Leaders are people who others choose to follow vs. managers or administrators who you are forced to follow.

2. You cannot assume a leadership role unless there are people willing to follow. If you are in a group of Type-A personalities, chances are that none of them wants to be a follower.

3. You are not born with leadership skills. You are born with personality traits and abilities that can facilitate the development of Leadership skills. Some people are willing to follow a person with specific personality traits but that doesn’t necessarily make you a leader.

4. Being a leader isn’t necessarily a good thing. Adolf Hitler was a very effective leader but he certainly wasn’t a “good” leader.

5. It is hard to lead if you don’t know where you want to go. Leaders by nature are very decisive and getting them to change course is difficult (even if they are implementing a strategy that is doomed to fail).

6. There are few opportunities to learn leadership skills unless you are pre-selected and groomed (usually because of your personality) in a university, a company, or the military. You can also learn leadership skills from parents or acquaintances. The school system teaches conformity and inhibits the development of leadership skills.

By: Diane McWade

Diane McWade — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:22:13 +0000

Leadership role models are not confined to the workplace.

Mothers, Fathers, Aunts, Mentors, friends often have the opportunity and context to lead. And we all learn from that. These people can lead instinctively to set us on the right path.

However, I do agree that leadership is an innate quality rather than a taught process. Those who have it, though, can always improve through learning.

By: Ian

Ian — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 22:01:04 +0000

I have really had enough of the leadership focus so prevalent in academia. Give me some decent managers and I’m a happy bunny.

By: Pablo Reig

Pablo Reig — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:26:52 +0000

The leader has a vision and a mission, he has the tools to make things happen and uses them. Wise enough to delegate most of the work onto the right people: those who will deliver. Wise enough to determine who those people are and what are the best possible decisions. Repeated success or repeated disaster recovery will then make him become a LEADER.
While Rome’s fall began when its rulers started adopting oriental leadership habits, germanic tribes got to mine the eternal empire. Sir Robert Graves reminds us that “barbaric” leadership was based on how good the king was in convincing his nobles on these two premises:
-I am the king, I had a problem to solve and you have the solution, therefore our success will depend on how good you are in making it happen.
-I am the king, this has to be done and big honor will go to the enlightened leader that brings success.
If a germanic king had temptations to govern by his own lights and by direct orders he would be near from reaching the divine right of having his skull as the main toy for a football match.