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Research shows that
leadership may be difficult to teach but research also shows
that it can be learned. Stay with us to find out how you can learn
to be a leader.
We believe that leadership can be developed so
question then arises, how do you start your journey in leadership development
There are really three things that you have to think about: the first is
what kind of model or paradigm of leadership
do you have in your mind. The second is
that you have to develop high level of self-awareness.
The third is then that you have to develop a set of skills
around leadership. So lets take each of those in turn
The first stage of leadership development is to think about what you believe leadership is
because clearly what you believe leadership is, that's what you will do
in your leadership role. If you believe that it is about telling people
what to do,
that's what you are going to do.
If you believe it's about developing people, then that's what you are going to do.
And an important part of that is whether you believe that leaders are born,
or can be developed. Well, what is the research evidence say?
Research only shows that there's a
heritability component in leadership. In other words,
our genetic makeup contributes, we reckon about a third
to the behaviors that are involved in leadership. Now what that means is that
two thirds can be developed based on experience.
There is no doubt that modern organisations are changing. And changing very rapidly,
the advent of social media, the globalisation of organisations, the changes in
generations coming into the work force are pushing us to a point where
the kind of leadership that we're going to need would be different.
Recently, the HAY group in London produced a report called
leadership 2030, looking at the kind of leadership that's going to be needed
as we move into the future. The HAY a group have identified that the
characteristics that leaders are going to need, include a deep
ethical sense, a deep sense of intellectual curiosity.
And very importantly the ability to develop and sustain loyalty
from a diverse group of employees
over whom they may not actually have direct authority.
That is a challenge for leadership development.
So, when you are thinking about your leadership journey
it is not sufficient to just think about leadership for today's world,
you really need to be thinking about leadership for the world five years
or ten years from now. There is an emerging body of research that shows
transformational leadership
works and works in modern organisations.
The four key components of transformational leadership are
firstly what we call idealised influence. Transformational leaders are people who are
interested in the people they lead as much as in
the task that they have to achieve. They operate out of
a sense of integrity
the are people who really have the capacity
to make leaders out of followers. Somebody once said, that they
they lead with you and ahead of you.
The second component is intellectual stimulation.
A transformational leader is somebody who questions the old ways of doing things
who pushes people to find new models,
new questions, new ways of thinking about old problems.
The third component is to do with motivation,
transformational leaders have the capacity to challenge
and also to create meaning to make work and work-life
interesting for the people that they they work with.
The final component of transformational leadership
is that they are concerned about individuals.
They think about the needs of individuals for
growth and achievements. And they have a capacity
to work out how far somebody needs to be stretched,
what their comfort zones are, and what their needs are
to be developed. So, if we take those four components together
somebody who meets those kinds of challenges under those components
could be described as a a transformational leader. Leadership
is a complex subject but leadership development need not be.
The important thing is to focus on the journey
the processes involved in the journey both for our own personal leadership development
and for the development our organisations.
I believe that by developing transformational leadership
both in ourselves and in our organisations both we and our
organisations will learn to
adapt to the modern world. That we will be able to deal with the complexities
that are emerging,
we will survive, and we will flourish. I hope you found some of these ideas useful
for your own leadership development. If so,
I would encourage you to subscribe to our YouTube channel