One of the most common mistakes, I have encountered in my career, was about the nature of leadership! Most people argue that leadership was an intrinsic role in modern business and in our society, while many others support the personal nature of leadership. Both sides have right, of course, and both sides have wrong too! Leadership is many things! If you have to tag it though, you should be most defiantly would go to the function part of the leadership!

Leadership Is Not A Role

Leadership Is Not A Role?

Leadership is not a custom business or societal role since has not included in an organizational chart of any company or social structure. But is there!

Why? Because it is needed? Or that’s the way it is?

Neither would be a possible answer. Leadership is not a role, because:

  1. No one applies to it!
  2. No one hires a leader. He/she/a company/an organization/a society, etc “hires” people for filling in a role.
  3. Has not specific tasks. Though it is much demanding!
  4. Does not always produce tangible outcomes, or measurable “products“. But it is one of the most disruptive functions in a corporate or societal environment.
  5. Does not have specifics! But bridges and connects everything around its field, towards a unified vision.

Therefore, leadership should be something else!

Leadership is a Function

How do we define a function or/and a system? It is been argued that:

function is interpreted as a specific process, action or task that a system is able to perform (Wikipedia: Function (engineering))

Therefore, Leadership is a function, that a person, company, group of people, etc is able to perform, embedded deep insight in our modern companies’ or society’s DNA! It aims at enhancing the entire “ecosystem” in the future, rather gain flimsy gains for here and now.

Its scope is at:

  • later and then, rather than the now,
  • striving after gains for the other people, rather than tangible outputs for the person exert it,
  • aiming at developing a new culture and a new generation, to form a new status quo,
  • changing the entire ecosystems and make room for all the different views (even the contradicting ones!),
  • accommodating everyone, even and the people opposite to its presence,
  • employing different ideas and approaches without left behind people, ideas, approaches, etc unattended,
  • implementing a human face in business operations and insert the societal values into the corporate cultures and tribes,
  • negating the mass nature of the present globalization and addressed to the single person, to YOU

Question: How would you define leadership? What exactly leadership, serves, today in our modern world? Please comment if you agree that Leadership Is Not A Role, or not!