Leadership Development is Coming of Age and Returning to Each and Every Individual

Leadership development can be read in any business, educational or professional organizational journal. Leadership continues to be a popular topic. However, with thousands of articles, hundreds of books, the question for me is "Why?"

With all this information, why are we still not developing the leaders necessary for the 21st century? Maybe, because the focus is on the competencies (knowledge and skills) and fails to acknowledge that each individual brings to the table of life certain key strengths. When a competency-based model for leadership is implemented, this approach ignores the wealth of inherent strengths that reside within each individual and can be developed into incredible leadership skills.

Also, leadership skills are not just relegated to the executive team or upper management, but should cascade down throughout the organization and positively develop each and every stakeholder.

So, then what is the definition of leadership? Peter Drucker has stated that "leadership is all about results." Drucker's definition is only part of what leadership means. By achieving results forward progress is made and those involved feel that their efforts have been justified.

Leading without securing either business results or personal results is much like walking the same path over and over again. This may be an easy path to travel, but ultimately diminishes the incredible potential residing within all individuals and decreases the overall results within the organization. Also, this approach reinforces a fear of accountability. By not having the desired results clearly articulated and shared, everyone denies accountability and embraces a victim mentality by pointing their fingers at other shareholders.

Another part of leadership, missing from Drucker's definition, is that core values must always be demonstrated when achieving the desired results. Failure to include those non-negotiable behaviors within the overall definition of leadership supports a culture contrary to the desired results.

Today's media has the ability to almost immediately broadcast the unethical behaviors of corporate CEOs to elected government officials. These individuals, in many cases, are viewed as leaders within the communities because they were able to secure significant results. However, because they sacrificed their values or in some cases there were no core values present, these individuals are truly not the leaders necessary to take a school corporation, an organization, a state or a country forward in the 21st century.

Also, leadership begins with the individual. Leadership is about individuals achieving results. Drucker's and others' definitions may imply that leadership begins from within each individual, but the definition of leadership must clearly state the source of leadership.

Finally, leadership is truly about achieving the desired results. The use of the word desired indicates that there exists some planning, strategy and higher order thinking skills involved. Results are not achieved willy-nilly or haphazardly, but rather with careful and thoughtful consideration.

If we accept the definition of leadership as being individuals who consistently deliver the desired results while executing positive core values, our belief of leadership may change. No longer do we confuse leadership with management, that leadership is only for the administrative team or that leadership for management is different than leadership for the rest of the those within the organization. Nor we will accept any results, but rather results that can be directly tied to specific strategies and tactics. Now, we can begin to look at the strengths of each individual and how those strengths can be further developed and leveraged to create a win-win for everyone.

The next question is how do we leverage the strengths of each individual to help them become better leaders who can consistently achieve the desired results without the sacrifice of positive and critical core values? That is a very good question and the answer may be far simpler than many realize.

In any organization, management needs to model the leadership behaviors that they are expecting from each other as well as everyone else. The disconnect between "Do as I say and not as I do" rings even more false today than 40 years ago. Today's work force can see the disconnects and more importantly will challenge those very same issues. Their challenges can be direct, but are usually indirect through many of their miss-behaviors including "jumping ship."

Leadership development is coming of age and more and more individuals are recognizing that leadership requires a shared definition as well as total alignment within the organization. Failure to embrace this realization will create a rudderless ship traveling thousands of miles in a continual circle while wasting the individual potential of each crew member.

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