The Many Faces of Leadership - Monday 16 March

Leadership is by definition, also about followers.  Followers display the characteristics of their leaders. If the Leader is dedicated, hardworking, trustworthy, determined, loyal’ then so will be the followers. Today one of the great management complaints is the lack of dedication, trustworthiness, loyalty, determination etc of ‘Generation ?’ (Choose a letter of your choice from the available alphabet).

I wonder what’s going on… more to the point… I wonder which came first, the lack of motivated followers in our organisations, or the lack of leadership attributes worth following in our organisations?

Organisations exist for only one reason… they exist to fulfill a ‘purpose’.  That purpose differs from organisation to organisation, but each organisation has a purpose.  Almost by their nature they require ‘followers’ in the form of employees who work together to achieve that purpose.  If we ask our employees what their purpose is… would the responses we collect display the same consistency of purpose as would the responses from a room full of Gandhi followers? MLK (Martin Luther King) followers?

We tend to think about leadership in terms of individuals and forget that organisations must demonstrate leadership traits if we are to reasonably expect our employees – followers – to exhibit loyalty, dedication, hard work, determination.

Leadership isn’t an idle topic.  It’s a vital topic for every organisation. Without leadership, we’re not making progress, we’re merely marking time.

Peter will be available for a small group private discussion for 1 hour after his presentation.