Is Leadership Everybody's Business in Your Organization?

Leadership is an important attribute in every organization because it determines the organization’s sustenance, growth, and functionality.

Leadership has diverse definitions and the most common definition even a layman can give is that “leadership is someone that leads followers.” This definition is not completely out of place, however, in a broader sense which involves an organization, leadership goes beyond having followers.

Yukl (1989) states that some theorists believe that leadership is no different from the social influence processes occurring among all members of a group and others believe that leadership is everything someone is doing in order to lead effectively.

Contrary to what people feel about leadership as being the role of just one person, it is broader beyond that. Leadership is more of a combined effort.

Some people are naturally born with the ability to lead, however, without constant practice, they can’t be great leaders. This is to say that leadership requires self-development and practice.

A successful organization is expected to have a combination of leaders and managers of which leaders should be more than the managers. The two have different roles to perform in an organization. Managers are assigned management tasks. Leaders are expected to be flexible and independent. Both have something they are targeting to achieve at the end of the day.

Unlike management who organizes the staff, delegate responsibility, delegates authority, implements the vision, establishes policy and procedures to implement the vision, and displays low emotion, leadership aligns the organization, communicates the vision, mission, and direction, influences the creation of coalitions, teams, and partnerships that understand and accept the vision, displays driven, and high emotion.

With respect to organizations, we can say leadership is a skillful act and a combination of personality traits and behaviors which create a relationship that benefits everyone in an organization.

In an organization, there is the main leader everyone looks up to because they are answerable to him/her. However, to achieve a purpose, participative leadership theories should be imbibed. Participative leaders encourage participation and contributions from group members and help group members to feel relevant and committed to the decision-making process.

If this style of leadership is absent in an organization, then, we can’t say that leadership is everyone’s business. The main leader is expected to pave the way first. When a leader develops a sense of responsibility, ensures that tasks are well detailed and understood and sees to their accomplishment, has excellent communication skills, makes sound and timely decisions, takes responsibility for his actions, is seen as an example, is approachable, and uses the full capabilities of the organization, these would be stepping stones to achieve all-round leadership from all levels in an organization.

Leaders could be autocratic or transformational. Autocratic leaders prefer that every level in the organization should depend on them. They give the orders and would not give room for suggestions from other corners. In such organizations, leadership is not expected to be everyone’s business. Transformational leaders are influential. They ensure that their followers attain the highest stage of self-esteem, confidence, and enthusiasm. They motivate in the direction of “self-sacrifice and achievement of organizational goals over personal interests (Baas 1995).” Cummings et al., (2010) observed that “leaders who practiced relational and transformational styles had better quality outcomes than those who demonstrated autocracy."

Leadership isn’t controlling, rather, it influences and motivates others by making the organization’s needs appear as a collective effort to a uniform goal.

In organizations today, there’s a paradigm shift from what it used to be in the past. Any successful companies you see now have adopted the “all hands must be on deck” culture and continue to evolve. This culture is an attitude of leadership at every level of the organization.

However, some are still finding it foreign to adjust to the new trend as they are used to being dependent on the manager whom they assume to know it all.

We are in a competitive world, an age where changes are being made almost every minute. It is required at all levels in the organization a certain attitude toward being responsive, dynamic, flexible, innovative, and disciplined.

Productivity has been said to be low if just the managers are seen to wield the resource of leadership- all hands must be on deck. Leaders can’t do it alone. Leaders finding themselves in this position where all the responsibilities are placed on them are overwhelmed and struggle to achieve the desired result at the end of the day. “All hands must be on deck”, everyone has roles to play even beyond what they signed up for. An extraordinary event cannot occur without the combined and active efforts of other people.

Leadership is not about position and power (this is not to say we are trying to downplay the role of a leader with a portfolio), anyone in an organization can handle the role of leadership. Naturally, we are all leaders in all spheres of life, however, irrespective of your position in an organization, you have to take responsibility for quality leadership, hence, leadership is everyone’s business.

Some myths concerning leadership are that it’s a superior position and only meant for a very few people. Everyone at all levels of an organization is a leader. Leadership is a process of ordinary people bringing out the best in themselves and others. ?An organization is not a job for just one individual to run. Each employee has an important role to play. Even a cleaner’s role cannot be dismissed. Despite being the least of the level, a cleaner, not playing his/her role as and when due can hold everyone to ransom and make the whole day messy for every other person.

Leadership is everyone’s business. Leadership is the responsibility everyone should take up in an organization. It has nothing to do with position but about doing what is right, taking responsibility, and acting when needed without waiting for others because leaders don’t wait.

Leadership is a collective effort of those with portfolios and those without (organizational hierarchy from the top to bottom). Everyone has obligations and duties to perform their roles which are somehow interwoven to achieving positive results at the end of the day.

?My next guest on the Performance Tools Show is the pre-eminent executive coach and #1 Leadership Thinker in the world, author of the bestsellers What Got You Here Won’t Get You There and The Earned Life.

In his 50+ year career as an executive coach, Marshall Goldsmith has worked as an executive coach to many of the greatest leaders in the world. Leaders like Dr. Jim Yong Kim, Alan Mulally, Hubert Joly, and Pau Gasol among several others.

?Mark your calendar. This is a session you don't want to miss at all as a leader.

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