What is a Leader?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a leader (in human terms) as:

• the person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country: the leader of a protest group a natural leader
• (also Leader of the House) British a member of the government officially responsible for initiating business in Parliament.

In either case there is a degree of formality about it:

• A whole organisation accepts one person as its ‘leader’
• By virtue of that badge of rank, the leader has formal authority and power.

However, there are three likely dangers in this view:

1. Organisations come in many shapes and sizes; political parties, governments, charities, businesses or families.
   By inference, if an organisation has only one leader, that person alone is the source of all ideas. That person alone is the maker of all decisions.  The rest of the organisation must, therefore, be followers; ‘sheep’, who take no initiative and make no decisions.  These people are also free of responsibility for outcomes of their actions.
   This presents a big problem for the organisation as a whole and followers as individuals;
   • There is no synergy,
   • There is little initiative
   • There is little incentive for anyone to do anything “good” save follow orders.
   • There is little reason for people to not do “bad” things so long as they are within the letter of the law.

2. Since the concept of a leader is a 'job title', the leader must be the one leading every minute of every day.
   He or she may not be less than perfect at any time.  This presents a big problem for the leader. He or she must be right every time. He or she must also be seen to be right every time.  The leader must be morally and technically infallible.  He or she is always on a pedestal.  Each and every act and word (business and personal) is subject to scrutiny and being judged by all.
   Sadly this kind of infallibility is not a constant for any human being; we are all idiots some of the time. To err is human.
3. The longer a formal leader is in post, the greater the gap between the leader and the led becomes.
   The leader becomes less tolerant of independent thought, and the led become less capable of it.  At this point, if it is to survive ‘After the Leader’, an organisation has to look seriously at succession planning.  Sadly that succession planning is still the responsibility of the leader (otherwise it is likely to be interpreted as mutiny).

The past has showed time and again that:

• Families with a commanding father or mother can tend to be dysfunctional.
• Nations with a cult of personality around a single “great helmsman” tend to suffer in the long run.
• Companies which are ruled by the iron hand of their founder are lost when the founder dies or is shown to have had feet of clay.

Leaders come in all shapes and sizes and lead in all different aspects of human life and endeavour.  We are all capable of being leaders somewhere and at sometime.  We simply have to motivate ourselves or be motivated to lead.

Resource: skillsyouneed.com