Leadership Exposed

Much has been written about leadership: rules, pointers, styles, and biographies of inspiring leaders in world history. But there are certain leadership ideas that we fail to recognize and realize in the program book. Here is a short list of things you thought you knew about leadership.

1. Leaders come in different flavors: There are many leaders and you will probably find more than one type in your life.

Formal leaders are those we choose to positions or offices such as senators, congressmen, and presidents of local clubs.

Informal leaders or those we look for based on their wisdom and experience as in the case of tribal leaders, or our grandparents, or based on the expertise and contributions in a specific field such as Albert Einstein in the field of theoretical physics and Leonardo da Vinci in art. Both the formal and informal leaders practice a combination of leadership styles.

- Lewin three basic leadership styles - authoritative, participative, delegative
- Likert's four leadership styles - exploitive authoritative, benevolent authoritative, consultative and participatory
- Goleman six emotional leadership styles - visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, organizers, and commanding.

2. Leadership is the process of becoming: Although some people seem to be born with innate leadership qualities, without the right environment and exposure, they can not develop their full potential. Similar to learn how a bike, you can also learn how to be a leader and hone your leadership skills.

Knowledge of leadership theories and skills may be obtained by signing up officially in leadership seminars, workshops and conferences. Daily interactions with people the opportunity to observe and practice leadership theories.

Together, formal and informal learning will help the leadership attitudes, gain leadership insights, and thus continue the cycle of learning. You do not have a leader in one day and just stopped. Lifelong learning is important for a good leader, every day brings a new experience that the knowledge, skills and attitudes to test sets.

3. Leadership starts with you: The best way to develop leadership qualities is to apply in your own life. I'm sure you, the phrase "actions speak louder than words heard."

Leaders are always the center of attention. Keep in mind that your credibility as a leader depends much on your actions: your interaction with family, friends and colleagues, the way your personal responsibility and organization, and even the way you talk with the newspaper vendor across the street.

You can not just "Talk Talk," you should "walk to walk." Repeated actions become habits. Habits in turn form a person's character. Steven Covey book entitled 7 Habits of Highly Effective People provides good insights into how you can achieve personal leadership.

4. Shared leadership: Leadership is not the responsibility of one person, but rather a shared responsibility among team members appeared. A leader of the group. Each member has the duty to perform.

Formal leadership positions are added responsibilities in addition to their responsibilities as members of the team. Effective leadership requires members to share their work. Started as a group only to individuals, members and leaders work towards the establishment of an effective team.

In this light, social interaction plays an important role in leadership. To learn how to work together requires a lot of trust between managers and team members appeared. Trust is built on actions and not just in words. When there is mutual respect, trust and confidence is built promoted.

5. Leadership styles depending on the situation: What works for Singapore, but not the dictatorship in the United States? In addition to the culture, beliefs, value systems and forms of government, the current situation of a country also affects the leadership styles used by its formal leaders.

There is no rule that only one style can be used. Most of the time, leaders use a combination of leadership styles depending on the situation. In emergency situations, such as periods of war and disaster, the decision is a matter of life and death. So can a leader of the nation does not have the luxury of consulting with all departments for important decisions.

This case is of course different in times of peace and order. different sectors and other branches of government is free to interact and participate in government. Another example is the result of organizations. With highly motivated and competent staff, high-style combination of participatory and moderate delegative the most appropriate leadership. But if people have low competence and low commitment, a combination of high education, support is high, and high organizational leadership behaviors of leaders is required.

Now you have to realize this in mind that there are always ideas that we thought we knew. There are concepts that we take for granted, but they are actually the most useful insights on leadership.