We all know leadership when we see it. Leaders have massive egos. Amiable, though driven and invariably ambitious, they possess an intense presence – a projected ego if you will - that we detect as charisma. Leaders also have an indelible confidence in their own capacity. They are at ease when exercising power and get things done, often against the odds, by inspiring others to step up and perform. Their vision of what is needed is usually crystal clear. They know where they want to go, and what they expect others to help them achieve.
You will probably think that I'm stating the bleedin' obvious. After all the traits displayed by a leader are common knowledge and have been that way for at least the past century. This list comprises just a few of many signifiers we routinely use to decide whether or not someone is a potential leader or merely a follower. On the whole it’s a robust list. I know that because HR professionals use it over and over to develop leaders within their organizations. Head hunters use this list as a template to find the most suitable candidates for senior executive roles.
But herein lies a problem. The list is not only utterly misleading, it's an illusion. We now know this list is irrelevant. Why? because the qualities listed attempt to qualify the leader (a noun) when leading is actually a verb. The idea of the heroic leader is more of an apparition than a reality.
True leadership routinely discounts charisma. It's not contingent upon a particular situation. Nor is it linked to performance in any conventional sense. Furthermore my list of perceived qualities is not exhaustive. Yet we habitually use these characteristics or something vaguely similar, to signify, reinforce and communicate notions of what we mean by leadership. What is more we spend billions of dollars perpetuating this myth.
Allow me to be even more critical. First these qualities are misplaced in the context of today’s world - they are not always appropriate in every situation we find ourselves. Second they are incomplete. They fail to comprehensively define those who are leading in a manner that is satisfactory on all counts. Third, they signify an inevitable link to performance which, albeit a current corporate obsession, is a misnomer. Gandhi was exceptional at leading and what he managed to accomplish was almost without precedent. Yet his individual performance fell far short on many occasions, as he was the first to acknowledge. This does not diminish for one moment his exemplary leadership capability.
If leadership is so important – and in today’s world I believe it to be crucial - we should surely clarify and agree what we mean when we talk about leaders and leading. But we need to be absolutely clear about one thing: leadership is not simply an advanced form of management. To continue using the term this way actually demeans the expertise involved in managing and organising. Just because an individual is appointed to a position of authority cannot be taken as a sign of their leadership prowess. Indeed the reason we know there's a leadership vacuum in the world today is precisely because incumbent managers are failing to lead.
How then should we rectify this problem of definition? Perhaps the list should be longer? I don’t think so. It will not make anything clearer by just adding more terms. All we will get is a longer list. That is clearly not the issue. Perhaps the list is just the wrong list? After all many corporations spend inordinate amounts of time and money trying to define the attributes of their ideal leader. But how can the list be wrong given the sheer numbers of people who have observed identical or similar leadership traits, in every field of human endeavour, over the past few centuries at least?
Actually you're probably on the wrong track entirely if you're still thinking along those lines. The real issue defining leading and leadership, you see, is not a matter of behaviour or even psychology, in spite of the fact that's precisely what we've been led to believe. Leading has more to do with intention. It's a state of mind impelling some form of directed action where self-concept is inextricably tied to membership of a social group or community. Leadership is a collective experience and leaders simply those whose impulse is to bring their individual energy into that experience.
Leadership is the extraordinary dynamism created through shared activities. It has nothing to do with an individual's vision or position within the group. Leading arises purely from shared impulses. It manifests as a collective energy - a determination to improve conditions within which the group finds itself from one moment to the next.
As for leaders? Leaders are simply individuals who elect or feel compelled to collaborate in that space. Acting from a state of awareness most of us would refer to as 'moral' – or even 'spiritual' - this is the reason we recognise them as being different, not because they act out some fanciful list of behavioural leadership characteristics that are all about status or power.
Some of this can appear to be mysterious to the casual observer. For example leaders can play effortlessly in the interstices of the unknown and the unknowable in a way many might interpret as instinctive. If that isn’t amazing enough, they also possess an uncanny ability to hold conflicting perspectives in mind with no apparent loss of coherence. They often explain this as a broadening of worldview and an expansion of their sense of self. It is still puzzling simply because others of us have not yet developed a similar state of awareness.
For example, most of us are concerned with daily survival. Our focus is inevitably on personal growth and the wellbeing of our friends and family. Because leaders constantly strive to be a force for good in the world, lifting their aspirations far beyond personal possessions or power, it's not surprising that we often misconstrue both their intentions and their motives. They are coming from a different paradigm and are persuaded by different possibilities.
To be fair, the list of behavioural characteristics from which I began is still evident within the context of leadership – with some subtle differences. Ego now manifests as a transpersonal confidence rather than narcissistic self-absorption. Personal values are still important, though rarely considered the only 'acceptable' principles by the group. Consequently leaders won't try to impose their own values on others, regarding this as both unethical and unnecessary. They also encourage alternative visions. But because they constantly interpret the world from enlightened levels, they inevitably see an integrated wholeness others can easily miss.
But then that is the real magic of leadership. We know it when we see it, though we still lack adequate means to describe it. Indeed, our descriptions are so faulty as to be deceptive. This is why many of us still continue to perceive leadership as a more sophisticated approach to management. The key is to understand that leaders are ordinary people doing extraordinary things by virtue of their evolutionary development, not through acting out some banal list of behavioural qualities, however comforting and 'neat' that view might be within our corporate cathedrals.
I should add that the act of leading comprises thinking and behaving that can be codified and replicated. Indeed, as an advanced stage in human evolution, it would be entirely surprising if these elements of true leadership could not be learned and practiced. But it is nothing like the kind of leadership development rituals offered by most business schools. For they, too, have missed the point.
Leading is not about exercising skills, behaviours or competencies. It is not even about nature versus nurture. On the contrary authentic leadership today has more to do with community action. It reflects a new stage in human development. A new era of consciousness. It is a collective phenomenon.