What's Leadership

Leadership us the ability to positively influence people and systems under one's authority to have a meaningful impact and achieve important results.

Executive leadership focuses on the roles of senior managers in guiding an organization to fulfill its mission and meet its goals. The many activities that senior executives perform include the following:

• Defining and communicating business directions
• Ensuring that goals and expectations are met
• Reviewing business performance and taking appropriate action
• Creating an enjoyable work environment that promotes creativity, innovation and continual improvement
• Soliciting input and feedback from customers
• Ensuring that employees are effective contributors to the business
• Motivating, inspiring, and energizing employees
• Recognizing employee contributions
• Providing honest feedback

Formal organization leadership is manifested in developing clear values, creating a competitive advantage, defining customer and market focus, and encouraging continual learning.
Ad hoc leadership within project teams is seen by observing the leader working to make those around her or him successful, removing barriers to team performance, establishing good lines of communication, and resolving problems.
Individual leadership is revealed through people maintaining the focus and discipline to consistently complete jobs, being proactive in identifying and solving problems, working for win-win agreements, and making continuous learning a personal habit.

Leaders are visionaries; they manage for the future, not the past. Six key leadership competencies can be described as navigator, communicator, mentor, learner, builder, and motivator.

The following is a collection of personal leadership characteristics:

• Accountability - taking responsibility for the organization, community, or self that the leader serves.
• Courage - the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger; fear or difficult with a firmness of mind and will; allowing leaders to navigate into the unknown.
• Humility - what gives excellent leaders their ability to mentor, communicate and learn, and understand that they are servants of those that follow.
• Integrity - the ability to discern what is right from wrong and commit to the right path.
• Creativity - the ability to see possibilities, horizons, and futures that don't yet exist, enabling the leader to help create a shared vision.
• Perseverance - sticking to a task or purpose, no matter how hard or troublesome.
• Well-being - the ability to stay healthy in both work and play, demonstrating the importance of being ready to implement leadership competencies when needed.