Assumptions of leadership

Everyone has the right, responsibility, and capability to be a leader.
This first assumption of leadership sparks me to think deeper about leadership and what it means. At first glance I thought that I was not sure I agreed with this assumption as it implies that everyone should be a leader. To dig deeper, I decided to revisit the meanings of the words.

According to Merriam-Webster, the word lead means:

a. to guide on a way especially by going in advance
b. to direct on a course or in a direction
c. to direct the operations, activity, or performance of


To be a leader one must guide the way especially by going in advance. To do this, one must know where they are, where they are going, and what they are doing. To effectively guide someone, the leader must know how to speak the same language so to be understood. To have someone follow means that they are coming with you, not being carried by you and not just pointed in a direction. I would argue that not everyone who knows where they are and where they are going can be a leader if they do not know how to guide someone. On the same line, not every subject matter expert is a teacher, if they can not effectively explain their concepts to someone else. Part of being a good teacher is being able to guide or lead others through understanding. It sounds to me like a leader is essentially a good teacher. I agree that if someone is a good teacher then they have the right, responsibility, and capability to be a leader.

Classical tenets of Leadership

I have been thinking about the tenets of classical leadership as given to me by Jim Lehmann.

Leaders having:

Formal authority

Overarching roles

Full control of staff

I clearly remember working under similar leadership constraints in the 1980-1990s at various organizations. For the most part, employees had little say in how the business was run or changes that should be made to processes. While this leadership style could work well with the right kind of leader, it more often creates an environment where the workers feel oppressed and inefficient processes stay in place simply because of inept leaders. I witnessed this happen at one organization that I worked for in the 1990s. 

It was a software company and the style of management was very much in line with the classical tenets. Directors called the shots in every department and most managers pushed those decisions onto the employees even if they did not agree with the decision. Employees who tried to suggest improvements were told by managers not to rock the boat. I was working as a trainer to customers for the software, and after I left the company I heard that conditions got even worse. My former manager, who was not as puppet-like as the other managers, was replaced by someone who would conform. Under the new manager, the software support employees and trainers were given scripts to follow with customers and were not allowed to deviate from those scripts.  She went so far as recording every call with made and chastising any employee who uttered anything that was not on the script. Customer satisfaction plummeted and the employees were blamed for it, even though it was a direct consequence of a bad a management decision.

Over the last thirty years I have slowly seen the leadership team concept creep into different organizations, where managers are not the all powerful boss and employees are consulted and respected for their input in to the business functions.