Leaders come in all shapes and sizes. Much has been written over the years about what Leadership is and isn’t. The view has also changed of what the best Leadership style is. As we try to keep things simple we’ll offer our humble point of view to add to the discussion.
What is Leadership? We like the idea that Leadership is still about what it has always been about; this is reflected in the original derivation from the old
English word “leit” which means “showing the path”.
Sometimes this implies that leadership is all about being out in front, pulling people along with you. While sometimes that’s appropriate, there are many other ways you
can help people by “showing the path” such showing a light and the route to take and providing encouragement. Equally there are many different ways you can offer leadership.
Working in organisations, we have questions of our leaders and depending on how those questions are answered will determine how well we feel we are being led. The best
teams get to the stage where they are working out the answers collaboratively having been guided to that state.
Leadership Challenges
As discussed above, we see the essence of leadership is the ability of leaders to answer their team members’ questions so team members can channel their energy productively into fulfilling their role in the team.
The challenge is to know what the questions are as leaders develop into different leadership roles. The key ability is to be able to adapt – to be what we call an
adaptive leader.
We believe Leaders need to be able to adapt in three ways
Our purpose is to help leaders guide their teams to deliver better results.
We do this by helping leaders learn more about the following: