How do you define leadership?
How do you define leadership?
(OP)
Hi All,
I had an interview this morning at what seemed to be a very interesting organization. They employ approximately 30 people; skilled machinists.
The company is looking to expand into specialized field in which I have a great many years experience.
The interview went quite well and they seemed somewhat impressed with my skills and experience. More importanly the interviewer stressed how my position would be to provide leadership and mentoring to some of his team members.
He has asked me to return next week and explain what kind of leadership I can bring to the organization.
My question, therfore, is how do you define a good leader?
What quality or qualities do you feel make a good leader?
Why is it that some people have an inherint ability to motivate, inspire and keep people engaged and others do not?
Pick someone who you have dealt with in the past and viewed as a great leader and briefly describe them.
Thanks in advance to all who provide input
thixoguy
I had an interview this morning at what seemed to be a very interesting organization. They employ approximately 30 people; skilled machinists.
The company is looking to expand into specialized field in which I have a great many years experience.
The interview went quite well and they seemed somewhat impressed with my skills and experience. More importanly the interviewer stressed how my position would be to provide leadership and mentoring to some of his team members.
He has asked me to return next week and explain what kind of leadership I can bring to the organization.
My question, therfore, is how do you define a good leader?
What quality or qualities do you feel make a good leader?
Why is it that some people have an inherint ability to motivate, inspire and keep people engaged and others do not?
Pick someone who you have dealt with in the past and viewed as a great leader and briefly describe them.
Thanks in advance to all who provide input
thixoguy





RE: How do you define leadership?
Leadership is getting people to agree in practice even though they may disagree in principle.
Three elements of leadership:
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RE: How do you define leadership?
RE: How do you define leadership?
Leadership Challenge Summary
RE: How do you define leadership?
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
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RE: How do you define leadership?
Worthy of restatement......
Heckler![[americanflag] americanflag](https://www.tipmaster.com/images/americanflag.gif)
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This post contains no political overtones or undertones for that matter and in no way represents the poster's political agenda.
RE: How do you define leadership?
• Effective leaders embrace a shared vision
• Effective leaders work to establish a collaborative culture
• Effective leaders are clear in setting direction and communicating expectations
• Effective leaders build and maintain internal and external relationships
• Effective leaders develop competent people
• Effective leaders take responsibility for failures
Greg Lamberson, BS, MBA
Consultant - Upstream Energy
Website: www.oil-gas-consulting.com
RE: How do you define leadership?
Go on holidays with a group of people, preferably a group that never met each other before. Very soon you will spot the person who decides what to do, where to eat, how the bill will be split, what time to meet again for breakfast etc etc. This is the leader. Without a leader nothing much happens.
BTW leadership is a beautiful thing but it is a misconception for a company to make it a recruitment selection criterion. You don't want a company full of leaders. You want a company where 90% of the people are followers or it becomes a great mess.
RE: How do you define leadership?
Well why do some people have red hair?
Another interesting question: "Why is it that some people THINK THEY have an inherent ability to motivate, inspire and keep people engaged and others do not?"
or why do some people think they don't while they could if they just felt confident enough to try
RE: How do you define leadership?
One US tests trying to define common traits in proved good leaders came up with:
' .. the ability to clearly communicate the organizations target to the other members...'
Part of leadership is being able to focus all resources towards the common goal.
RE: How do you define leadership?
RE: How do you define leadership?
Take the replies from the various responses and see how they apply to you. Some rhetorical questions/comments
How well do you connect with people, (superiors, peers, subordinates, external contacts)? The scale of your goal will have increased necessitating the ability to work well with people across organization(s) even if there are only 30 people.
How well do you plan? Given a goal, timeframe, and budget you will need to establish a (hopefully) flexible path to successful completion. Execution of the plan requires an ability (at a higher level) to delegate, identify and resolve obstacles, and provide feedback on status. You may occasionally get to jump into the trenches but you no longer have the "luxury" of being able to handle everything yourself. Your viewpoint needs to retain a strategic focus. From a team standpoint, in my view, it is nice to have someone who can jump into the everyday fray. However, if you stay in there too long, you can cause people to lose faith in their capabilities. You need to let them know that you trust them to accomplish the work but will assist in resolving obstacles.
Provide feedback. People want to know that the work they are doing is actually leading to accomplishing something worthwhile. Your superiors are going to want to know what your overall status is. Be honest, managers tend not to like surprises.
Celebrate with your group once a project is complete even if it did not go overly well or to plan. This gives you a more "relaxed" time in which to review with your team what went well and what did not. Helps avoid repeating mistakes and provides a sense of accomplishment recognition or at least closure.
End of
Regards,
RE: How do you define leadership?
I would think you would want to nail a guy cold with a question like that - if you can answer a question out of the blue, under pressure (in an interview) then you know your subject, if you can't then you don't. Just seems to be an odd interviewing technique to me.
If someone asks the question and said you have a week to think about it, it would impressive to say "don't need a week" and then give them a full run down on whatever it was they asked.
Off the original question, sorry, just an observation.
Greg Lamberson, BS, MBA
Consultant - Upstream Energy
Website: www.oil-gas-consulting.com
RE: How do you define leadership?
I am about to go to another (different company) interview so I don't have very much time, however, I just wanted to thank all you who posted your views. Please, keep them coming. When I get some more time I will post some comments.
epoisses, you raised a rather interesting point:
"Go on holidays with a group of people, preferably a group that never met each other before. Very soon you will spot the person who decides what to do, where to eat, how the bill will be split, what time to meet again for breakfast etc etc. This is the leader. Without a leader nothing much happens"
Do you think it is possible to be a leader, say at work, while being a follower in social settings. Or is leadership a trait the encompasses your entire life?
Is it mutually exclusive?
thixoguy
RE: How do you define leadership?
True leaders inspire other people by their actions, rarely by their words. People can learn to manage, most leaders have the ability to be a leader naturally. I believe there are rare circumstances where someone can learn to be a leader.
There was a .wmv file that went around by internet several months ago which was a video about "impedership vs. leadership". This was a video by a company called EJ4, I believe. It is very good. You might try to find it on the web. I think it might be here, but I can't verify because streaming media is blocked at work:
http
RE: How do you define leadership?
The ablity to lead effectively is 100% innate. It cannot be learned, sought after, or forced into being. But a leader can hone his/her skills.
Being a good leader in one area of your life/career/etc... does not imply that you will be a good leader in other areas.
Real leaders do not "struggle" to lead. Its just that folks naturally want to follow him/her in a particular situation.
Leaders see individuals as peices of a puzzle and realize the specific strengths/weaknessess of each team member.
What is difficult for a follower is generally easy for a leader (i.e. leader has an excellent grasp/understanding of fundamentals for particular tasks)
Leaders enjoy the sensation of success more than most and are willing to work harder (are more focused) than the followers to acheive it. But contrastly, the leader will NEVER take personal credit for a win.
RE: How do you define leadership?
This is so true and this recalls a story. To see if you are indeed a good “leader”, volunteer some of your time to volunteer organizations, be it a professional society or your local soup kitchen. Take charge of a task (trust me there are many) that will require to lead volunteers in a direction. Good leaders will find ways to motivate, influence, and persuade the volunteers to move in a particular direction. Since volunteers do not get “paid” for their time; they can’t even get fired, money is not the reason for them to be there, so all you have is your charisma to depend on to keep them moving forward. So if you start pissing them off, the volunteer will just disappear. So the management style of “do it because I’m your boss” will not fly.
Now the story, I volunteer for a few volunteer organizations and have seen two different styles of personalities play out. One volunteer came in (with good intentions) who was a manger for a company. We gave him an event to do and a list of volunteers. He was good at creating schedules and budgets, but he treated the volunteers like employees where he was demanding results to happen at certain times per his schedule. Volunteers started dropping like flies. The officers had to step in to staff the event because most of the volunteers “had something come up and was too busy to help” excuses. After that event the manager was so frustrated because he did not get the support he needed to run a good event and (like any good manager) blames the volunteers for not caring.
Another volunteer that, who was some what of a task lead in his company and funny enough did not want to be a manger, came in who wanted to help out. So we gave him an event to do and a list of volunteers to help out. Now this person had a simple schedule and budget planned out, but what was amazing was that with his volunteers, he was able to rally them to accomplish a goal. He led the team in not ordering them around, but supporting their efforts as much as possible. It was not his event; it was his team’s event. When the event came, his team was fired up and ready to go. Even during the event, he made sure that his volunteers were supported. From that time forward, he had a core of volunteers that would help him out for every event he did.
In a leadership class that I have taken, there was a quote “Not every manager is a good leader and not every leader is a good manger”.
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
RE: How do you define leadership?
Who really knows?
I am thinking of one person I know that that easily took charge and lead people to walk around 2-3 miles in the bad weather. One person with a deep cut across their face that required 13 stitches that could barely walk.
Then a week later the person was doing the... Come on guys... (which I am sure everyone knows) Lets go to pizza hut... and no one listens.
One thing that comes to mind is the subtle tone of, "we WILL" vs. "I would like to" or passive compared to assertive.
RE: How do you define leadership?
Heckler![[americanflag] americanflag](https://www.tipmaster.com/images/americanflag.gif)
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SWx 2007 SP 4.0 & Pro/E 2001
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)
This post contains no political overtones or undertones for that matter and in no way represents the poster's political agenda.
RE: How do you define leadership?
I think you're confusing leadership with being a control freak.
A true leader knows when to shut up and when to let others take the lead. Sometimes a true leader will lead by following.
A true leader is not afraid of others becoming leaders, and will actually work to cultivate new leaders.
TTFN
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RE: How do you define leadership?
Someone with a manager mentality would give you instructions and send you on your way. Then he would get in his air conditioned Hummer with leather seats and satellite radio and meet you at the other end. Then he would ask what took you so long.
Translate those descriptions to a job situation and you'll have your answer.
Phil
RE: How do you define leadership?
In my view, good leaders create friendly environment for the fellow employees, goes and talks to them (not just the department heads) regularly even if the subject matter does not have real importance to the project, respects their vision and opinion, does not hesitate to admit his/her mistake. These leaders realizes it is the employees who make the difference and appreciates their contribution. Sometimes, merely the word 'good job' may do the trick.
A good leader with his/her fellow workers make the difference.
RE: How do you define leadership?
Word. I've never understood these "leadership conference" thingies that I keep getting flyers for. If you can lead, you don't need the conference/workshop/whatever. If you can't, no conference or workshop will save you. But I suppose it's a honing thang...
Hg
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RE: How do you define leadership?
I think leadership training is a lot like method acting.
TTFN
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RE: How do you define leadership?
>You may occasionally get to jump into the trenches but you no longer have the "luxury" of being able to handle everything yourself. Your viewpoint needs to retain a strategic focus. From a team standpoint, in my view, it is nice to have someone who can jump into the everyday fray. However, if you stay in there too long, you can cause people to lose faith in their capabilities. You need to let them know that you trust them to accomplish the work but will assist in resolving obstacles.<
IMO, a good leader gets the most from everyone they work with. They view others as being equal; they realize that to be the best, they need the best from everyone on the team. They know that whether or not they can do the job themselves is not important, it's that the job is done right. They are the leaders that get the entire team to step up and do their best.
Someone without this skill thinks they're above everyone else. They feel it's better for them to do the work and take the credit than to work as a team to get it done. They have no concept of the developing the whole team or what it means to the members to be part of something. They take all the credit and none of the blame. They are the leaders that will not be able to get the other members to work with them when they're in a pinch. They're the ones that will run a team that will never get better, a team that will only ever be as good as one person.
It's true, some people are just born with the teamwork mentality. They don't need workshops to be told this. I think it's also true that there are some people that will read this and still think they're better doing everything themselves. But there are others who might not realize how they're perceived by taking control like this, but are willing to change their attitude to become a better leader.
This was just one of the leadership skills that can be developed with practice.
RE: How do you define leadership?
thixoguy
RE: How do you define leadership?
- Jimmy Doolittle, who inspired and trained Air Force crews to fly B-25's off aircraft carriers. He also liberated fighters to destroy targets on the ground prior to D-day.
- Paul Tibbetts, who led the special B-29 unit that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Sweeney, who dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, tells about Tibbetts' leadership in his book, "War's End." A good read.
Good civilian examples abound, but there is something about putting your life on the line in war that brings out leadership in a big way.
RE: How do you define leadership?
RE: How do you define leadership?
What would one say about leaders like Custer and MacArthur? To some degree, they are both considered to be self-aggrandizing, yet their followers clearly followed them wherever they were led.
TTFN
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RE: How do you define leadership?
When you consider the alternatives to not following, that's not really surprising.
RE: How do you define leadership?
Maui
RE: How do you define leadership?
Now, I would not exactly pick Custer and MacArthur and top examples of great leaders (at least not in my list). Unlike the first two, both Custer and MacArthur were self-promoters and had huge egos. But then again, both frequently got into trouble in their careers as well and drew many to work under their leadership.
General George Patton is also an example of a leader who somewhat fits inbetween the two groups above (smaller ego issues, inspired those around him, unquestionably capable, but always somewhat in trouble).
A more recent example would be John Boyd. Little Ego, highly capable, and his career ended with little promotion yet his theories and insights have shaped our 21st century military. If you haven't heard of him, read the book Boyd: The Fighter Pilot who changed the Art of War.
Do these observations indicate that true leaders are not only capable and inspire people around them, but also may frequently be in trouble or under attack from incompetent peers?
RE: How do you define leadership?
How about Churchill, or for my American Friends either Roosevelt? Gibson of Dambusters fame, or maybe Park & Dowding of Battle of Britain? Wellington, Nelson, Drake Henry VIth... History is full of them. Of course while one side may view them as great, the other side may not be so kind. And changes in perception over time will change how they are viewed.
Leadership can certainly be developed to some extent, just look at all the acadamies for military leaders dating back a long while. I'm tempted to say you do need some innate ability in the first place though. Hence the interview boards/testing required before you're normally accepted into such institutions.
A lot of great leaders are charismatic, however so are a lot of less celebrated (not quite the right word but hope yo get my point) individuals. Just look at some of the Cult leaders, or even characters such as Stalin, Hitler etc.
Arguably someone that gets himself and his troops killed unnecessarily due to essentially poor tactics etc isn't a great leader overall. I wouldnt' say he was just because he was charasmatic.
Also for most military leaders, their men had to follow them or face courtmartial or the like. One exception to some extent would be George Washington who I understand had to persuade his men to say.
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: How do you define leadership?
Regards,
RE: How do you define leadership?
Not quite leadership I know but close.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: How do you define leadership?
So, is he asking the right question or are you going to answer the wrong question?
I doubt you will get any consensus on this because leadership qualities (or lack of them) are often unique to the individual.
Chances are that whatever you say will not be what the interviewer thinks. Of course, sometimes interviewers have their own pet questions to ask, perhaps because they "want to see how you think" or because they have their own unique perspective on this (i.e. they are the only people who think so), act surprised and impressed when they tell you the "right answer".)
Some people may know what they think makes a good leader but couldn't, themselves, lead a conga at new year. Others do it without knowing how they do it.
You say you have "a great many years experience."
I'd have to guess that you have experience of leading and mentoring and perhaps the real question should be, not "what makes a good leader?" but "are you a good leader and mentor?" and however you answer the question he asks, you need to get this question answered at ever opportunity.
Bottom line, can you do the job?
Not "how should the job be done?"
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: How do you define leadership?
RE: How do you define leadership?
Maui
RE: How do you define leadership?
The first time I heard this, it came from someone who couldn't, but thought he could. He was being given remedial training because he couldn't and was bitter about it so he decided to pull the ol' ad hominem on the trainer.
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RE: How do you define leadership?
There are, of course, many excellent teachers with a life time of doing behind them but there seem to be an awful lot who think they know how, but have never actually done it and if they had to would find something lacking.
But the point I was trying to make is that when the job calls for leadership and mentoring, which is more important? unproven theories about what intangible qualities are required or is a proven ability to do the job, no matter whether the person doing the job is aware of what characteristics he has or has not?
It would be silly to fail an interview because your definition of leadership differs from the interviewers when, if allowed to, you can actually do it.
IF leadership qualities could be precisely quantified then it would be straightforward to only select as leaders those with the right qualities and there would never be a bad leader. In real life it is often only by seeing someone do that we recognise their true abilities.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: How do you define leadership?
Anyways, the point is, I think this question would best be answered by saying something like, "I think a leader has qualities A, B, and C. These qualities are important in a leader because... For example, I personally had a situation where X happened and I did Y. This resulted in avoiding a high-cost and problematic situation."
-- MechEng2005