Leaders Direct: What is Leadership

Leaders Direct: What is Leadership - "Conventional theories paint a distorted picture of leadership by focusing narrowly on people in positions of power. These theories are in crisis today because they face an unpalatable dilemma: either they have to say that CEOs no longer lead or they have to change the meaning of leadership. The latter option states that leadership now means being a facilitator, like the level 5 leaders of Jim Collins who grill top people with questions designed to elicit ideas for new directions from them. This option preserves the idea that CEOs are leaders. Another option is to retain the older notion that leaders promote new directions but to say that CEOs no longer have a monopoly on leadership. By saying that leadership means promoting new directions, such as new products and services, we open the door to everyone being able to show leadership. This means that CEOs manage as much as lead. But to make sense of this move, we need to upgrade management, to make it a more positive concept. At present, management is cast in a negative light. Explore these pages to learn more about how and why our understanding of leadership needs to change."