Research Articles

Leadership - What is it?

Bob Selden, director of the National Learning Institute, July 2003. Author of a series of 360-degree online questionnaires for Leadership and Management Skills and Behviours

A great deal of work has been done by many authors and researchers in trying to identify and define "leadership". The vast body of research has focused on leadership traits, habits, competencies, behaviours, styles, values, skills and characteristics. Dave Ulrich (Ulrich, D et al, Results Based Leadership, Harvard Business Press, Boston, 1999) categorised much of the research into:

  • Who leaders are - values, motives, personal traits
  • What leaders know - knowledge, skills and abilities
  • What leaders do - behaviours, habits, styles and competencies
  • However, when one looks at the vast body of research into leadership, it is mostly concerned with the inputs of leadership and leaders, not the outputs - ie. What leaders achieve.

A further point that has led to a great deal of confusion around the issue of "leadership" is the definition of leadership itself. Many authors use "leadership" and "management" interchangeably and a great deal of the research into leadership has been with people who are in formal organisational positions (e.g. supervisors, managers, senior executives) - the inference being that leadership is an integral part of the formal management role (Parry, K.W., Leadership Research: Themes, Implications, and a new Leadership Challenge, Leadership Research and Practice, Warriewood 1996).

Our experience in designing, developing and implementing management and leadership development programs, processes and interventions over the last twenty years has led to the development of The Leadership Benchmark™, a 360 developmental tool for leaders and aspiring leaders. Much of the initial research emanated from focus groups of key stakeholders (participants, peers, staff, customers, suppliers etc) conducted as part of these development initiatives and the subsequent follow-up interviews, coaching sessions and evaluation processes and forums.

In developing The Leadership Benchmark, we have clearly delineated that:

  • Leadership is different from and distinct to, management - it does not necessarily occur as part of a formal management position
  • Leadership is contextual and therefore has to do with outputs (what the leader achieves) as much as what the leader is or does (inputs)

1. LEADERSHIP V'S MANAGEMENT

We are indebted to our colleague Dennis Pratt (Pratt, D., Aspiring to Greatness - Above and beyond total quality management, Business and Professional Publishing, Sydney 1994) for enabling the clear distinction between leadership and management that has been used in developing The Leadership Benchmark:

Leading:
Leadership occurs at all levels of the organisation. The essence of leadership is concerned with creating the conditions that encourage others to follow. Specifically:
  • A shared understanding of the environment
  • A shared vision of where we are going
  • A shared set of organisational values
  • A shared feeling of power
Managing:
While the leadership function is "big picture" the management function has a narrower focus. Leavitt described leadership, as "pathfinding" while management was pathminding". Management is situational and involves:
  • Getting things done (task focus)
  • Through people (relationship focus)

2. LEADERSHIP IS CONTEXTUAL AND IS CONCERNED WITH OUTPUTS

The Leadership Benchmark focuses purely on the four outputs achieved in any particular organisational context by the leader (other 360 tools focus on the management function - e.g The Management Competencies Profile):

  • A shared understanding of the environment
  • A shared vision of where we are going
  • A shared set of organisational values
  • A shared feeling of power

The Leadership Benchmark is a 360 developmental tool designed to provide people with feedback on their achievements within their own contextual setting. It's main aim is to enable people who are using the tool, to focus on the aspects of leadership that are important in achieving results within their organisational context. This means that different people can have different leadership profiles (ie. traits, habits, competencies, behaviours, styles, values, skills and characteristics) and yet still be equally effective in achieving the four outputs of leadership.

These outputs are classified as:

  • Environmental Understanding
  • Global Perspective
  • Business Health
  • Organisational Agility
  • Marketing and Selling
  • Direction and Vision
  • Vision and Strategy - "Pathfinding"
  • Inspiring Others
  • Nurturing Innovation
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Values and Sense of Team
  • Integrity
  • Ethics
  • Building Alliances
  • Developing and Leading People
  • Empowerment
  • Engagement
  • Influence
  • Performance Management
  • Shared Ownership

3. HOW DOES THE LEADERSHIP BENCHMARK™ DIFFER FROM OTHER 360 INSTRUMENTS?

Apart from many of the features of the profile, there are two important differences .

  1. The Leadership Benchmark assesses competence in terms of the outputs that are achieved or evident when effective leadership is displayed, not in terms of the personality characteristics, traits or behaviours of the leader.
  2. This means that everyone can be or can become an effective leader (despite our many individual differences) using his or her own style and personality, and not be compared to some mythical leader whom we might never aspire to emulate!

The Leadership Benchmark not only provides feedback on how effective we currently are in each of the four leadership areas, it also enables others to suggest where we might change our behaviour to become even more effective. People are asked to rate each of the 32 leadership apsects in terms of whether they would like to see "more", "less" or the "same" amount of each displayed.

So the tool itself provides development directions or indicators even before any formal development initiatives (such as training, mentoring etc.) commence.

The Leadership Benchmark is currently used as the key developmental 360 tool by the Australian Graduate School of Management (Universities of Sydney and New South Wales) for their Advanced Leadership Program.