Sunday, September 11, 2005

Thoughts on Leadership…

This will be a continuing thing.

Leadership is a science and an art form: Any number of textbook concepts applied to the canvas of human interaction.

I have long held to the belief that the world is black and white, right or wrong. Binary: One condition or another. The “grays” in the world…the color and such…is added when human emotion comes into play. If people didn’t base decisions on such things as emotional valuations or other bias-related factors, the world would be a much simpler place.

There have been myriad disciplines established in order to attempt to explain such behaviors: Psychology, sociology, chaos theory, and game theory are just four that come to mind at this time. Psychology aims to predict, and thus control, behavior; sociology deals with the behavior of these people in groups; chaos theory, the growth of entropy in a system; and the interactions between intelligent agents—game theory.

Leadership, then, is the application of any number of these principles—and more—in order to meet organizational goals. In order to have leadership, you must have a team; in order to have a proper team, you must have leadership. Leadership isn’t the be-all, end-all to team accomplishment, but it is an important catalyst in the execution of such.

What are the qualities of a (good) leader? Literature will vary on this topic, but generally most schools of thought will point out (This list is not all-inclusive):

  • Vision
  • Values
  • Willing to accept a challenge
  • Drive
  • Knowledge: A good mix of practical and “text book”
  • Risk-taking
  • Attention to detail
  • Willingness to take responsibility
  • An ability to complete things properly (read: Good staff work)
  • Mental toughness
  • Awareness of their surroundings, and at least a minimum-level of self-awareness
  • Partnering abilities
  • Administrative skills: The necessary reporting functions of any leadership position to include paperwork and management of people and logistics

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