Peter Northhouse defines leadership as “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal”
Gary Yukl relaxes the assumption of a single leader: “the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives.”
Defining leadership as a process means that it is not a trait or character- istic that resides in the leader, but rather a transactional event that occurs between the leader and the followers.
Leadership really doesn’t have anything to do with titles, org charts or positions. It really is all about your ability to influence people, and the only way you can influence people is by being able to relate to them. As soon as you realize that you can relate to people, then you can lead them.
For me then, successful leadership is based on relationships; the relationship that you have with yourself and the relationships that you have with others.
About me: being the best that I can be, more often. Leadership of self means creating the conditions for your own success by maintaining a better balance and a greater sustaining of your energies.
About we: being the best that we can be, more often. Leadership of others means creating the conditions for the success of colleagues and the team; by enabling win-win transactions.
Insight to Outsight; creating the conditions for your own success means that you must enable a momentum to your individual growth. Your actions and relationship with others must change and improve as a result of what you notice through your reflection and questioning of self.
I was introduced to the work of Harry Kraemer by listening to this podcast: http://www.thefutureorganization.com/future-work-podcast/
Harry talks about “Actualizing who you are meant to become”.
Becoming your best SELF: The foundation of best self is self- reflection to identify, embrace, and stay mindful of your values—what means most to you.
Sustaining the relationship with self much like sustaining any relationship means being curious and asking yourself questions.
Harry identifies a set of self questions that could make up a regular pattern of self-reflection.
Daily Self Examination Questions from harrykraemer.org
What did I say I was going to do today in all dimensions of my life?
What did I actually do today?
What am I proud of?
What am I not proud of?
How did I lead people?
How did I follow people?
If I lived today over again, what would I have done differently?
If I have tomorrow (and I am acutely aware that some day I won’t) and I am a learning person, based on what I learned today, what will I do tomorrow in all dimensions of my life that are important.
