The elements of GREAT leadership

After Rosa´s thoughtful post last week at The Blog Synergy about what great leadership means exactly, I´ve been reading some conclusions of a research carried by Warren Bennis and Herbert Shepard in the 1950´s. In such a distant date, Bennis & Shepard were already interested in mapping the behaviours of team members as to determine the qualitative traits of them. In their model, a positive evolution of team relationships showed an increasing transformation of power ruled relationships by relationships based on personal involvement.

For me, this is part of GREAT leadership performances. There are indeed two more traits I consider indispensible if we want to talk properly on great leadership.

The first of them is the transformation of undefined groups in purpose fueled teams. It is the work of the leader as modeler of the group that marks the meaning of that team. The function the leader has to perform in that case is close to that of an artist, of someone who gives form to the mud with her own hands.

The other trait I consider unavoidable of a great leader is that she has to be inspired. I take inspiration in the sense Boyd Clarke, the leadership gurú, wrote once, as "A love affair with an idea".

These three points, a sense of enjoyment-with-others, the modelling work of the team and the  inspiration of the leader are for me the basis for real GREAT leadership.

Comments

[Rocky]

I agree Felix, There is no substitute for inspiration and passion! Thanks.

[Phil Gerbyshak]

Fantastic points Felix. The more you enjoy being with others, the more you can spend time with them, and thus you can get more done with them and lead them to great things!

[Nice]

I agree with you, Felix, in joy and inspiration, but I think that the real empowering leadership is the co-leadership: seeing a leader in each of the members of the team,and creating the conditions for the development of those leaderships. A team with multiple leaders runs faster and all of them feel part of the project.

[Carlos Leyva]

Felix,

Yeah leadership of this sort, approaches art, but obviously though there is a leader that functions more like a movie director, the creativity happens based on group interactions, so in a sense the director's primary job is to help fashion the creative space in a manner that allows the actors to breathe.

[Rocky]

Carlos,
I really like the comparison of the movie director. Excellent! Thanks.

[Felix Gerena]

Wow, Fabulous responses!

I think Nice and Carlos are pointing towards a similar idea. The idea of making possible a field of intensive interactions and personal growth for constituents. The movie metaphor is great, Carlos. I am working on filmic narratology now and I think you can learn a lot from movie making as project leading experiences.

Definitely, that´s a very powerful dimension of leadership.