Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Pundits with eruite speeches and compelling articles continue to espouse the importance of great leadership skills and qualities. The researched-based evidence is building as academics amass huge volumes of data and logical leadership models. Yet, as you look around your organisation, where are all the leaders? Many people I talk to struggle to recognise real leadership qualities in 1 out of 10 of those who hold leadership positions in their organisations.

Take another angle. If all these leadership qualities are so important, why don't we see more of them in practice? They say that being an inspirational leader gets results. Since business is so hungry for results, why don't we get more inspiration from our leadership? It is said that empowering followers, giving responsibility and releasing talent is vital to organisational survival and growth. Instead, we see so much micro-management, controls and measures which all conspire to stifle even the most energetic talent. And please don't get me started on trust!

So, where have all the leaders gone?

They are right under your nose, in your meetings and sadly, breathing down your neck looking for that next report. They are right there with you. The problem is they never get time to do all that fine leadership work. They probably could do it if they wanted to, or rather, had the time. And this is where we hit the root cause of the lack of great leadership.

The problem with leadership today is that it doesn't have the time to do leadership. The pressures that are thrown at leaders are extreme and only the most capable minority are able to handle it well enough to turn their attention and time to leading people. Yes, the case is clear, in the medium term leadership gets results; the problem is that people don't have enough time to invest in getting there.

One sure fire way of addressing this is to focus more leadership development effort on helping people in leadership positions to influence. Of course we have a vested interest since we have been focusing on developing influencing capability for the last 10 years, yet we know from experience that those who get really good at influence are able to handle the pressures of the current workplace far more effectively. They are able to focus their time on making the right things happen, and delegate their influence to their teams.

And it is not just me taking this line. John Maxwell is clear: leadership is influence! Personally I believe that there is more to leadership than influence; however, being highly influential enables you to work on all the other aspects of leadership too.

If you would like to talk to us about how our influence training could help you, your team, or your organisation, just get in touch. Help to allow your leadership to shine is just a phone call away.

Email us today +44 (0) 20 7788 7647

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