Leadership looks and sounds easy.
We all readily recognise a good leader or boss. They are visionary, intelligent, decisive and fair. They delegate, lead balanced lives, communicate well, are team players, cope well under pressure and embrace technology and change.
We also instinctively recognise a bad leader or bad boss. Bad bosses are autocratic, hierarchical, inconsistent and non-intuitive. The sort who kick heads and ask questions later. They surround themselves with clones who are scared to offer diverging opinions and enjoy playing power games, such as intimidating staff or withholding information.
So, what defines good and bad leadership?
A leader:
- Has a creative vision for the organisation
- Is emotionally mature
- Has a firm grasp of technology and its implications for society
- Is a team player who is able to delegate and enable other team members to excel
- Thinks strategically and politically
- Is disciplined and fair
- Has achieved a work/life balance
- Welcomes divergent views but is tough and decisive when necessary
- Copes well during times of extreme change, pressure and uncertainty
- Tells the truth
A manager, on the other hand, is someone who:
- Feels most comfortable dealing with the internal complexity of an organisation
- Lacks strategic vision
- Is intent on improving the status quo
- Enjoys putting someone else’s vision into practice
While a bad boss:
- Is dictatorial, bullying and inconsistent
- Feels threatened by divergent opinions and will surround himself/herself with people of similar views
- Withholds information and uses his or her power to effect change
- Enjoys intimidating staff and is often autocratic
- Is one-dimensional
- Quells conflict rather than drawing differences out
- Is a workaholic with few if any close relationships
It all souds pretty easy, doesn’t it? What’s stopping you?
