Leadership

What is leadership?

It is pretty much impossible to create a concise, universally-accepted definition of leadership. Most of us have seen examples of good and bad leadership, but when it comes to pinning down just what it is that makes a good leader, we usually end up with a list of behaviours rather than a simple definition.

There has probably been more time spent trying to define the difference between a leader and a manager than almost any other management topic. Often these definitions glorify the role of the leader at the expense of the role of the manager, which is unfortunate as an organisation requires skilled practitioners in both areas in order to remain successful. One analogy to clarify the difference between the manager and the leader is this: a manager is the driver of the car trying to get from A to B and the leader is the person sat alongside them with the map giving directions. The leader can see where the car needs to be going and