Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Thinking about the Dimensions of leadership




 Thinking about leadership and its multidimensionality - there are at least three dimensions to leadership, each very rich in its own attributes:
1.  The interpersonal dimension: does leadership know how to delegate, how to affirm, empower, correct, monitor, develop and encourage, etc? (The interpersonal is necessary to spark a high performance work group and…)
2.  The team dimension: Does leadership have the knowledge and competence in facilitating true optimal team dynamics for best collective thinking and decision-making (and performance) on behalf of the entity as a whole, and
3. The technical knowledge, cognitive ability, and competencies to respectably handle the technical requirements and “thinking” responsibilities of the job at the leadership level in question. (This side of the frame includes sufficient financial aptitude, strategic thinking, discernment and awareness, performance science, self-discipline, domain understanding, metrology (numbers thinking), etc.
(These are apart from, and in addition to, the vital core of values, virtues, and wisdom desired in one’s leader such as humility, integrity, caring, teachability, curiosity, goodness of spirit, tenacity, discernment, etc.)
No wonder leadership is difficult pull off and difficult to pin down. Each author/authority sees and focuses on a different part of the elephant. 
No one person possesses these to an ideal degree, but if one is missing or notably weak, it could be fatal to effective leadership.
 To paraphrase a saying from Tolstoy, “Every happy organization is happy in the same way; unhappy organizations are unhappy in their own individual ways.”

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