Authentic Leadership Choices:
Deciding What You Believe
Authentic leadership skills and abilities increase when we have a clear understanding of the leadership definitions and leadership choices being promoted in popular leadership literature.
Leadership Choices by Bob Terry
One of the most useless phrases in organizations is heard all the time: “You know, we need more leadership around here.” With over three hundred definitions of leadership identifiable in present leadership literature, the field is fragmented. What some claim as leadership, others designate as management or do not think even deserves the designation.
We are witnessing an intensification of debates in the field of leadership studies over what constitutes leadership
While people often assume they know what leadership is, when pressed, clarity leaves the room. Performance appraisals often include leadership, with little clarity about what the term means.
Exploring common Leadership Choices, opens the door to what the concept of leadership really means. We are introduced to the complexity of the concept and exposed to assumptions we make in the use of the term.
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Eight choices currently appear to frame the leadership debates. Leadership is: - Born vs. Made
- Individual vs. Relational
- Positional vs. Everywhere
- Results vs. Engagement
- Coercive/Non-coercive vs. Only Non-coercive
- Vision vs. Framing
- Ethical/Un-ethical vs. Only Ethical
- Secular vs. Spiritual
Choices not only exist in defining leadership. They also exist in what leadership looks like in action. This involves entrepreneurial iniatives, organizational interventions and programs as well as core competencies. We are certainly mired in the fad-of-the-week mentality for organizational interventions. Every fad has an advocate pushing its merits without much assessment of when not to use the strategy or intervention. Just think of the options: - reinventing
- reengineering
- restructuring
- visioning
- strategic planning
- Myers-Briggs seminars
- team building
- diversity training
- Total Quality Movement (TQM)
- stakeholder analysis
- vision, values and mission statements etc.
A similar list can be created for core competencies: visioning, system thinking, emotional intelligence, negotiating, framing, ethical reflection, decision making, task force accomplishment, dialogue, improvisation, scanning, etc. This list is equally long. What has been missing in all of this is a framework to help sort out what is really going on in the field of leadership studies. Assertions without context may be provocative. Yet they make little sense until located in some kind of comprehensive context. Reading "Leadership Choices," and taking the assessment you will find in this downloadable ebook, will help define what you understand about leadership and how to apply it within your organization. Instant download 9.97
Books and Ebooks By Our Company Founder, Dr. Robert Terry:
 
The Leadership Series for Successful Living
Related Links:
Authentic Leadership: Courage in Action
Seven Zones for Leadership
On Being a Secular Theologian
For Whites Only
Leadership Choices
Leadership Metaphors
Leadership Ethics
Leadership Paradox
Leadership and Diversity
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