Some Call It Leadership

I don't.

When "leaders" scream and rant at followers...
When "leaders" demand respect, trust and loyalty, yet do not reciprocate...
When "leaders" lord their authority over the people in their organization rather serving them by creating an environment where people can flourish...

That is not leadership!

I understand that respect, trust and loyalty are important ingredients for effective leadership. But, those are gifts that followers give to leaders based on the leader's character.

When a leader is respectable, people will respect her.

When a leader is trustworthy, people will trust him.

When a leader is loyal, their followers will be loyal.

But demanding those responses without first living the character traits that warrant those responses isn't leadership. Demanding these responses without initiating the same attitude toward followers is not leadership. Demanding that these attitudes flow toward the leader is not leadership.

In fact, demanding any response is not leadership.

In his classic, Pulitzer-prize winning book Leadership, James MacGregor Burns makes a sharp distinction between power-wielding and leadership.

Power wielders use the resources of their power bases that are relevant to the attainment of their own purposes. In contrast, Burns defines leadership as a process that takes place in the context of a relationship between leaders and followers. Through this process, leaders induce followers to achieve goals that represent the values, motivations, wants, needs, aspirations and expectations of both leaders and followers. Thus, leadership is viewed as a mutually beneficial relationship. As such, leadership, unlike naked power wielding, is inseparable from followers’ needs and goals. According to Burns, “power wielders may treat people as things, but leaders may not. All leaders are actual or potential power holders, but not all power holders are leaders” (p.18).

I think its high time that we began to take seriously the difference between power-wielding and leadership.

Are you a self-serving power wielder?

Or are you a servant leader?