...I guess the risk is that we locate the cause of the change in the leader, not in the relational dynamic that emerges between leader and led, a dynamic that has as much to do with the responder as with the person who stimulated it.
There's also something significant for me about the wider social, cultural and political context within which we see 'leadership' manifest itself.
For instance, a church minister speaks from the platform in a church meeting and evokes a positive response from those present - and we attribute that response to the minister's leadership qualities. If the minister spoke the same words in the same way in a very different context (e.g. in an environment dismissive of or hostile towards Christian beliefs), it would likely evoke a very different response.
Does that mean the minister exercised leadership in the former environment but not in the latter, or is what we experience as 'leadership' actually the product of a specific social interaction within a specific social, cultural and political context?
Friday, 4 June 2010
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
More Leadership Musings
A friend, Alex, responded to my last posting: 'When you say leadership sometimes emerges unexpectedly, it also makes me wonder if it isn't always recognised at the time but is construed as leadership after the event, particularly by the follower more than the leader.
In other words, as a follower I am the only one who can legitimately apply the label leadership to what I experienced in my own psychological processes as a result of what you the leader did, how you were, what happened between us. Otherwise, if you the leader use the term leadership, all you can apply to it is a set of behaviours or competencies which may not have landed with me as leadership.'
That strikes me as incredibly profound and provoked fresh thoughts in my own mind too. I've noticed how sometimes an idea or question that emerges through conversation can begin to exercise its own leadership-like qualities, drawing the conversation forward in a way that feels almost independent of the people involved. Weird, strange - and deep.
In other words, as a follower I am the only one who can legitimately apply the label leadership to what I experienced in my own psychological processes as a result of what you the leader did, how you were, what happened between us. Otherwise, if you the leader use the term leadership, all you can apply to it is a set of behaviours or competencies which may not have landed with me as leadership.'
That strikes me as incredibly profound and provoked fresh thoughts in my own mind too. I've noticed how sometimes an idea or question that emerges through conversation can begin to exercise its own leadership-like qualities, drawing the conversation forward in a way that feels almost independent of the people involved. Weird, strange - and deep.
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