Leaders are not unicorns

There are more than 100,000 leadership books on Amazon, not to mention countless articles, blogs, and TED Talks, all offering different perspectives on what it means to be an effective leader.

Bernard Bass (founding editor-in-chief of Leadership Quarterly and, upon his retirement from Binghamton University, the most cited leadership scholar in the world) observed back in 1990:

“There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept”.

This means you will never find a leader who embodies and exemplifies every perspective on what it takes to be a great leader.

Such a unicorn does not exist, let alone an entire organisation full of them.

Not only is there a lack of consensus regarding the types of behaviour that leadership entails, but research has also shown that different leadership behaviours can be effective in different operating environments. What it means to lead successfully can look different from one organisation to the next. In other words, context counts.

So, what does this mean for you? It means that, based on your business context, you need to cut through the noise to define what great leadership looks like for your organisation.  Asking leaders to be all things to all people sets them up for failure. They need clarity and focus on what is most important. You can provide this by co-designing a leadership framework with them based on your organisation's purpose, values, strategy, customer promise, brand, and the employee experience you seek to foster.

The output of this work can be captured in a concise, engaging document underpinned by measurable behaviours that you can use to inform how you attract, identify, select, manage, develop, promote, reward, and exit leaders to positively shape your leadership culture.

While not magic, these leadership decisions, in turn, support and reinforce the leadership behaviours that underpin effectiveness within your organisation.

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