Leadership has often been associated with ranking first, conducting, guiding, directing others from up front with commanding authority. Leadership today is increasingly facing the need to create something new, something greater than what an individual can create on his or her own. Leaders have always been unique in terms of their talents and abilities. However, leadership relies increasingly on partnerships to harness the power and multiply the skills and efforts to create something new and meaningful to all. It is increasingly through partnerships that leaders distinguish themselves.
Partnership has often been understood as something we need in life as a way to either “fix” or complete ourselves: a complementarity of sort. We find ourselves lonely and get into a relationship. This leads to a relationship of dependence. Leaders need to associate themselves to others from a place of knowing that their leadership lies within themselves solely. They partner with others as a way to mirror their own limits, taking full responsibility for their own shortcomings rather than seeking to accomplish anything by relying on others. This type of partnership becomes a way to reflect and accept who we are, and an opportunity for personal transformation. This is transformational leadership in a world that needs to create new pathways, new structures towards collaborative life.
This type of leadership through partnership creates harmonious communities, where individuals can reach their best, not by themselves but through others. People thus become empowered to take courageous correction course, daring to venture into unchartered territories feeling the presence of others ready to step up front, if and when needed. This is a way to soar higher and transform through the kindred spirit of others, thereby transforming the community and leadership itself.
Transformational leadership is about yourself. But you cannot make it happen by yourself.
Isabelle,
I think that we can sometimes take these new approaches too far with the result that leadership becomes little more than the person who arranges the chairs for an exercise in consensus building. However, at the same time, we ought to acknowledge that in complex environments, good leadership involves more than just making a decision or issuing a Diktat.
The British political sociologist, Harold Laswell, once wrote that leadership is both “cue giving and cue receiving”. In other words, both top-down direction and bottom-up insight/advice. In most military and/or bureaucratic organisations, the cue giving function is all that most equate with leadership. But, as this post suggests, in most cases that is bad leadership because no one giving the cues can possibly know all that he/she needs in order to make the best decision.
Interesting post, as always !!!
Many thanks for the opportunity to reflect. I really appreciate the quote, which brings me to the important universal law of giving and receiving – two essential functions that do not go without the other. I guess leadership cannot always be transformational and there is a place for the old and the new approaches to reinforce each other. Finding the balance is leadership. Many thanks for taking the time to comment. Isabelle