What is leadership? LO22135

Richard Karash (Richard@Karash.com)
Thu, 8 Jul 1999 02:15:54 -0400

Replying to LO22097 --

At 8:18 PM -0700 7/5/99, Richard Charles Holloway wrote:

>I'm sorry...I cannot accept this continuing line of conversation that
>considers Hitler ...snip...

In the part I snipped, I thought Doc wasn't clear about "considers Hitler
as (what)", but I think he meant, "considers Hitler as a leader."

Whenever we talk about leadership, Hitler appears. Usually, this is with
the thought that people followed, and raises big questions about
leadership. To what extent they actually did or did not follow Hitler
doesn't matter; we still have the puzzlement about people who follow
unethical and/or immoral leaders.

This is a dilemma in language...

Either: 1) We have to say that it's not leadership when people follow
someone immoral. In this option, Hitler was something else, not a leader.

Or, 2) we have to distinguish "good leadership" from bad. Thus, Hitler may
have been a leader, but not a good one.

Of the two choices, I favor #2. That is, leadership is when people follow;
there is a possibility of leading (and following) in directions we abhor.
We have to distinguish not just whether leadership occured, but whether it
was in a productive direction, as with any work or skill.

There's a darker thought that appears sometimes about organizational
learning... That org learning (especially personal mastery) is about
creating or getting what you want, including selfish or immoral ends. I
think this is a question for any work or skill... We should be thinking
about the ethics and morality. To me, our field helps in this regard by
pushing everyone to think about the results that are occuring, even the
ones created by "the system" without the direct action of any person or
group. To me, these ethical questions should always be part of a learning
organization.

Finally, I want to bring back a contribution by Mike McMaster from a
couple of years ago. He shared a definition from his old Scottish
dictionary that leadership is "showing the way by going first." I don't
think that's a current definition, but I do think it's an effective
leadership technique: To show the way by going first.

-=- Rick

-- 

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