17 October 2005

Kinds of leadership


I think there are several kinds of leadership. I do not mean the kind of leadership Blanchard and Hersey address when they speak of situational leadership. What I mean is leadership in the areas of:
- content
- emotion
- relation
- procedure.

A good leader probably needs to be reasonable to well able at all these areas. You might say, he has to be a leader in all four areas. In that sense it would be better to speak of a complete leader. I assume that four persons, every one very able in one of the four areas, could achieve the same as one leader, able at all four areas.
The art of finding leaders, under that assumption, would mean finding four persons that make each other complete in every four of the areas.
Off course, if one of the four is a complete disaster, when it comes to relations and another one is his opposite, the situation will not be salvageable.
This does not mean, that a four headed leadership is less appropriate. It just means that looking for four leaders takes as much wisdom and spirit as looking for one leader. Besides four equals are in the situation to learn from each other. The danger for one person, that is better in most areas than other persons in his surroundings, is that he or she becomes arrogant, if that is not already the case.
And we all know what happens to arrogant leaders.

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