The Age-Old Question: What is Great Leadership?

I’m reading an engrossing book on leadership: Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders by Rajeev Peshawaria – in the intro he poses the question: “Of all the bosses you’ve had in your career, how many would you call truly great leaders? For the purpose of this question, a great leader is someone who inspired you to show up every morning and do your best possible work, someone who made you believe in yourself, someone who genuinely cared about your success, and someone whom you wanted to follow willingly.”

 

Peshawaria’s comments following  this question are sadly revealing about the lack of great leadership, but his book goes on to outline some outstanding leadership practices.

 

I also like his statement: “Effective leaders take it upon themselves to dig deep and find solutions to the most pressing problems of their times. They feel deeply about the inadequacies of current reality and decide to do something about it. They do not wait to be appointed to important positions before doing so. It is their deep desire to change the status quo than makes them leaders.”

 

Well said! Anyone with some work history knows that leadership isn’t about titles and positions, but about influencing others.  His core principles of leadership are explored at length in the book and I suppose I like it because it meshes with my beliefs about leadership. He begins with how important it is to clearly define your purpose and values.

 
Coincidently, I’ve been following an interesting discussion on LinkedIn where someone posed this question: “If there were one 'master problem' that, if solved, would enable leaders to really breakthrough to new levels of sustainable business and prosperity - what do you think it is?” It's interesting how many responses are tied to crating a culture where values are continue to grapple with a very old question: “What is great leadership?”

Give the book a try.