What on earth does "leadership" mean?

[hotchoc]

Public Policy Schools appear to be obssed with the word leaderhip. It seems they want you to have engaged in leadership stuff before you enrol and that their ultimate goal is to "train the leaders of the future". Now, what does leadership mean exactly? That's another story. Does it mean being powerful? In oder words, being able to influence other's actions? Does it mean being famous and sucessful? To me leaderhip is a vague term and I am growing increasing tired of policy schools overusing it in their Public Relations stuff. I am more than open to all kinds of suggestion to better difine the concept. 

 

[irapplicant1776]

I mean, one of the most basic definitions would be some sort of position where you directed other people, such as leading a club, leading a team at work, etc. 

[goforthegold]

Personally I too am tired of the word. I much prefer the word citizenship and all it entails: being a citizen, leading as one, serving your fellow citizen, etc. 

There's been a good bit of criticism about the neoliberal model of "leadership" we see and read so much about these days, particularly by people like William Deresiewicz. Look into it if you're interested. 

[hotchoc]

4 hours ago, irapplicant1776 said:

I mean, one of the most basic definitions would be some sort of position where you directed other people, such as leading a club, leading a team at work, etc. 

That's a plausible definition. Now, what is the value for society of having your students direct others per se? To give an extreme example, Adolf Hitler was a leader, but overall I think we can agree that the added value of his actions for humanity was not great... And you can also be the leader of an organistation and be little more than a self-conceited charlatan (you could find examples among politicians of many democracies). Overall, I just think that this obstination with leaderhip does a diservice to the field. It's a good means to an end , which should be to contribute to building better societies, wheather as a leader or as freelance consultant, but that's it.

[aslabchu]

It's definitely a buzzword. It's one of those post-hoc ways people pat themselves (and others) on the back. If suchandsuch a CEO does well and it's not immediately clear why, but they seem to have good social and personal qualities, obviously it's due to some kind of intangible "leadership." And suckers shell out top dollar to acquire it. Books, courses, expensive talks— you name it.

So, yeah. In a certain sense it's a backward-looking way to describe success within an organization. There might be a more narrow sense where it describes a person's ability to inspire others, but it's grown away from that usage. Leadership these days transcends personal influence. CEOs are thought to use their leadership skills to influence people they'll never communicate with.

Edited March 29, 2016 by aslabchu

[quickerNu]

I think what they are looking for is both the ability to influence and have accountability.  A "leadership" position shows you are not a wallflower, willing to express your beliefs and bring others along, and you have skin in the game.  If you fail at achieving your goal in a leadership position, it is your problem to fix.  Maybe it is a way of saying they aren't looking for free-riders. 

[hotchoc]

 

 

 

Thanks! This is amazing: https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/#.Vvr9HITYvvE. I recommend it to anyine intrested in gaining a more nunaced understanding the tearm leadership. 

[hotchoc]

12 hours ago, goforthegold said:

Personally I too am tired of the word. I much prefer the word citizenship and all it entails: being a citizen, leading as one, serving your fellow citizen, etc. 

There's been a good bit of criticism about the neoliberal model of "leadership" we see and read so much about these days, particularly by people like William Deresiewicz. Look into it if you're interested. 

 

 

Thanks! This is amazing: https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/#.Vvr9HITYvvE. I recommend it to anyone intrested in gaining a more nunaced understanding the tearm leadership. 

Edited March 29, 2016 by hotchoc

[goforthegold]

3 hours ago, hotchoc said:

Thanks! This is amazing: https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/#.Vvr9HITYvvE. I recommend it to anyone intrested in gaining a more nunaced understanding the tearm leadership. 

Sure! I quite like the idea of tempered radicalism as well: http://www.radicallearners.com/temperedradicals/

[Dragonstone]

From my experience, I think it means they want people who will be able to go and do big, important things. Change the world, in some significant, measurable, tangible way. I feel they're looking at your track record to see if you've shown yourself capable of doing such stuff - stuff that has an impact on the world, in a real, demonstrable way.

No school (especially schools with big brand names and prestige to maintain) wants what they see as not-amazing alumni. They want to be able to own and market their alumni. So, say, Harvard Law can point to Obama and say, look! The first African-American president in the history of the United States graduated from here! They're looking for people they can - with some certainty - predict great things of. That's it, really, the leadership stuff. In my opinion, of course.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Dragonstone