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By Chris Chittenden

Effective leadership is seen as one of the cornerstones of any successful organisation. Yet, when we ask what makes an effective leader, the answers are many and varied. One of the main causes for this variety of replies lies in a lack of definition of the term, "leadership".

The first thing to recognise is that leadership is not a position but a role. Even though people can be called "organisational leaders", this does not necessarily mean they provide leadership. This distinction is a critical one as the senior members of an organisation often see themselves as the "organisational leaders" simply because of their position in the organisation. When this occurs, the lack of distinction between being an "organisational leader" and "leadership" creates significant issues for those trying to establish and organisational direction.

This becomes clearer when we look at a second distinction of leadership that, by definition, leaders are those people who engage followers. In other words, you are only a leader if people follow you and the most effective leaders are those who are able to engage "willing followers".

The lack of distinction between being an "organisational leader" and "leadership" partly lies in a lack of understanding of the role of power in creating willing followers. For the purposes of this conversation, we will define two types of power - positional power and personal power. "Positional power" is that bestowed on an individual by others given the position they hold. For example, a person who is designated a "judge" has the power to sentence people to go to jail. In an organisational setting, people in certain organisational positions find themselves with certain power that they will not have when they leave the organisation.

On the other hand, "personal power" is gained by building trust and respect with others. You may recall that we speak of trust in terms of four key elements (assessments): sincerity - being honest with others; competence - being capable of taking effective action; reliability - keeping promises; and involvement - showing genuine engagement around other people's concerns. These things do not relate to someone's position in an organisation, rather they emerge as we observe how someone behaves.

"Willing followers" are engaged through leaders with personal power. Hence, we can say that "organisational leaders" will have positional power, but not necessarily personal power; whereas effective leadership may involve positional power but definitely relates to personal power. Therefore, it follows that many leaders within an organisation may not have positional power.

There is no doubt, that in the absence of obvious personal power, people may well follow those with positional power. However, if people with positional power also develop personal power then they are far more likely to engage people in a more profound way. Hence, those seeking to develop their leadership can look to how they build trust with the people they would lead.

There is obviously a lot more to this conversation than can be included here. However, if you are an organisational leader, you might like to consider whether or not you provide "leadership". If you are not sure about your answer, we invite you to give us a call or send us an e-mail and we would be delighted to  explore this question with you.

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Copyright © 2005 Chris Chittenden