I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership. Thinking about what it means in today’s context. I’m making a distinction between leadership and a leader. Leadership as a process is larger than the individual leader. That seems important because leadership happens in relationship with others and within a context. There are many kinds of leadership; thought leadership; market leadership; political leadership, spiritual leadership. Leadership as a process brings a vision into reality by harnessing all the organization’s assets: its products, services, technologies, customers, processes, systems, reputation, individual talents, knowledge, and skills and so. These collective assets are the strengths of the organization – the positive core.
Peter Drucker wrote in his 1967 classic, The Effective Executive. “To make strength productive is the unique purpose of organization. It cannot, of course, overcome the weaknesses with which each of us is abundantly endowed. But it can make them irrelevant.” So if, in fact, a key task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths, then imagine the possibilities of strengths connected to strengths? What might that look like and why might that be worth striving for?
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