What is leadership?

• Unlike management, leadership is not a role.
• Leaders provide new direction, inspiring change regardless of role.
• Anyone can lead by influencing a group to change course.
• Leadership is an occasional act - like creativity. It can be directed up, down or sideways. You don't have to be a manager to show leadership.
• Leaders generate or discover new directions, managers execute them.
• Managers improve efficiency, leaders innovate to develop new directions.
• Managers can also be good leaders - it's not about personality type.
• If you think it is only those in senior roles can lead, you are abdicating your own ability to lead.
• Leadership has nothing to do with managing, coaching or empowering people - that's management.
• Think of thought leadership - having a new idea and influencing others to buy it.
• This is pure influence, nothing to do with being the boss.

Core leadership skills

• Willingness to champion new ideas - not minding to be different.
• Courage of convictions - standing up for things, challenging status quo.
• Influencing skills - using a variety of means to persuade people.
• Vision - seeing where things are going in the bigger picture.
• Initiative - taking risks, being first, action orientated.
• Risk taking - willingness to take the plunge and learn from mistakes in the hope that new, worthwhile directions will EMERGE - that is, you don't need to know where you will end up in order to start.

In a knowledge driven world, leadership is really thought leadership - the championing of new ideas for new directions. Getting things done is a management function. To manage people effectively your influencing style must be founded on emotional intelligence, but you can show thought leadership by citing hard facts, even in an aggressive manner. After all, we buy the ideas of eccentric loners if they can make a good case. Having emotional intelligence gives you a wider range of influencing skills but it is not a necessary condition to show thought leadership, unlike traditional positional leadership where you need powerful influencing skills to get elected to top positions.