What is leadership..and why is it important

"First off and last on "

Joe Galloway

I suppose if you are asking this question, then you will have already noticed that there is something more to running a company than being a manager of people and resources. There is the old saying you can train a monkey to be manager but a Leader is born, I am on the fence with the leader is born, but I do believe that not everyone can lead, you can learn the tools of the trade but you have to have that spark to be able to move to the next level.

I have been attending a leadership for growth program it will run over a few months, it is being delivered by a management consultancy and part funded by Tayside Scottish enterprise, the intention of this program is to support leaders in SME’s and start ups and give them the skills to build there companies. The premise is that to build a strong company you need leaders.

I will leave off today by asking a question and supplying my answer to the question.

What is leadership?

The definition that is most common in management books is that

Leadership = Power,

Power = (Motivation and Resource)

Resource = People

I have a similar view to it, a leader is out front, and without followers you have no leadership, a manager can still manage without followers, the difference between them is that the Leader has a different relationship with the follower, an unwritten agreement between him and his follower, it is this agreement that lets the follower give more of his resource to the leader, which increases the leaders power.

So why leadership is so important in a start up, because most of the value of your company is tied up in the heads of your employees (Tribal knowledge) and that is your Human capital and unlike normal capital equipment, they can walk of and join another company if not led well. I do not mean you pander to your staff, you need to lead your staff forward.

Slainte

Gordon