Definition of a leader

A leader is "a person who influences a group of people towards the achievement of a goal". A
mnemonic for this definition would be 3P's - Person, People and Purpose as illustrated by the
following diagram.

Is leadership a position of office or authority? Or, is leadership an ability in the sense that he
is a leader because he leads? We all may know or hear of people who are in positions of
leadership but who are not providing leadership. A position of office is no guarantee of
leadership but it helps in the sense that a leadership position usually commands a listening ear
from its people and that is a good starting point for anyone who desires to be a leader.

A leader by its meaning is one who goes first and leads by example, so that others are
motivated to follow him. This is a basic requirement. To be a leader, a person must have a
deep-rooted commitment to the goal that he will strive to achieve it even if nobody follows
him!

A requirement for leadership is personal vision - the ability to visualize your goal as an
accomplished fact; a thing already achieved.
"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain
trumpet."
Theodore M. Hesburgh
How do you become a leader with a purpose? You need guidance (Prov 3:5-6) and you will
get it through meditation on the Word of God.
Thinking Skills

The next requirement is the realization that the goal cannot be achieved alone, without the
help of others. Is there a natural grouping of people from whom you can elicit help? Or do
you have to recruit your followers? In the latter, you face a greater challenge. But whatever
the situation, the leader must integrate his (or the organization's) goal with his followers’
personal goals and then communicates this goal in such a way that they embrace it too and the
goal becomes a common goal.

The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary
and the idealist. Eric Hoffer

In communicating your goal, bear in mind that it should meet the following criteria:

Achievable ... realistic yet faith stretching

Inspiring ... challenging your people to give of their best
Measurable ... quantifiable
Shared ... declaring your conviction in and commitment to the goal

People
 He who thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk.

Anonymous
To be a leader, one must have followers. To have followers, one must have their trust. How
do you win their trust? Why would others trust you? Most important, are you worthy of their
trust?

Why are some individuals more effective than others at influencing people?
Effectiveness in leadership has been attributed to (1) persuasion skills, (2) leadership styles
and (3) personal attributes of the leader. We will explore these further in another article or
two. Now, we will consider one critical element of leadership (influence) - love for people.

In the article Characteristics of Leadership Effectiveness: Implementing Change and Driving

Innovation in Organizations by Gilley, Dixon, and Gilley (2008), we find a simple but
operational definition for our use here.
According to the article, a good leader can “communicate appropriately and motivate others
significantly” to forward the mission.
Good Leaders
The key concept to understand is a good leader can interact with followers in a way that they
want to listen and want to be motivated, not that leaders actually motivate (control) them. In
this definition, to answer the question of innateness we must generalize this definition to a
category of human nature; our social nature.
In the literal meaning of innate, I would say very little that makes a good leader can be
attributed to intrinsic sources. Some leaders, who do not have direct contact with those they
lead, may have a natural ability to lead simply in the way they look and talk and carry
themselves (e.g. Warren Harding Effect). But those effects often wear off as the leader’s
direct interaction with followers increases. Then it is how the leader interacts with followers
and the decisions they see their leader make that will differentiate them as good or bad.
Leadership Style
What little might be attributed to innateness could be connected to such things as
temperament or attachment style, which is often visible very early in life, but I won’t go into
them here. It should suffice to know that such styles often change as we grow up. However,
if their upbringing wasn’t conducive to them growing out of their temperament or attachment
styles as children, such may carry over into their leadership style.
For instance, if someone is insecure they may not trust which leads to micromanaging, to
pigeonholing, or withholding opportunity, and that makes for bad leaders. If the leader has a
problem with regulating emotions, he or she will lose trust and send followers into self-
protection mode. Consequently, leaders may have a difficult time motivating them, or they
won’t listen. All this relates to how a leader interacts with followers and that is why I brought
up the category of social nature.