I agree that receiving a nice pay check and doing something that you love is quite motivating, but what about good leadership? I believe that leadership is the third way to motivate and engage your staff. History has shown us that people are able to do terrifying things to each other if a good leader tells them to. I think you all know that I’m referring to leaders such as Hitler. Please don’t get me wrong, but Hitler is a terrific example of a good leader. If you ask me, a good leader is born that way. It’s not something you can learn for example in school, no, I believe it’s something you have in you.
But what is good leadership? Why should anyone be led by you? is a paper written by R. Goffee en G. Jones in 2006 and published by the Harvard Business School Press. I believe it was professor Marc Buelens, former professor of Bedrijfskunde, who assigned his students to read this for his exam two years ago.
They believe that “the answer lies in an explicit recognition of three fundamental axioms about leadership”.
First of all good leadership is situational. This means that a good leader will always adapt his strategy to the situation. A nice example is Nelson Mandela. He was a great leader for the ANC no matter where he was, in a prison cell or in the Union House in Pretoria
The second axiom is that good leadership is nonhierarchical. It may be possible that when you’re at the top of the hierarchy you are a good leader, but it’s not because you’re a good leader that you’re at the top. Great organizations have leaders at all levels.
The third and last observation they made, is that leadership is relational. If I put it really simple: you can’t be a leader without followers. It’s because others believe you’re a leader, that they follow you and you become a leader.
The article can be found here:
Shanna Danneels
