I've spent years inside corporate leadership development rooms with concepts that change how people lead and live. I want to put them in more hands. So each letter offers one concept to explore, shared through stories from my practice and the life I see around me. All real, with details changed to protect privacy.
Today’s concept: the lens we look through.
I've been a little embarrassed that I don't have a clean definition of what leadership looks like in practice. After all, I'm a leadership development practitioner, you'd think I'd have one.
And now, I know why. I think leadership, like all nuanced things, is defined by the lens of the glasses a person is wearing. Their culture. Their race. Their age. Their gender. Their family of origin. Among others.
I think about my friend who often asks really thought-provoking questions. To me, that's leadership. To others, intrusiveness.
I think about my friend who often brings up what's not sitting right about an interaction we've had, or a tone I used. To me, that's leadership. To others, it is being overly communicative and sensitive.
I think about another friend's willingness to do the unusual, the unexpected. To me, that's leadership. To others, it is reckless.
In my practice, I lean on a 360 assessment that gives my clients 18 competencies of leadership. Each competency pulls from decades of research from around the world. Hundreds of thousands of data points, analysis, and theory to support these 18.
Which is to say, someone did define leadership. Eighteen competencies' worth, with data behind each one.
AND.
In my very first debrief of this report, the individual I was working with, a person who identifies as queer and an immigrant, took one look at it and said, "Huh. I don't agree with these competencies." How they defined leadership wasn't well represented in this 11-page assessment.
So maybe how we define leadership is not clean. Maybe there are some consistent characteristics that hold across difference, and maybe leadership is also very personal.
And maybe, that’s the beauty in it.
At JW LLC, we help people see themselves and others clearly, and communicate in ways that honor complexity and build trust.
I work with individuals and teams. If you would like to talk through what you're noticing, and what might be happening beneath it, a 20-minute intro call is available to you. No charge, no pressure.