I never really paid attention to leadership as an industry until I took over Leadership Turn a couple of years ago. But now I realize that it’s as pronounced and cyclical as the fashion industry.
Jim Stroup at Managing Leadership describes it well.
“Initially the gurus told us that leadership was a superlative individual characteristic reserved to the elite, then a democratically distributed attribute accessible by all… first to vision, then decisiveness, then courage, then team-building skills, then forcefulness, then empathy. It’s about looking inward to one’s core self. No, it’s about communication and connecting with others.”
The list of leadership fashions is …read more

Dan McCarthy writes a great blog over at Great Leadership; we don’t always agree, but I always learn something from reading him.
He recently wrote one with which I disagree, but I see the same topic over and over, so I thought I’d offer up my two cents on the it.
The post lists “styles of leadership” and the types of people on whom they work best; generally these lists refer to how managers, i.e., bosses, handle their people.
In short, there are four styles of situational leadership

Directing Leaders define the roles and tasks of the ‘follower’, and supervise them closely.
Coaching …read more