What
Is Leadership?
Leadership
is about influencing others to take actions and adopt
behaviors that accomplish a goal or a mission.
This
is a complex topic. It may be viewed from many
perspectives. In this series of articles, we give a view of
leadership synthesized from several established perspectives.
Issues
and Problems
For
most organizations, problems prevent the direct, linear achievement
of a goal. The tasks for accomplishment may be murky and
solutions to problems may be unclear. Moreover, the goal
itself may be unclear, unknown or controversial. |
The
problems faced by an organization may be adaptive in nature. Adaptive
problems require changes in organizations structure, behavior,
values, culture or objectives. Non-adaptive problems
simply require the application of existing approaches.
The
people who should be involved in problem-solving varies. It depends
on the problem and the available solutions.
Table
1 summarizes several types of problem-solution complexes and the
people that should be involved in their resolution. These
various problem-solution combinations require different levels of
leadership. |