Inspiration
The distinctive role of leadership at the outset is that leaders take the initiative. They address their creative insights to potential followers, seize their attention, spark further interaction. The first act is decisive because it breaks up a static situation and establishes a relationship. It is, in every sense, a /creative/ act.
- James MacGregor Burns, 2003
Five qualities are particularly vital in order to promote effective leadership: confidence, integrity, connection, resilience and aspiration. Confidence creates the essential sense of self-worth and self- efficacy that is needed to put oneself forward in order to lead and to sustain oneself in a leadership role. Integrity helps leaders to be consistent and allows them to be clear about what they stand for and believe in. Connection is the ability to translate those values through a genuine and authentic link with followers - this is much more than communication, which is often the first choice whenever we ask groups to name what they believe to be the most important quality for a leader to possess. To this we would add resilience, the ability to withstand emotional and physiological stress, setbacks and conflict.
- Brad Jackson & Ken Parry, 2018
Motivation
Instead of giving people false assurance that their best is good enough, leaders insist that people surpass themselves. And rather than smoothing over conflicts, leaders force disputes to the surface’
Both leaders and followers work together to bring about substantial rather than superficial changes. These changes are driven by a mutual purpose that is forged through a non-coercive influence relationship.
- Joseph C. Rost (1991)
Self-Development
It is important to realise that the quality of all of our lives is dependent on the quality of our leadership. The context in which we study leadership is very different from the context in which we study, say, astronomy. By definition, leaders wield power, and so we study them with the same self-interested intensity with which we study diabetes and other life-threatening diseases. Only when we understand leaders will we be able to control them.
- Warren Bennis, 2007
First, a high internal locus of control, which means that leaders believe that events in their own lives are determined more by their own actions than by chance or uncontrollable forces. Second, effective leaders also require a high degree of emotional maturity and stability, which has been memorably labelled by Goleman (1995) as ‘emotional intelligence’. This means that leaders are able to monitor their emotional state and be well aware of their strengths and weaknesses. Third, leaders should also have a high socialised power motivation. This means they should derive enjoyment and fulfilment from influencing people and events for the benefit of others and not themselves. Fourth, leaders should also have a moderate but not excessively high achievement orientation as they need to be willing to work with others who may be less capable. Finally, effective leaders should have a low need for affiliation, which means that being liked should not be a strong motivator. While leaders should not relish making tough and unpopular decisions, they should not shy away from doing so.
- Yukl, 2002