“Daddy what does doubt mean?” This is a question my daughter recently asked me at the dinner table when my wife and I were teaching from scripture. So of course, I asked her “what do you think it means?” to gauge her understanding and invite her into the learning process rather than give her the answer.
What is nice is “doubt” has a clear universally understood definition. Miriam Webster Dictionary defines “doubt” the following way.
1 : to call into question the truth of : to be uncertain
2a : to lack confidence in
2b : to consider unlikely
What struck me recently is leadership does not have a universal definition.
This is remarkable. Leadership is the topic of thousands of business books and millions of articles. How is it that there is so much written about leadership and we don’t have a common language to describe what leadership is?
Miriam Webster defines leadership in the following way
1 : the office or position of a leader
2 : capacity to lead
3 : the act or an instance of leading
The dictionary is not the best place to find an effective definition of leadership. Here are some influential thinkers to help us think about a definition of leadership.
The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.
Peter Drucker
Bill Gates describes what leaders will be:
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
Bill Gates
Another quote:
Leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less.
John Maxwell
Ron Heifetz describes leadership as a practice:
The practice of leadership, like the practice of medicine, involves two core processes: diagnosis first and then action.
Ron Heifetz
I’d love to finish this thought with a beautiful definition of leadership but I don’t have it yet.
How do you define leadership?
