Leadership studies

I became interested in leadership studies when a friend of mine was undertaking her MBA studies. We met as her son was learning to dive through our dive centre. She would drop him off before racing home to study and write up her assignments.

I was very interested in what she was doing and I was even more interested to learn she was working at the university as a marker. What a great way to gain exposure to both strong and weak academic papers. She has an opportunity to learn from the very students she marked.

So when she decided to head back to university to research and write her thesis on leadership, I was acutely interested in following her progress. Leadership is such an interesting and finicky issue, plenty of people write up leadership skills in their CVs yet I wonder how many actually demonstrate actual effective leadership qualities in the workplace?

I see motivational pictures mounted on the wall of an eagle soaring over the mountains looking down over the valley below. This isn't leadership; a manager, or indeed a director needs to inspire people through a shared vision that empowers team members to create value in the organisation.

When I see a leadership poster hanging on a wall all I see is an example of leadership lacking. I am yet to see the workers buying into a culture and vision, this is just token symbolism that fails to create the team-work that leads to outstanding performance.