Here are 6 apparently totally diverse types of leadership? Do you see any feature shared by all of them?

A new customer service associate with higher standards sets an example that others follow.
A chief executive promotes a new vision and gains widespread support for a radical change of direction.
A front-line innovator promotes a new product successfully to senior management.
Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks out against segregation on buses, thus leading the U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw it.
Tig… Continue

Many people share an ideal leader image. Among other traits, the ideal leader has vision, charisma, integrity, emotional intelligence, an inspiring delivery and sterling character. Popular examples of such leaders include chief executives, heads of state and other larger-than-life heroes. Most people clearly think of leadership as being a certain type of person, thereby ruling out other types. It also rules out everyday, mundane leadership viewed as an occasional act that all employees can show… Continue

How can you show leadership today and everyday, even in some small way? This is not about rising to a "leadership position" or even "taking charge" of a group for a brief period of time. To show leadership, you simply need to promote a new direction. It can be as simple as making a suggestion for a better way of working, a new product, a change to an existing service or an improved process. Organizing a group informally to make something happen is always a mixture of leadership and management. M… Continue

Those of you who have read my other posts on Leadership4tomorrow will note that I am trying to develop a slightly different concept of leadership. However, it has an old tradition - it is based on the idea that leadership means challenging the status quo to promote a new, better way. This is what Martin Luther King was doing after all. He had a leadership impact on the population at large without being in charge of them, without even being even their informal leader.

So what? Well… Continue

In a sense, there are no born leaders, any more than there are born musicians, dentists or politicians. There are too many learned skills required to be effective in any complex role.

Still, some people are born with natural talents for particular roles. Mozart had a lot of early training by his father but may well have been born with some talent for music.

Also, some people seem naturally to gravitate to leadership positions from an early age. Followers seem to gather around certain types of… Continue