Can Leadership Be Learned?
3 September 2014
Read by 4903 persons
Some managers graduate from top schools yet prove to be poor leaders in the field, while others naturally possess leadership skills without ever having learned management techniques. Are some people simply more gifted than others? Is leadership talent innate? Can one learn to be a leader? Is it a matter of vocation? Can one improve on the job?
The backbone of management
Like all disciplines, management is based on mastering a number of tools:
- Knowledge of the job itself
- Mastery of oral and behavioral communication
- Basic knowledge of psychology
- Mastery of win-win negotiation strategies
- Sensitivity to collective intelligence and a systemic approach
- Developing good reflexes in case of conflict
- Basic notions of well-being, to avoid being either too stressed or too stressful
- The ability to delegate without abandoning and to supervise without over-controlling
All these tools make up the manager's bag of tricks.
But let's not fool ourselves, while these tools are essential, the quality of a leader depends above all on his human values, how he embodies them, his philosophy, his attitude. Leadership is a living and organic posture based on human qualities. Some have it in their blood; they are influential; people want to listen to them, follow them, collaborate with them. They inspire confidence. Others, despite their efforts, have little leadership.
Managerial charisma is a matter of posture.
Choosing to be a manager is to take responsibility for serving your collaborators, helping them to progress and achieve their full potential. Being a manager is to transmit to your teammates the enjoyment of a profession. It is to unite your collaborators around the company's guiding principles, to ensure team cohesion. Being a manager is knowing how to listen in some cases, knowing how to set constructive limits in others, knowing how to create bonds. It is also, like the captain of a ship, to give clear direction without changing course with every change in weather; to clearly announce the direction and to encourage each person to discover new worlds.
The communication tools offered to managers today are numerous, but they will never replace a sincere intention to create bonds.
The manager's posture is based on other criteria that are much more human and simple.
- Authenticity: the ability to speak truthfully and remain approachable
- Congruence: embodying what one suggests
- Benevolence: this quality of heart goes far beyond simple Empathy
- Grounding: roots, sources of stability for the manager
- Emotional intelligence which regulates the emotional dimension of relationships
- Vision: the manager must know where he is going in the long term
- Ethics: the manager follows paths chosen based on his values
- Patience: one of the first qualities of a wise man
- Courage: to know how to position oneself clearly
- Relaxation: essential to free oneself from the stakes to achieve one's objectives
- Fairness and justice: employees like fair managers
- Humor: a way to take a step back without taking oneself too seriously
The teachers who influenced us during our schooling were not the most qualified, but the most human. The managers who stand out are those who know how to integrate into the complexity of professional relationships, the simplicity of true and warm human relationships.
Rediscovering humanity, authenticity, and benevolence in our human relationships—what if that were the key to new management?
Arnaud Riou.
Etre-bien-au-travail.fr
Posted on September 3, 2014.
The backbone of management
Like all disciplines, management is based on mastering a number of tools:
- Knowledge of the job itself
- Mastery of oral and behavioral communication
- Basic knowledge of psychology
- Mastery of win-win negotiation strategies
- Sensitivity to collective intelligence and a systemic approach
- Developing good reflexes in case of conflict
- Basic notions of well-being, to avoid being either too stressed or too stressful
- The ability to delegate without abandoning and to supervise without over-controlling
All these tools make up the manager's bag of tricks.
But let's not fool ourselves, while these tools are essential, the quality of a leader depends above all on his human values, how he embodies them, his philosophy, his attitude. Leadership is a living and organic posture based on human qualities. Some have it in their blood; they are influential; people want to listen to them, follow them, collaborate with them. They inspire confidence. Others, despite their efforts, have little leadership.
Managerial charisma is a matter of posture.
Choosing to be a manager is to take responsibility for serving your collaborators, helping them to progress and achieve their full potential. Being a manager is to transmit to your teammates the enjoyment of a profession. It is to unite your collaborators around the company's guiding principles, to ensure team cohesion. Being a manager is knowing how to listen in some cases, knowing how to set constructive limits in others, knowing how to create bonds. It is also, like the captain of a ship, to give clear direction without changing course with every change in weather; to clearly announce the direction and to encourage each person to discover new worlds.
The communication tools offered to managers today are numerous, but they will never replace a sincere intention to create bonds.
The manager's posture is based on other criteria that are much more human and simple.
- Authenticity: the ability to speak truthfully and remain approachable
- Congruence: embodying what one suggests
- Benevolence: this quality of heart goes far beyond simple Empathy
- Grounding: roots, sources of stability for the manager
- Emotional intelligence which regulates the emotional dimension of relationships
- Vision: the manager must know where he is going in the long term
- Ethics: the manager follows paths chosen based on his values
- Patience: one of the first qualities of a wise man
- Courage: to know how to position oneself clearly
- Relaxation: essential to free oneself from the stakes to achieve one's objectives
- Fairness and justice: employees like fair managers
- Humor: a way to take a step back without taking oneself too seriously
The teachers who influenced us during our schooling were not the most qualified, but the most human. The managers who stand out are those who know how to integrate into the complexity of professional relationships, the simplicity of true and warm human relationships.
Rediscovering humanity, authenticity, and benevolence in our human relationships—what if that were the key to new management?
Arnaud Riou.
Etre-bien-au-travail.fr
Posted on September 3, 2014.
