Leadership, what is it and what is the difference between being a manager and being a leader?. Definitions of leadership, there is not a single definition that everyone agrees on. Manfred Kets de Vries, a professor at INSEAD, says that leadership is a set of characteristics, behaviour patterns, personality attributes that makes certain individuals more effective in achieving a set goal or objective.
Another way of describing leadership is to say that, to get the best out of people, individuals, teams, organisations, they need to be led, guided, persuaded, motivated, inspired, to be committed, to do their best, to work together to achieve a common objective. This, rather than the pure management approach of being told, directed, ordered, and treated as subordinates.
True leaders are recognised as being the leader, and their followers accept that they need to be guided by that leader, but they do not feel that they are mere subordinates. A good example is the captain of a sports team – hockey, baseball, netball, cricket, soccer, football, athletics – these are individuals who have an individual role to play, yet find time and ways to motivate and...