Values of Leadership

As part of my study at Moorlands Bible College I am working on an assignment looking at a modern day leader. For my 4500 word essay I have chosen to look at Richard Branson which in itself has been a real eye opener, but maybe I will blog about that another time! I wanted to find some way of looking at Branson and how he works and trying to find some way of appraising his Leadership skills and values.

For this I came across the book "The Leadership Challenge" by Kouzes & Posner, which is apparently one of THE top books on leadership and highly reccomended. The authors have been studying thousands of leaders since 1987 and have one of the most comprehensive databases of leadership questionairres over more than two decades.

They have come up with Five Key Practices of a great leader which basically states that all successful leaders should: Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable others to Act and Encourage the Heart. Each of the practices have two commitments which break things down further but you get the picture. I have read loads of books on leadership over the years and they all have their 17 laws, 7 steps, 24 values or something similar that makes all a bit too organised and boxed up for my liking. But what Kouzes and Posner have done is approached it from the other side and interviewed over 75,000 people across many countries since 1987 and asked the question "What do you look for in a leader?".

The answers were vast but the top four values were consistent every time they ran the survey in 1987, 1995, 2002 and 2007. First place was always HONESTY and then FORWARD-LOOKING followed by INSPIRING and COMPETENT.

People want their leaders to be Honest and Trustworthy, worthy of their trust. When leaders let their constituents down by not doing what they said they would there is a breaking of trust and this affects the leaders credibility.

A CHALENGE!! Am I consistent as a leader in those four values? Do I do what I say I will? Always? Am I always honest with people, my family and myself? Do I hold true to the vision that God has given me or am I persuaded by people and by circumstances? Do I inspire because I am inspired or because I am trying to manipulate a result and am I as at leading as I should be? How can I improve?

This is not just about Leaders of Nations, City Mayors, Headteachers, Church Leaders but about being a Great Father and Quality Husband - leading in every sphere of influence...

Anyway these are the kind of thoughts that are running through my head at the moment, bit preachy and Jerry Macguire-esque but hey - gotta be honest!! :o)

Heading into Childrens & Youth Workers meeting to complete the conversation on Generational Vision we started a couple of weeks ago, planning for a Business Leaders event this afternoon and then being interviewed by Rank Foundation for possible funding of a Youth Worker position within one of our Congregations - key week. Follow the updates on Twitter.