We Lead From Where We Are

There are multiple leadership options including: situational, leading by example, authoritative/positional and charismatic.

Situational leadership often evolves during a crisis. What is the disaster recovery plan? IT and Operations experts can emerge as situational leaders. What do we do when the economy slows? By asking all customer facing associates "How can we provide new product/service offerings to better serve our customers and achieve competitive advantage?" we gain invaluable insight. This is a great way to identify emerging leaders.

Leading by example is a leadership option available to every person. My daughter incorporates exercise into her daily time budget and thus influences the rest of us to be more consciously and consistently active. When the sales leader schedules 15 appointments per week, you get the message that a combination of breakfast, lunch, dinner and non-meal appointments will fit into every work day.

Authorative/Positional leadership is a leadership option most commonly experienced in the business, government and academic workspace. The boss has the ultimate say. Though this is a reality, every highly effective organization (except military) with which I've been affiliated, uses this as the tie-breaker rather than the mode of operation. It's clear that there are non-negotiables, but when teams adhere to core principals and can compromise, collaborate and deliver solutions without invoking authorative/positional leadership, everyone wins.

Charismatic leaders have a connection that resonates with others, sometimes despite the message. I had a list, but intentionally deleted them, because we all have our own lists of folks who have prompted us to act based upon their passion, energy and "expertise".

Each of us has the opportunity to lead regardless of the position we hold. Only authoritative/positional leadership is determined by the job we hold. We can all be positive situational and charismatic leaders. And, of course, we can all lead by example.