The Leadership Challenge

Why 70% of middle managers fail to become leaders?

Harvard Business School scholar John Kotter has argued that there are three fundamentals processes for effective leadership that a lot of managers have failed to grasp.

1. Establishing a compelling direction, a vision for the future and the strategies for how to get there. 
2. Aligning people, communicating the direction, building share understanding, getting people to believe in the vision and then persuading and influencing people to follow that vision. 
3. Motivating and inspiring people to enact the kind of change that you have articulated. 

Kotter further argued that finding people with leadership potential is much more difficult than finding people who are good managers. Since driving change is much more difficult than striving for efficiency and meeting near-term financial and nonfinancial targets.

"A leader is not simply someone who experiences the personal exhilaration of being in charge. A leader is someone whose actions have the most profound consequences on other people's lives, for better or for worse, sometimes forever and ever."

Warren Bennis

When you are responsible for managing and leading people, you have the opportunity to make a profound impact on your employees, but it’s up to you as the leader to recognize that your staff are your most prized asset.

Leadership is about people, it's about inspiring people to believe that the impossible is possible, it is about developing and building people to perform at heights they never imagine and it's about making a positive impact on your community, your school, your team, your staff and by extension your pupils.

Leadership is never about tearing people down and making people feel less than themselves. If you want to be a great leader you must first start with being a better human being.

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