Leadership Is a Process

By Gbitse Barrow

Do you have a boss, supervisor, manager or CEO who doesn’t meet your expectations as a leader? Are you concerned that your new boss or manager doesn’t have the right attitude, knowledge, skills and behaviour to lead, or are you worried that despite many years in a position of leadership, your boss continues to fall short of everyone’s expectations? These are real life scenarios that play out each day in our workplaces, businesses and communities. Even on a larger scale in society, how satisfied are we of our civil and political leaders and their abilities to lead us effectively and towards success?

If you are dealing with a leader similar to the ones described above, or you suspect that you may be indeed that positional leader who is falling short of the expectation, one of the most important lessons you must learn about leadership is that it is a process, and not an event. Leaders grow each day, and leadership is in itself a journey. The mere fact that you have won an election, started a new business, married a wife,gotten a promotion, or arrived at a position of leadership doesn’t make you a leader. Authentic leadership is about a life-long commitment to learning and transformational change, which is required for you to create the positive influence and success required of you as a leader.

Some of the challenges we have with ourselves as leaders, as well as with our positional leaders is because we haven’t recognized and understood that Leadership is a process and a journey. Through this journey of leadership leaders need to grow and become more aware of themselves by reflecting, asking questions, and getting feedback from the people they lead. The new learnings from this process will enable them adopt different styles and approaches and engage their followers more effectively. A lot of leaders jettison this process, and believe that having arrived at their positions they would all of a sudden achieve a “god-status”, and that all the powers and successes that “leaders” have will suddenly become theirs.

A great example of what I am describing can best be seen when a new leader is promoted from within the team. How can you be so myopic to believe that from the first day you will gain everyone’s respect or buy-in; how can you fit into the shoes of the previous leader so quickly; how can you heal all the wounds of the past and move forward? Honestly, these things take time, which if you do not apply yourself to as a systematic process, may indeed take forever, or actually never happen. A lot of new leaders who were great team members and performers fail to recognize this and fail woefully in their first leadership assignments. I have seen people fall into this trap, and struggle to retrace their steps quickly enough and learn the competencies required to be leaders. Some of them escape, wobble and fumble along to higher positions of leadership, but carry with them forever, the scars of their leadership events, rather than the learnings and changes required of a leadership journey.

Look around today, and think about those examples of positional leaders who are not effective leaders, there is perhaps a lesson or two that can be learned from their first leadership events or positions. As you look at newly appointed or elected leaders who seem not to have what it takes - do endeavor to give them a chance and support them through their journeys. If they are committed to life-long learning and transformational learning like all great leaders should be, then their journey to leadership, although challenging will be blessed with success in the long-run.

As we look around us, we must also look at ourselves, and ask the pertinent questions - How have I dealt with my past and current leadership positions? Is leadership just an event, or am I in a committed systematic process of growing each day as a leader? Whatever your answers may be, just remember that you can re-trace your steps and create a real leadership journey as you continue to grow as leader. Focus on continuous learning, feedback and a willingness to change, and be committed, deliberate and systematic about it!

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