The ONE Truth Of Leadership

I get asked many different variations of this question very often when it comes to Leadership.

What is the #1 Trait that great Leaders have?

What is the most Important Skill for Leaders to have?

If I wanted to Focus on an Aspect of Leadership, which would be the most Important?

All of these are interesting questions, and I understand why they are asked so often.

We live in a world where we want shortcuts and a "Top 10 List" to become a Master of any subject in a Week.

However, I have news to break to you.

None of these questions have an answer that will work for everyone.

There is really One Truth to all of these questions.

There is no "ONE" Type of Leadership.

As of 1995, there were over 950 "Academic" Definitions of Leadership.

That was nearly 30 years ago, and that research only Focused on "Academic" definitions.

How many new "Definitions" have sprouted up since 1995?

Both Academically and Otherwise?

I honestly couldn't tell you, and there are few people (if any) who could either.

I've seen many lists online for "Best Definitions" of Leadership, and most of them have extremely different sets of Definitions.

Few of them are Academic Definitions.

This is one of the Largest problems when it comes to "Leadership Development" and helps to explain why it almost always Fails.

What is the Definition of "Leadership" being used?

Most of the time the people teaching a "Leadership Development" course don't even know!

Even when they "do" have a Definition they are using, when you actually look at the content of their work, you discover they are using multiple types of "Leadership" in their work.

Essentially, they have created a Frankenstein of different types of "Leadership", without even realizing it.

The other Reality we must face when we look at these questions is that different types of Leadership have different Traits, Skills, and Aspects that are their #1 "Most Important".

For instance, if you are a Teacher (aka a Leader of Students), your #1 Skill may be "Empathetic Listening" to consider the different aspects of arguments between children.

However, suppose you are leading a Strike Team through enemy territory where the difference between life and death is literally fractions of a second, the "Empathetic Listening" skill has no place.

In that scenario, it will cost someone's life.

If I were to attempt to choose "ONE" thing that underlies Successful Leadership, I would say that the closest I could come to it would be the Leader's need to Improve their Psychophysiology.

But what does that mean?

Well, again, it will mean different things depending on the "Type" of Leadership you are creating.

To understand, we can go back to the previous example.

For a Teacher, they may want to really Focus on improving their Neurocardiology.

It could do wonders to both hone in on the truthfulness of students during an argument, and could also help to calm situations down more quickly.

However, even though an improved Nuerocardiology would benefit the Strike Team, they may want to Focus on developing their Nervous System more deeply.

The ability to Act and React correctly in those fractions of a second could be the difference between shooting an unfriendly and shooting a hostage.

The different systems within a honed Psychophysiology will directly Impact the other systems, but the "Focus" will depend on what circumstances will arise.

This is a large part of the reason that I no longer do "Leadership Development".

It fails to understand the reality that there is no singular type of "Leadership".

That's why I Focus on "Leadership Cultivation", understanding the type of "Leadership" that is needed within any given context and then "Cultivating" Leaders within that context.

The ONE Truth of Leadership is that there is not ONE Type of Leadership.