The Leadership Process

Comment:  Leadership is a deliberate and methodical process of rallying people to a cause they feel they have a stake in then skillfully achieving the end state. Leadership does not stop with the vision but requires one to become a leaders of leaders as strategy is put to task. The leadership process model is an overaching framework that leaders follow.

The Leadership Process

Many people think of leadership as a passionate charismatic person that others identify with and adoringly  follow sheepishly. They may feel a sense of safety, community, and camaraderie under a leader. However, leadership is much more than a father figure. Leadership results in durable and tangible impacts in the lives of people. Poor leadership damages lives and causes real injury to more than just those who follow them.  Understanding the core leadership processes shown in Figure 1, will aide in understanding how to make the choices and develop positive leadership results. Leadership centers on formulating vision and achieving goals by leading people to the end state.

Figure 1: The Leadership Process

Problem identification is at the root purpose of leadership. Leaders see something that is not correct, not just, or not right. They have an internal calling, moral compass, or moral imperative to take action in order to fix the problem arriving at some vision or end state. One of the challenges is correctly identifying the problem. Often people latch onto a symptom rather than the root cause. Leaders are good at determining root causes.

Once the problem is correctly identified, the leader sets goals or objectives then puts together some sort of strategy to achieve the desired end state. This initiates a strategy-to-task effort. A leader must ensure the top intent becomes bottom action and is thinking about this challenge at this point. The goal setting process is distinct from goals / changes or change management. 

Leaders must have a following. Therefore, they must build a constituency of stakeholders and followers. These people are the advocates or evangelists for the leaders vision. They have a stake in the outcome and believe in the objective. Often stakeholders bring resources to the effort. 

The vision or goal has some sort requirements that draw upon capacities and capabilities that are not  fully or currently available. Identification of the organizational design exposes requirements and determines the resources necessary to advance the vision towards the goals and end state.

Resources are mobilized to procure the shortfalls and build broader base support for the objectives. The outcome of mobilizing the resources creates the conditions and elements for the objective to be realized. Resources include manpower, money, materiels, and means or methods of advancing the goal. 

An assessment is made whether or not the end state has been achieved. If not, then an assessment is made to determine the shortfalls and adjustments that are necessary to move forward. 

Once the assessment shortfalls are determined, then there is a Plan for Updates that adjusts the goals and objectives for another go around until the endstate is achieved. 

The leadership process model applies well to most any vision or actions that a leader chooses to pursue. Vision that struggles to build a constituency usually falls by the way side. It is also possible for the leadership, vision, and constituency to pursue questionable and even unethical or immoral visions. The model degrades or falls apart under these conditions and those visions usually are imposed rather than develop.

Leadership Builds on Democratization

Current leadership models focus on democratization of design and the process. This is commonly thought of as reform in which the leader attracts a constituency because the constituency's have a stake in the outcome. While the leader brings focus, direction, and puts a framework to achieving the vision or end state the constituency mobilizes the resources and skills necessary to effect the vision. Understanding democratization processes and management of the stakeholders and other followers is essential to success. 

In the course of the leadership process, leaders may use Effects Based Outcomes, EBO, to put strategy-to-task ensuring top intent becomes bottom action. They may employ Measurable Organizational Value, MOV, to ensure that the actions they are taking result in measurable effects and contribute value to the organization.  

Overall, leadership is multi-faceted. Many folks fail to realize that there are leaders of followers, leaders of leaders, and leaders who lead leaders of leaders. Most of all, one individual may have to fill all three roles but most often only focuses on only one role.