Looking for Leadership

We venerate leadership even though many of today's challenges, including business challenges, are often too complex and may not yield to the exercise of leadership alone. Maybe it's a bit dangerous to believe we need to be led by what we perceive to be the leadership qualities possessed by real leaders. Our colleges and universities talk about training the leaders of tomorrow. Academics study leadership in think tanks, Ph.D.'s are conferred in "Leadership and Change" and leadership experts talk about it endlessly on YouTube. I tend to foster a process model of innovation-leadership - acknowledging that being a leader isn't about identity, but rather a set of actions. It's not necessarily someone you are. It's something you do - and it can be learned (although limited, importantly, by the traits you may possess). Traits Model. So what makes a change and innovation leader? This is where the Traits Model comes into play. The science of leadership has long described personality traits as the hard-wired preferences - your style, so to speak. This model seeks the components of "the right stuff." These traits are the gems of knowledge we can learn about a person's personal attributes - their disposition. Assessment can give us a very accurate read of a person's attributes. Examples would be results orientation, attention to detail, communication, influence and empathy and whether they are an extrovert or an introvert.