What is leadership and how is it expressed on a day-to-day basis?

Everyone agrees that leadership is an essential part of any competence important, even decisive for a manager. However, this concept is not so easy to define.

To begin with, it is important to distinguish between position in the hierarchy and leadership. In fact, leadership has nothing to do with the title or even the position in the company. Anyone can be a leader, regardless of hierarchical position or job title. So what do we commonly understand by leadership? What is a leader? There are many definitions The majority of them agree on a good number of the points developed below.

Firstly, leadership is the result of a process of social influence and people skills

As I said earlier, leadership is not about authority or power. Above all, a leader must understand others. This is a process interpersonal in which the leader seeks to influence the actions and behaviour of a group in order to achieve a specific objective. The key here lies in understanding each member of staff. The leader knows the needs, expectations and capabilities of each individual, and how to encourage them, motivate and give a direction to the actions of each of his subordinates within a common project. He has the ability to engage his staff day after day and maximise their efforts over the long term.

This leads us to the second point: the presence of a objective

Influence is of course a determining factor, but it must have a purpose, a project, a vision, a vision, a vision. vision. This is precisely what a leader promotes. Leadership means having an inspiring vision for the future. futureThis is a project that then needs to be passed on correctly and implemented on a day-to-day basis.

Finally, there is the perception of leadership. It is in fact difficult to measure this skill objectively, as it depends more on each person's experience of the leader in question. On the one hand, there are the real qualities of leadership, those actually put into practice, and on the other, the qualities perceived by third parties. There are several types of leadership, and the style can vary from one person to another without necessarily losing effectiveness. Whatever the case, the leader accompanies the employee in their professional development, guiding them and informing them constructively about their activities. A person with leadership skills is an invaluable support for his or her employees.

This raises the question of how leadership translates into action. daily

Many observable behaviours are considered to have an impact on the perception leadership. Examples include the quality of decision making, the ability to remain calm and confident in times of crisis, and the ability to take risks. of uncertaintythe search for different perspectives on a given issue, the ability to provide feedback and rewarding employees, or accepting mistakes. Of course, these skills evolve and change over time. Although the qualities that were considered important a few years ago are still relevant today, many other behaviours are proving to be decisive in coping with current change. The world is constantly changing and new challenges are emerging. Visit changes Social, technological and economic changes are forcing companies and the leaders of tomorrow to develop new skills to deal with them. As the context changes, the notion of leadership is also evolving, not in its definition itself, but in the skills needed to be perceived as a good leader. Resilience, the ability to adapt to change, flexibility and curiosity are good examples.

Leadership is therefore made up of a set of skills

The aim is to put them into practice in a specific context, with the ultimate goal of inspire and influence the behaviour of a given group to achieve a defined objective. In practice, although this definition remains vague, everyone will be able to assess the leadership of an employee on a daily basis by observing his or her behaviour: Is he or she an inspiring superior, focused on achieving the vision and strategy? Is he committed to his teams? Does he keep his commitments? Does he know how to make decisions or bounce back from difficult situations and stay the course when faced with uncertainty? Does he propose bold and innovative solutions? Does he reward new ideas? Does it encourage collaboration and feedback? These are just a few examples of observable behaviours, among many others, that can be used to evaluate and better understand the concept of leadership.

This is the primary objective of the 360° feedback that Qualintra proposes: to measure an employee's leadership index by evaluating different observable behaviours such as those mentioned above and in relation to the company's competency frameworks. A 360° analysis which will enable everyone to prioritise the skills they need to maintain as well as those they need to develop, to achieve better alignment between actual and perceived leadership skills.