An Overview of
Skills You Need – Leadership
(Website)

This website explains both the traditional and more recent definitions of a leader, as well as, summarizing Daniel Goleman’s 6 styles of leadership (Coercive, Pace-setting, Authoritative, Affliative, Democratic & Coaching).  The website goes on to suggest steps to develop your leadership style, which includes a reminder that “the best leaders create other leaders, not followers” (Develop Your Leadership).  Ethical leadership is covered in the next section and draws from Stephen Covey’s four levels of principle centered leadership and suggested the concept of inside out thinking will change your perspective.  Leader or manager?  Have you stopped to think about the difference?  This website goes on to explain that leadership is not the same as management. There’s a difference in perspective and how we think about the challenges we face.  While many leaders are managers, not all managers are leaders.  The website explained a brief overview of leadership theories and how they have evolved since the early 1900s. The leadership section wraps up with an interesting overview of what it means to be an entrepreneur and the skills most often demonstrated by entrepreneurs.

This website offered a quick overview of leadership and its various components.  Each page offered links to further skill development within the larger skill development website. Pages often included embedded advertisements along with the opportunity to purchase more detailed books/training from the website. Regardless of the ads and option to purchase this website provided an interesting introduction to leadership and offered connections to other research.

I found the entrepreneurship section interesting as I’m also a home based business owner and could relate to the aspects mentioned. In the entrepreneurial skills section, the writers quoted Howard Schultz, Chairman and CEO of Starbucks, “I think if you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve got to dream big and then dream bigger” (Skills You Need – Leadership – point #3). It reminded me of what Talley Goodson, Founder of Color By Amber, shared with us on our last evening in San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico. We had just spent 2 days meeting and learning from the artisans that create our intricate, Mexican interlayers.  As he shared part of his life’s journey, how he built the company from scratch and why what we do makes a difference, he said anyone can make a difference.  The reason that some people have a bigger impact is because they dream bigger and bigger.  They see the vision on a broader scale and they go for it.

Leadership depends not only on the individual but your team and the changing contexts that we live in.  A true leader understands the situation and their team and consciously or unconsciously chooses a style that best matches the needs of the situation.

SkillsYouNeed (2016) What is a Leader? [online] available at http://www.skillsyouneed.com/lead/leader.html (Accessed July 7 2016)