Implications of Viewing Leadership as Art

Last week we began parsing the definition of leadership which I developed 20 years ago: Leadership is the art of rallying people around a shared purpose, then motivating them and mobilizing them to achieve it..

In that episode, we examined the import of the terms "people" and "shared purpose." This week we take up a third term: "art."

Last week we examined two key terms from my definition of leadership. This week we take up a third term, "art." Leadership is far more akin to an art than a science.

And because it is, there are no objective measures by which to judge a leader's work, no more than there are objective measures by which to judge an artist's work. People either like it or they don't.

In fact, people might like the results a leader gets, but dislike the leader's style or personality. And since their judgment of the leader is entirely subjective, it is not easily refuted.

Leaders must therefore have a strong enough sense of self that they are not knocked off course by criticism that is uninformed, mean-spirited, or the product of personal prejudice.

A transcript of this episode is available at https://www.upsizeyourleadership.com/episodes/2403-leadership-as-art.htm,

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