Experts disagree about what leadership is, and their definitions are as memorable as a corporation’s mission statement. Part of the problem is that we define leadership by asking the wrong question: What is leadership? There's a better question to get at what leadership is. This is a SlideShare version from Gary A. DePaul's leadership blog: http://blog.garyadepaul.com

1. “What Is Leadership?” Is the Wrong Question
SlideShare Blog

2. Leadership: Easy to recognize but hard to explain
Everyone talks about it;
few understand it. Most
people want it; few
achieve it. There are over
fifty definitions and
descriptions of it in my
personal files. What is
this intriguing subject we
call leadership?
 John C. Maxwell1
Experts disagree about what leadership is, and their definitions
are as memorable as a corporation’s mission statement.
Even Maxwell recognizes the challenge:

3. How we think about Leadership is changing
But contrary to
conventional thinking, I
believe the bottom line in
leadership isn’t how far we
advance ourselves but
how far we advance
others. That is achieved by
serving others and adding
value to their lives.
 John C. Maxwell2
Leadership’s meaning is changing. For the past thirty years –
especially within the last five, experts have written about a
leadership approach that deviates from traditional thinking.
Look at these quotations:

4. How we think about Leadership is changing
The rank of office is not
what makes someone a
leader. Leadership is the
choice to serve others
with or without any
formal rank.
 Simon Sinek4
The goal of a
leader is to give no
orders.
 Simon Sinek3
[Leaders] are not focused on
themselves, their individual
departments, or the work associated
with their functional area.
 Kevin and Jackie Freiberg5

5. How we think about Leadership is changing
Leadership is not about who you
are; it’s about what you do.
 James M. Kouzes, and Barry Z. Posner9
Leadership, more than
anything else, is about
the way we think.
 John G. Miller7
Everyone is a leader in
some part of their job or
their life.
 Ken Blanchard and Garry Ridge8
…leadership is about
the action you take.
 James M. Kouzes, and
Barry Z. Posner10

6. How we think about Leadership is changing
Empowerment is a
necessary step because
we’ve been accustomed
to disempowerment.
Empowerment is needed
to undo all those top-
down, do-what-you’re-
told,
be-a-team-player
messages that result
from our
leader-follower model.
 L. David Marquet12
Instead of more “leadership”
resulting in more
“followership,” I practiced
less leadership, resulting in
more leadership at every level
of the command.
 L. David Marquet11

7. What is leadership?
If you’re going to define traditional leadership,
you ask, “What is leadership?”
That question won’t produce a definition that
represents the evolving leadership meaning
and all of those quotations.
If you’re going to define
leadership in the 21st
Century, you have to
ask:
“Why practice
leadership?”

8. Why practice leadership?
This question makes it easier to eliminate the wrong kind
of things from the definition. You want to exclude how
and what statements. So, to answer this question,
consider this as a possible answer:
The art of getting things done through people
Most definitions that I’ve read usually
describe leadership as a way to
accomplish something like a shared goal,
purpose, objective, or vision.
If this is the purpose, people then use
leadership practices to influence a team,
group, or organization to take action that
gets you closer to achieving something.

9. Why practice leadership?
Here’s the problem:
The art of getting things done through people is actually
Mary Parker Follet’s definition of management.13
According to Follet, management – not leadership – is about
getting things done through others.
So, if the reason for practicing leadership isn’t about
accomplishing something, then why do we practice
leadership?

10. The Evolved Purpose of Leadership
As part of the subscription to
Skillsoft’s Books 24×7, David
Marquet facilitated a live event
entitled, Turn This Ship Around!
How to Create Leadership at
Every Level.
During the talk, Marquet said
something remarkable:
…leadership is not about getting people to do
stuff. It’s about getting people to think…
…I believe that what’s going to win in the 21st
Century and in the future is organizations that
allow everyone in their organizations to think.
 L. David Marquet14

11. The Evolved Purpose of Leadership
Marquet is on target to getting at the why of
leadership.
With 21st Century Leadership, the focus is
to develop others both mentally and morally.
No longer is the emphasis on roles such as
leaders and followers or on achieving ends.

12. The Evolved Purpose of Leadership
Here’s why we practice leadership: to help others develop
the mental and moral qualities, capabilities, and
behaviors.
Another way to state this is: to help others build character.
Without the need of having followers, including direct
reports, anyone from any role can practice this approach
to leadership.

13. The Evolved Purpose of Leadership
This is my formal – and maybe not so memorable –
definition of leadership:
A bidirectional performance-
improvement discipline that is designed
to mature mental and moral qualities,
capabilities, and behaviors.
Here’s the informal answer to the question, why
practice leadership?
To help others build character
On my website, I’ve uploaded a table showing the
leadership definition with related principles, practices,
and results.

14. Who practices leadership?
To be accomplished at leadership, you apply
leadership practices while performing a formal role.
These practices aren’t limited to managers and roles
with direct reports. Anyone at any career level can
apply them to help others build character.
Doing so, incidentally, leads to substantial
improvements team culture, business results, and
ultimately societal results.

15. Want to learn more?
Check out a preview of the Nine
Practices book on Amazon.com.
In this highly praised guide, learn
about how leadership is radically
changing and how you can apply
this at your work and in your
personal life.

16. About Gary A. DePaul, PhD, CPT
Gary A. DePaul has two decades of
experience as a practitioner and
scholar of leadership, has worked
in fortune 500 companies, and
consults with organizations to
improve leadership practices.
Gary speaks at conferences,
companies, firms, associations,
and association chapters.https://www.garyadepaul.com

17. Endnotes1. John C. Maxwell, Developing the Leader Within You (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1993), 1.
2. John C. Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow
You (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007), 51.
3. Simon Sinek, Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t (New York: Penguin
Group, 2014), 146.
4. Ibid, 66.
5. Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg, Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal
Success (Austin: Bard Press, 1996), 331.
6. Ibid, 299.
7. John G. Miller, QBQ!: The Question Behind the Question, What to Really Ask Yourself to Eliminate
Blame, Victim Thinking, Complaining, and Procrastination (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004), 95.
8. Ken Blanchard and Garry Ridge, Helping People Win at Work: A Business Philosophy Called “Don’t Mark
My Paper, Help Me Get an A” (Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press, 2009), 137.
9. James M. Kouzes, and Barry Z. Posner, The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things
Happen in Organizations, 5th edn. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012), 15.
10. Ibid, 332.
11. L. David Marquet, Captain, US Navy (Retired). Turn the Ship Around! A True Story Turning Followers into
Leaders, (New York: Penguin Group, 2012), 204.
12. Ibid, 212.
13. Ideas on Management, Mary parker Follett (1868-1933),
http://ideasonmanagement.blogspot.com/p/mary-parker-follett-1868-1933.html (accessed October 29,
2015).
14. L. David Marquet, Live Event: Turn the Ship Around! How to Create Leadership at Every Level. Skillsoft
Books24x7, 2014, http://sp8-
1.skillport.com/skillportfe/main.action#summary/VIDEOS/RW$9227:_ss_video:65944 (Accessed January
10, 2015).