LEADERSHIP

Fr Jim Cogley

Leadership and authority are generally regarded as going hand in hand. There are many who long to be in leadership but not for the right reasons. They like to be in charge and to control others or have an innate need to be bossy. Real leadership has nothing to do with telling others what to do or exercising control. Its essence is to be found in the root meaning of the word authority, and it comes from the Latin word ‘augere’ which means to make things grow. We can extrapolate this to also mean to empower, to bring out the best and to develop potential. From that root word we get the sense of leadership not being seen as gift in itself but more in how it enables the gifts of others to come to the fore.

Many natural leaders are often placed in the role of also being administrators even though the roles are really quite separate. A leader could be classed as somebody who sees what needs to be done while an administrator is someone who sees that it is done. The role of a leader is to work towards becoming redundant by delegating as much work as possible. If a leader tries to also operate in an administrative role, he or she is likely to fail in his own eyes and in the eyes of those he has responsibility for. Many potentially good organizations fail early because of this, where the energy needed for visioning something into being, becomes dissipated in administrative tasks. Issues like financing, duty rosters and the day-to-day running. These take from the leader's role of been able to guide the organization to where it needs to be.

We often say that a good leader is very hands on. However, it might also be true to say that truly good leadership is more hands off. By this I mean that such a person recognizes that everybody needs to grow through mistakes, and that most people get things right only after getting them wrong. Giving someone the freedom to make mistakes is essential to good leadership and this means to not try and micromanage everything or give the impression of always looking over the shoulder of somebody who is new. Being given the freedom to make mistakes is usually the best formula for success. For someone who is good at something, it’s very tempting to put an old head on young shoulders, and burden someone with expectations that had they been subjected to at a young age themselves could have stymied their potential.

While most people give out about what is not, a leader is someone who says, ‘why not’ and proceeds to find ways to bring that about. This does not mean telling people what to do but more helping people to see what he sees and thereby helping them to invest their energies in bringing that about. A truly good leader, while he knows where he is going, may even say very little about his vision but instead ask questions and sow seeds in others minds so that when his vision is coming to its fulfillment the ideas will appear to come from others and it will be they who will be much more inclined to invest in and own the project from the beginning. Another useful strategy of leadership is to bring the detractors on board from the beginning. Their voices may still remain negative but can serve a useful role of representing those on the outside who also need to be heard and whose criticisms may be quite valuable to in order to refine the project.