The New Leadership
Not long ago, leadership was synonymous with having a position and title. Anyone with the proper spot on the org chart or political hierarchy was assumed to be a leader. It was an understandable assumption if you look at the political and social organizational history. Those responsible for the welfare of the many were authority figures of various forms. At different times they may have been royalty, land owners, captains of industry, or elected officials, but the public assumed that because of their station in life these people knew what they were doing. Sometimes, especially in the case of royalty, people believed their leaders were placed in their stations by a deity. It's tough to argue the illegitimacy of divine purpose.
In many cases, the people in charge actually were good at leading others. Even then, there was no guarantee that they exercised their power and knowledge to good ends. For every golden age, there have been religious persecutions, wars for territory, and literal enslavement. And in probably far more cases, those with the right position knew nothing of leadership. As a result, much of the activity that was called leadership was simply the bellowing of orders.
Leadership Changes
The view of leadership began to change in the 1950s and 1960s. For the first time, people stopped thinking of leadership as some quasi-metaphysical trait and began to study it as methodically and scientifically as they could. No longer was leadership the act of ordering people to do what you wanted them to do.
The new view of leadership was in major part the product of social change. Significant failings in political, educational, and social leaders, insisting on an unbending approach to changing time, created an opening for a new approach. People began to consider that a different approach might be more effective.
As people began to realize that leadership was a skill, they started to rightly connect the concept with knowledge, not privilege. Today, leaders are less often defined as “the boss” and more commonly defined as people who point others in the right direction. You no longer have to be a CEO, the executive director of a charity, or a manager to be a leader.
Path to Leadership
To be a leader, you actually don't need any conveyed authority at all. No matter what position you hold in an organization, no matter where you went to school, and regardless of whom you know, you have ways to lead. Being a leader has everything to do with accepting the role of leadership and what you do in the role once you take it on.
Accepting a role doesn't mean signing a union card or getting the name plate for your desk. To take on a leader's mantle means to act in the way a leader would. Whether you are in a position of authority or not, you can take on the persona, the responsibilities, and the outlook of a leader.
