Leadership is taking responsibility for an outcome that depends on other people, and creating the conditions in which those people can produce it. It covers setting a direction others can act on, allocating work to the people who should have it, removing obstacles, giving feedback that changes behaviour, and carrying the consequence when the outcome is poor. It appears without authority as often as with it, and in a placement context it appears most often without.
What leadership is not
- It is not seniority or a title, neither of which a learner on a placement has. It is not doing the most work, which is frequently the opposite: a person who absorbs the difficult parts rather than distributing them has taken responsibility for the task and not for the people. It is not charisma, which persuades and does not organise. It is not being liked, and a leader who avoids the uncomfortable conversation to preserve goodwill has traded the outcome for the relationship. And it is not collaboration: collaboration is contributing well within a group, and leadership is taking responsibility for what the group produces.