Leadership--what is it and are you headed for it?

In one of my recent columns, I touched on the growing dimensions of a national leadership crisis facing our profession. I am aware that we are hardly the only ones facing such a challenge. Across the board, professions are beginning to understand the double whammy that today's demographics are causing. On the one hand, our workforce is aging and taking into retirement years of valuable experience and leadership. On the other hand, there are fewer people moving into professional practice and therefore fewer future leaders to groom.

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As we, like other professions, scramble to meet the challenges that these demographics pose, more and more attention is getting focused on the development of adequate numbers of future leaders. After all, we of the current generation are responsible for ensuring that the progress that we have made in fostering environmental conditions conducive to health is continued. That simple goal requires future leadership that will arguably need to be even more informed (and effective) than today's--given the growing complexity of our environmental and terrorism response agenda.

With all this attention being focused on leadership, it would be instructive to consider just what, exactly, leadership is. After all, how can we build future leaders if we can't agree on what leadership entails?

Although it seems to be so obvious, it turns out that defining leadership is not the simple exercise we might be tempted to think it is. We all talk about leadership. We all use leadership terminology. Many of us would exclaim that we know leadership when we see it. But how many of us could actually write an articulate definition of what leadership is? Trust me, it isn't easy.

In one of my other lives, I serve as the chair of the Rocky Mountain Institute for Health and Environmental Leadership. Many NEHA members are undoubtedly familiar with programs like this; almost every region of the country has one. Each year our board has to judge the applications we receive from individuals who are applying to our program seeking a year of intense leadership training and education.

Each year, as we go through this evaluation exercise, I find myself amazed at the answers we get to the questions that we ask applicants. One question in particular is especially pertinent to this column:

* Please share your concept of leadership and describe your own leadership style.

As I read through the thoughtful answers we get to this question, I'm always impressed with the quality and the diversity of the responses. If I have gained one insight from my years of experience reading and evaluating these applications, it is the affirmation that leadership is indeed a very individualized experience. Different leaders conceptualize and act out leadership in different though effective ways.

While leadership styles and perspectives can (and usually do) vary, my career experiences also have taught me that there are certain characteristics of leadership that tend to hold even among different leaders. A leader has to have, for instance, a healthy measure of integrity in order to inspire others to follow. Leaders also tend to have a capacity for reflection and a sense of self-awareness. This capacity enables leaders to periodically take stock of their standing, the way in which they are perceived, and the impact that they are having. In addition, it gives them a heightened clarity about what their personal concept of leadership is.

I mention this issue because in the Rocky Mountain Institute program, we actually ask applicants to reflect and to explain in writing what their concept of leadership is. By requiring such an explanation, we force our applicants to move beyond merely having an intuitive "feel" for what leadership is. To get into our program, they have to explicitly define it--in writing. And, as I hinted earlier, this is not easy to do.

That brings me to you and to the many potential leaders who are reading this column. Surely many readers of the Journal are leaders or potential leaders simply because you care enough both to receive (and read) the Journal and to be a member of your national professional society. Assuming that you have leadership material within you, allow me to encourage you to become reflective for a moment and to actually put down in writing what your definition of leadership is. More specifically, please answer this question (in writing): "Define your concept of leadership and describe your own leadership style."

If you are not quite ready to spend the time to write your answer out, perhaps you might enjoy simply reading what some of our applicants have said. You may find points that you agree with or disagree with. Just by reacting to these different views, you will be starting the process of determining how you define leadership. In addition, your reactions may well offer you some insights into both yourself and your concept of leadership. As you come to better understand yourself, you also will become better able to communicate to and lead your colleagues.

So, what do you think of these answers that were submitted by our applicants?

* "To lead effectively, you must strongly believe in your purpose and have a clear vision of the goals for your team. Engaging the team members and infecting them with the same vision and enthusiasm is key."

* "A good leader must be willing to hold the final responsibility and authority."

* "Leadership is being able to take an organization to a higher level of performance. To be an excellent leader, one must lead with values, engage and inspire others, communicate effectively, and drive to win."

* "A leader must treat people with respect, leverage diversity in all forms, create a positive and energizing work environment, keep their commitments, and be honest and ethical."

* "Leadership provides the direction and focus to allow an organization and its employees to be successful."

* "Leadership empowers and develops people through direction, coaching, networking, and teamwork ..."

* "Leadership means clearing the path of some of the obstacles that get in the way of achievement."

* "My leadership style is to involve people in setting directions for our organization, to collaborate with those people as they work to overcome obstacles and solve problems, and to provide feedback, coaching, and evaluation of employee performance."

* "Leadership is a set of skills including ability to organize, visualize, motivate, communicate, and, most important, listen."

* "An effective leader gathers information, communicates well, and determines which path works best to reach the group's goals."

* "A leader thinks outside the box."

* "I have found that if you let each team member know you expect excellence in their performance, work hard by setting an example, let people know you appreciate and respect their hard work and feelings, you wind up with a highly motivated team that is having fun at work because they are striving for excellence."

* "To lead is to administer, manage, and inspire."

* "I believe that integrity is at the heart of leadership. It means being authentic rather than promoting an image to persuade people."

* "The keys to success in leadership include setting high goals, honoring commitments, communicating consistently and openly, sharing information in a timely manner, and involving people in decisions that affect them."

* "My concept of leadership is people who are motivated and have a combination of energy and enthusiasm to bring about change for the sake of improvement."

* "A good leader is honest, ethical, supportive, and trustworthy; can understand--if not agree with--the motivations of those being led; and is able to paint a compelling picture of the importance of reaching the goal."

I hope you found these excerpts interesting and provocative. Like me, I suspect that you agreed with some but not with others. Whatever your reaction, I hope you thought deeply about a concept that is too often assumed but seldom understood.

In closing, let me again emphasize that we are facing a very real challenge in terms of the development of future leaders for this profession. For my money, we have too few people in public and environmental health who possess both the passion and the critical-thinking, communication, and people skills that are required to enable our profession to triumphantly carry out the increasingly challenging agenda before us. You may very well be one of those people whom we will soon be counting on to provide leadership for our profession and promise. Perhaps the challenge of this column and the push to get you to more explicitly define your concept of leadership will be the motivation that you were looking for to develop your leadership talents. I hope so.

Nelson E. Fabian