“Leadership” is often an incoherent field of study. Often it’s anecdotal. “Here’s what I did to … win the game … make a lot of money … win the war … win an election.”
But below I sketch a few conceptual foundations of Leadership and note their practical value. 👇
Properly, Leadership is a subdiscipline of Ethics (how to live well), which is a subdiscipline of Philosophy.
Within Christianity, Leadership is also properly a subdiscipline of Ethics (how to live well with the presupposition God has spoken in Scripture and in Jesus Christ), which is a subdiscipline of Theology.
The reason Leadership is its own subdiscipline under Ethics is that it treats how one should participate in groups that are trying to do something. Doing something by yourself may be Ethics but it is not Leadership. (“Self-leadership” is an oxymoron—cute for “self-discipline”).
There is value in the field of Leadership because being part of groups that are trying to get things done is ubiquitous and unavoidable. You can either function within these groups productively and see positive progress accomplished or not.
A person who grows in their understanding of leadership grows in their awareness of groups and what they are trying to accomplish. They then can contribute to the group finding the right goals and to the group using good means to work on those goals.
It is crucial to notice that any group has multiple conflicting ends and that there are many possible means which are dismissed for ethical reasons. There is no end to the work of reassessing these. The referral to philosophy or theology is ongoing.
A person who begins to understand leadership accepts the logical argumentation, the trade-offs, the balancing of values, the judgment calls, the disagreements, the discussion, the collaboration, the listening, and the learning because they are necessary for good work by a group.
This understanding of the difficulty of having a group accomplish something good using good means sobers a person that work by a group is neither simple nor easy. They then can decide either a group’s work is not worth it or commit to persevere.
An appreciation that leadership is group-oriented helps people realize that one’s fellow group-members are not the enemy or one’s minions to be ordered around but are one’s fellow participants, one’s partners, who must be worked with to accomplish the right ends with right means.
Leadership has little to do with formal authority or position. Anyone contributing or participating in a group can help the group towards better goals and use better means. But the extent to which a person is silenced or muzzled or constrained by the group limits their influence.