After studying leadership for over 15 years, I have come to a conclusion that leadership is one of the most complex and yet fascinating subjects on earth. It is a subject that has drawn so much interest around the world. For centuries, the subject of leadership has been of great interest to intellectuals and sages.

Leadership has been a matter of interest to every civilization. In fact, there’s no human society without its own idea or philosophy on leadership. Also, there was never a time or period in history that the subject of leadership was ignored by human civilizations.

Every generation has had its own philosophy of leadership. In this modern era of globalization, the subject of leadership has become even more complex. For this reason, it is very difficult to come up with a single definition of leadership. For example, between 1900 and 1990, it has been observed that there were 221 definitions of leadership published in books and articles.

So, in order to truly understand leadership, it advisable to avoid all the complex words often used to describe it because the use of ambiguous words to describe leadership has made people think leadership is a big man’s business.

Although leadership is a complex phenomenon, it is easy to understand. You don’t have to be highly educated to know what leadership means. Leadership can be explained in plain words or in a simple sentence.

We can classify the various definitions of leadership into two groups: While some define leadership as a verb or an action, others describe leadership as a position or as a noun. For instance, when someone says, “My leadership is effective,” The person has contextualized leadership as a verb. On the other hand, the statement, “The leadership of my country has failed”, presents “leadership” as a noun because it is referring to a person or a group of persons.

But whichever viewpoint, the very notion of leadership connotes the presence of a leader. The expression, “leader” is from the word, “lead” which has a simple definition.

If you can understand the meaning of lead, you will know what leadership is all about. Everything you need to know about leadership can be found in the meaning of the term, “lead”.

I like the definition offered by Merriam Webster’s dictionary. It defines the word, “lead” as to guide on a way especially by going in advance. From this simple definition, we can say that a leader is one who guides on a way especially by going in advance. To put it another way, leadership takes place when a person guides on a way especially by going in advance.

Here’s my point: To understand leadership, ignore the complex definitions. Just keep it simple.

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