This is similar to the long standing argument of doing agile vs being agile. Leadership is a combination of changing our mental models (i.e. mindset) but also our effectiveness at employing the leadership skills and competencies in an effective, situation-appropriate manner.
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Effective leadership requires a combination of both skills and attitudes. If you have Leadership skills but not the right attitude then that doesn't help and vice versa! Saving Changes...
Leadership starts with an attitude, but to use it effectively requires skill.
Personal example: When I was a teenager, I became the senior patrol leader of my Boy Scouts troop not because I wanted to be a leader, but because I wanted to go fishing in the evening after we finished dinner and cleaned up. To do so, we had to clean everything well or we would have to clean it again and my twilight fishing hours would be lost. I started by taking the hard jobs myself. Others didn't want me to do it alone and joined in. Soon we were routinely done in a short time and we all had the evening to do our things.
It was not my intent to be a leader in any way, but the attitude spread that we all wanted to get done so that we could do what we enjoyed., Soon our clean-up was routine and quick and we all had the evening to do something other than scrub pots.
That was an attitude, but more of an accidental one that worked well. I had zero skill or intent. As I became a professional and grew in my career, I learned that it takes skill to present the right attitude, and then how to use the opportunities effectively when they happen. Saving Changes...
George FreemanThought Leader | Author | Architect| Florida, United States
Consider the following:
[1] - Attitudes are emotions that indirectly influence behavior. Hence, if leadership is considered an attitude, one has no choice but to recognize leadership as an emotion. A characterization that most professionals would disagree with.
[2] - Your attitude, whether negatively or positively formed, becomes apparent to others through your behavior. Thus, a well-formed positive attitude will likely enhance your leadership skills through your presentation, with the opposite becoming true in the spectrum of negatively formed attitudes.
[3] - Skills are developed through life experiences, including childhood nurturing, formal learning, education, practice (i.e., trial and error), mentorship, and so on. Thus, recognizing that leaders grow and improve in their abilities, it is logical that we view leadership as a skill.
Thus, leadership is a skill that one’s attitude can positively influence. Saving Changes...
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