What Is Leadership? A Working Definition
Key Terms
- Leadership
- The process of influencing others toward the achievement of a shared goal — by setting direction, inspiring commitment, and enabling people to perform at their best. Leadership is fundamentally about people, not position: it is exercised through influence, not authority alone.
Leadership is one of the most studied concepts in organisational science, with over 70 years of systematic academic research and thousands of published definitions. The diversity of definitions reflects the complexity of the phenomenon — but beneath the variation, consistent themes emerge.
What Do the Best Leadership Definitions Have in Common?
Across decades of research, effective leadership definitions converge on five core elements:
| Element | What It Means | Example from Research |
|---|---|---|
| Influence | Leadership operates through persuasion and inspiration, not coercion | “Leadership is influence — nothing more, nothing less” (John Maxwell) |
| Direction | Leaders set a course toward a goal or vision | “The capacity to create a compelling vision and translate it into action” (Warren Bennis) |
| People | Leadership is relational — it exists in the dynamic between leader and follower | “Someone who exercises influence over other people” (Huczynski et al, 1993) |
| Goal | Leadership is purposeful — directed toward a specific outcome | “A process that influences other people to achieve an objective” (standard academic definition) |
| Context | Effective leadership adapts to the situation, the followers, and the environment | Situational Leadership, Contingency Theory |
Leadership vs. Management: The Key Distinction
Drucker’s formulation remains the clearest: “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Management optimises existing systems; leadership challenges, changes, and directs them. Most effective leaders must be capable of both. See Leadership vs. Management for a full comparison.
Can Leadership Be Learned?
The modern consensus is clear: while some individuals have natural advantages, the most critical leadership capabilities — emotional intelligence, communication, self-awareness, and situational adaptability — are all learnable. The Trait Theory of Leadership debate is settled not by “born vs. made” but by “what is the baseline and how much can deliberate development improve it?”
Related Leadership Foundation Resources
- ►How to Define Leadership: A Comprehensive Overview
- ►Leadership Characteristics: The Core Traits of Effective Leaders
- ►Six Leadership Styles: Goleman’s Complete Framework
- ►Emotional Intelligence Theory: Foundation of Effective Leadership
The following section contains our original exploration of key leadership definitions.
If you search for a Leadership definition……
here are some examples of what you’ll find:
“Someone who exercises influence over other people.” (Huczynski et al 1993)
“Creating a vision to which others aspire and energising them to work towards that vision” (Anita Roddick)
“Without a Leader, nothing happens…” (Michael Hammer)
“The capacity to create a compelling vision and translate it into action and sustain it.” (Warren Bennis)
Putting various complex models aside, it is pretty clear as to the ingredients to the definition of Leadership:
Urgency
Leadership involves leading, influencing, driving towards goals, and motivating others around them to see and achieve that vision, under their influence.
It is interesting to see the statement above “without a Leader, nothing happens:” Leadership is the fuel to the engine room.
It is the velocity needed to create action, and achieve goals. The Leader creates the urgency and vision to get to the goal, whatever that target is. He/She does this by motivating all team members towards that goal.
Visionary
It is also clear that that Leaders also hold the ability to be able to look into the Horizon – scanning possible future solutions to problems, and not settling for the status quo. They are innovators and visionaries.
Definition
In light of the above, the version I use, which I think is succinct, is as follows:
“The ability to innovate and create a vision for all to see, understand and believe in. The Leader leads by example and creates the urgency and motivation needed to achieve high levels of team success.”
What Leadership Looks Like in Practice
Definitions of leadership are abundant; observable leadership behaviours are what actually matter in organisations. Research consistently shows that what differentiates effective from ineffective leaders is not knowledge of leadership theory but a specific set of behavioural practices exercised consistently over time.
Effective leaders set direction clearly. They articulate a compelling vision of where the team or organisation is going, why it matters, and what success looks like. This direction-setting is not a one-time speech — it is a continuous activity of reinforcement, connection, and translation of strategy into daily priorities.
Effective leaders build capability deliberately. They invest time in understanding what each member of their team can do, what they are developing toward, and what support they need to grow. Leadership development is not an HR programme — it is a daily responsibility of the leader, exercised through delegation, coaching, feedback, and the intelligent assignment of stretch challenges.
Effective leaders create the conditions for performance. They remove the obstacles — bureaucratic, interpersonal, and structural — that prevent people from doing their best work. This is often a more impactful use of leadership time than direct instruction or motivation.
The Leadership Development Continuum
Leadership capability develops on a continuum — from managing oneself, to managing others, to managing teams, to managing organisations. The transitions between these stages are some of the most challenging in any professional career. Managing oneself requires self-awareness and personal discipline. Managing others requires the ability to achieve results through people rather than directly. Each transition demands a fundamental shift in how the individual thinks about their role and where they add value.
The research evidence on leadership development is consistent: deliberate practice in real leadership situations, combined with high-quality feedback, produces greater capability development than classroom training alone. The most impactful investment any organisation can make in leadership is putting developing leaders into genuinely challenging situations — with appropriate support — and ensuring they receive honest, specific feedback on their performance.