Defining leadership, and what makes a good leader, has been an ongoing debate for a long time.

Using the Oxford’s definition, our world is full of leaders – from politicians, to chief executives or the school P&F president – but there are many who would argue that definition does not go far enough to explain what leadership is.

Tasmanian Leaders general manager Angela Driver considers leadership is a verb, rather than a noun.

“Leadership is an act, not a position. It is changing reality for the greater good through the mobilisation of people,” Ms Driver said.

“We confuse positions of authority as leaders,” she said.

Joey Crawford has recently submitted a PhD thesis through the University of Tasmania, examining leaders and their behaviour and agreed the meaning of leadership was a challenge for many.

“We need to decide what we want out of leaders, but we’re still fighting over the definition of leader versus manager. Leaders are like coffee – there are many different types,” Mr Crawford said.

His definition of leadership is: “a person who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way”.

“Knowing the way often comes from the practice, and knowing the why and how is the showing and going,” he said.

Instead of thinking only about individuals as leaders, Ms Driver suggested considering a wider view that covered distributed power models of leadership where groups of people mobilised in acts of leadership.

Examples of this type of leadership have been seen recently with the #metoo and #blacklivesmatter movements, but also at a more local level through events like the 2018 Youth Leadership Summit or Parma for a Farmer.

“A lot of great change in history has come from people out of authority,” Ms Driver said.

One of the sticking points with leadership programs, like Tasmanian Leaders and its small business counterpart I-LEAD, is scale.

Between these two programs, around 50 Tasmanians undergo intensive self development and leadership mentoring each year, but many more are required to create the level of positive change the state needs to thrive.

Businesses also have in-house leadership programs but, again, this produces a small number of leaders.

People who are great at their job are not necessarily going to make great leaders, however with the right skill development they stand a greater chance.

“We need to be able to design leadership interventions for people across Tasmania. Sometimes you just need to turn on some lightbulbs.”

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