Peter Scholtes' Definition of Leadership

Quality Digest has recognised Peter Scholtes as one of the 50 top Quality leaders. His superb and award winning books The Team Handbook and The Leader's Handbook have been huge sellers and I whole heartedly recommend them! On this page we take a top line look at Scholte's definition of leadership. It is the story of transforming leadership from hierarchical command and control into a new style of inspiring leadership.

Leadership Is:

1. Systems Thinking

Leaders need to understand their organisation systemically: All interactions that result in the achievement (or otherwise) of the organisation's purpose. The system is everything and everything is part of a system. According to Scholtes more than 95% of your organisations problems derive from its systems. Leaders must understand that changing the system will change what people do...not vice versa. Leadership is about breaking down barriers and fostering collaboration and cooperation. Leadership is a process.

2. Understanding Variation

In particular the differences between common cause variation and special cause variation. Failure of leaders to do this means trends are seen that aren't trends (and vica versa), people are punished or rewarded by chance, performance cannot be analysed, plans cannot be made and systems cannot be improved and changes will not necessarily be improvements - Scholtes asserts that 95% of organisational change does not lead to improvement.

3. Understanding People

In particular how people learn, develop, interact and communicate. Also leaders need to understand how poor leadership can demotivate. For Peter Scholtes"Without personal face to face relationships there is no leadership."

4. Giving Meaning, Direction, Focus and Vision

Leaders must be totally clear of the purpose of their organisation and what its customers require. The organistion, through good leadership, must focus its efforts. Vision, Mission, Values et al must come from the heart - not be meaningless sloganeering and wordplay. People need to know what to measure and how to measure it

5.NOT Falling for or Believing in Management Fads

Such as: "We must empower our people", "We must motivate them", "Put them into self-directed-teams", "We need to offer effective incentive schemes", "We must hold them accountable" etc etc

The New Generation of Leaders Are:

Patient, Persistent, Humble, Instinctive, Knowledgeable, Educators, Listeners, Trusting, Participatory, Clear, Focused, Consistent, Networkers, Customer Orientated, Coaches, Experimental and Prepared to make mistakes.

To return to the Definition Leadership Page

To return to the Winston Churchill Leadership Home Page

Nice apartment