procrastinate, i do not...

only, it's pretty unsettling when you emerge from a week of reading- hours upon hours, literally, and you feel that you have even less of an understanding about a topic than when you began.
this is why my second post has been slow in coming. for days, i thought if i simply re-read the material, jotted down more extensive notes, replete with charts and graphs- i'd be able to sort it all out and arrive at the correct conclusion. the correct conclusion! the correct conclusion?
you see, i presumed there was a conclusion.

not the case.

the topic: leadership (of course). more specifically, as i see it, the attempts which have been made throughout the 20th century to understand what makes an effective leader; the research undertaken to create a quantifiable list or empirical map of the various components that result in the leadership phenomenon.

and as i studied each of the three distinct approaches separately, i was convinced and sure of its superiority over the other two- the voice in my head decidedly in agreement:

• the trait approach: leaders are totally born to lead, dude.

• the skills approach: dude, everyone can learn to be good leaders.

• the style approach: dude...

this readiness to subscribe to each of the three distinct perspectives on leadership (i'd like to think) bespeaks to a lesser extent my own stooge-like tendencies, while emphasizing the sound elaborate research as presented in each case (and forget about the fact that my inner voice inexplicably sounds like keanu reeves, i pondered the studies long and hard and critically).

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in sum, while trying to determine which of the three perspectives i favored, i realized how inextricably related they all are. and so, instead of drawing any sort of qualitative conclusions in regards to the three approaches, i propose a quick exercise to aid in (my own) understanding of them:

what would it look like in my organization if:

1. the trait approach ruled- ...
2. the skills approach ruled- ...
   
3. the style approach ruled- ...
   

now, i'll have to get back to you with my answers to this self-assigned exercise (a subsequent blog entry soon to come), but my point is that the concept of effective leadership should best be seen as resulting from the convergence of various aspects inherent in each of the different approaches.