influential Leadership

It is naive in the extreme to imagine that one of the most vital and complex human constructs and behaviours
can or should be defined or described in a single slogan, tagline or soundbite.
An expectation to do so, or to offer one, is a primary reason why we stumble over a litany of contrived offerings that each ends up being so blunt that we are left dissatisfied and confused with what ‘leadership’ and ‘leader’ exactly are, or are not.

But, I also appreciate that we need to capture the essence of things; that we need a starting or reference point.
Such an approach acknowledges that there is much more below the headline; the details that makes all the difference.

Karoo applies the above-mentioned approach to influential Leadership.

Influential Leadership thus has a tagline that gives expression to its essence.
The tagline is founded on the extended version that opens the page above. It captures four of the five essential layers, with the fifth subsumed.
The idea is to be silent on the most important element – leaving it hanging for emphasis.

But, there surely must be a meaning beyond the finely crafted words, which should answer the basic question:

What is it all about?

What is the bother with leadership as a concept, and with influential Leadership in particular? It is this –

Influential Leadership is the process of realising a better lived life.

Influential Leaders craft the process and ensure the realisation of the right outcomes.

As mentioned above, taglines and one-liners leave too much to interpretation and confusion; they are memorable, but can be blunt. *

There need to be details that offer way-points on a road-map so that there is greater precision; some of these are set out below.
In addition, it is useful to appreciate what something ‘is not’ to better understand what it is. This is a form of negative imaging.

But, there is also a general point to be made in answer to the question, what is it all about; which is that leadership has played and needs to play a central role in every nook and cranny of our economic, political and social domains.

The words of Harry Truman, quoted on the ‘START here’ page, and that are institutionalised in Karoo’s and iLP’s lexicon, offer the strategic riposte to the above question, and can be unfolded in the following way in our lived lives.

While technically skilled and well-resourced people, systems, processes, structures and management competencies are necessary ingredients for functional organisations of all kinds, they are insufficient to ensure sustained success, in its narrow and broadest sense.

The element that not only holds all the other pieces together, but orchestrates them to ensure sustained success is leadership. Evidence abounds that leadership is the ingredient that sets successful people and entities apart from others.

* At this stage there are likely to be loose concepts that readers may be unfamiliar with, such as, ‘right’, ‘better’, ‘lived lives’, ‘better lived lives’, and so forth.
Each of them has form and shape; they are carefully defined in the activation program material.

influential Leadership is…