Where We Are

Where We Are

We have reached the final element of the influential Leadership System, the OUTCOME.

Let us check where we are from a system-perspective first.

Social agency, which is the capability we afford ourselves to choose to lead, wraps around the System.  Our agency is the personal power we have to choose to lead.

The System is constructed on the three primary architectural elements, a philosophy, the principles, and behavioural attributes.  These integrated and aligned elements provide the theoretical and practical capabilities to lead.  When our capability comes into contact with a leadership Moment, we have the choice to lead, if we do, to deliver a productive outcome.

In our curriculum structure we are in 10: outcome.

An Aside: An influential Leadership outcome, is a PRODUCTIVE outcome

The way we use the adjective ‘productive’ in influential Leadership is to qualify or describe the noun ‘outcome’.  In other words, the phrase is: (productive) outcome.

The productive part is omitted in influential Leadership speak because it is defined into the influential Leadership term, ‘outcome’.

The wordhippo online dictionary has definitions and synonyms of productive that suit influential Leadership, so let us examine them as a starting point.

https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-for/productive.html
Accessed on 2 January 2022.

  1. ‘Providing a high degree of benefit
  2. (of a system) Capable of maximizing productivity at no expense of extra resources
  3. Producing a surplus or profitable
  4. Of a suitable quality, standard, or type to meet the required purpose
  5. Denotes a constructive or productive feeling
  6. Having or showing creativity or inventiveness
  7. (attributive to a person) Having the ability to make prudent and careful decisions on the use of resources
  8. Strongly influencing later developments’

The abovementioned definitional elements that align well with influential Leadership include notions of:

  1. Benefit
  2. Productiveness (high yield, low resource use)
  3. Profitable
  4. Quality, standards, and purpose
  5. Emotions
  • Creativity and inventiveness – being proactive – going first
  • Thoughtfulness
  • Influencing downstream

But, we go further.  Influential Leadership outcomes must be more than efficient, they must also be effective (the right things right, with a high degree of efficiency), and ethical (credible, inclusive, just, legitimate, principled, proper, respectful, right).

While the objective is always to be efficient and effective, these might not always be achieved immediately, but there is no wiggle room on the ethical front.  Either the outcome is ethical or not, of not, it fails the test.  There are no degrees of honesty and respect.

If the outcome is characterised by unethical elements (anti-social, disrespect, illegality, impropriety, and so forth), then it is unproductive, and not influential Leadership.

Because there is often confusion between and conflation of these two notions, and because knowing the difference is essential to the practice of influential Leadership, we discuss them fully below, before building our defintion.