2013 looks like it is going to be a very interesting year in regards to leadership and leadership development, no more so than in Australian politics. With the national election now set for September 14, people will have a full 8 months to assess what both political parties plan to bring for the next 4 years.

It is fair to say that the political environment for the last 18 months in Australia hasn’t provided a great deal to be proud of; name calling, abusive language and poor behaviour in parliament haven’t exactly provided the ‘lead by example’ approach that most people expect from their politicians.

I was posed an age old question on LinkedIn recently through one of the leadership groups I am part of:

Can leadership truly be taught? Is it an innate skill that we are born withor can it be learned?

I have been asked this question hundreds of times, and my answer has changed almost each time I have been asked (with my thoughts often dominated by the more recent group of leadership participants). Now, I am not much of a gardener (more brown thumb than green!), but the metaphor of a growing tree seems to fit my current thoughts on leadership more than any other, having worked with adolescent and adult leaders for the past 4 years.

Leadership is a very popular topic at the moment. Politicians don’t show enough of it (or the right type), mining CEO’s are vocal about it and football teams have so much of it they have leadership groups and sub-groups. Everyone has an opinion on what is good leadership, and (according to the media) it seems that all of the identifiable leaders in Australia seem to lack it in some substantial way.

Have we made the definition of good leadership so unattainable that mere mortals can’t achieve it?

You arrive at work with a clear idea of what you want to achieve for the day. There is a morning meeting, you have a few reports to read and respond to, and you need to check on your team. You have a report due to your boss by COB, but you have the afternoon to complete it – plenty of time. As you settle in to complete the report, your office / workspace becomes like Heathrow Airport, no sooner does one person leave than you are faced with another question, another email, another phonecall, another interruption to what was a perfectly planned day.

Have you ever made a mistake in business?

I realised recently that I made a mistake within Kameleons – Developing Leaders, but it took me a while to realise it and quite a bit longer to accept it. Has this been you when faced with owning up to a mistake?

Are meetings taking up far too much of your work life? Feeling frustrated by poorly planned meetings or Chairpeople not controlling the participants? Feel like the meetings you attend are directionless or out of control? Are you often wondering why you were invited to the meeting at all?

The wonderful thing I love about working in the leadership development space is that inspiration for great leadership can abound everywhere. While traveling for my last international training engagement, I stopped at the airport newsagent to pick up something to read. I usually head for the management books (a little sad I know), but one magazine on sporting rifles caught my attention.

The leadership hierarchy needs to be understood by all of the team.

 Nothing confuses a dog more than a lack of understanding of who is the leader. Having recently worked with a dog trainer to help us with Jake, I was told that most families confuse their dogs (and the dogs understanding of their place in the family hierarchy) through a lack of understanding of some very simple actions. Who provides the dog its food, who gets attention first and who leads when going for a walk might seem like small things to us, but they communicate an awful lot to a dog regarding their place in the team.

In a recent editorial in BRW (Mar 1-7), Kate Mills highlighted her 5 lessons that company leaders should be taking from the recent power struggle between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. Kate stresses that the leadership crisis isn’t just in politics but in leadership in the corporate world as well.

In this respect I couldn’t agree more. Employees and middle Managers in all industries are looking for authentic leaders that can think beyond the bottom line and provide them with real goals, real understanding of what they are doing and real meaning to make their job worthwhile.

Consider this – how many emails do you delete a day without reading the entire email? 10, 20? What makes you delete them so quickly? Another thing to consider – have you every attended a meeting where you just wanted to person talking to get to the point? If so (or if this person has been you), then perhaps they / you need to consider what is being said and ensure that it is more effective. Here are a few tips to help.

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Ever wanted to know what your supervisor / Managers expect of you, the boss? Having facilitated hundreds of Managers in leadership training courses and focus groups, the answer to the simple questions ‘What skills and qualities do you expect of your Manager?’ and ‘What skills and qualities do your people expect from you?’ are remarkably consistent.

From banking to printing, military to Government Departments, manufacturing to telecommunications, the expectations of supervisors are clear and consistent.

Have you worked for a leader that truly inspired you? Made you feel like what you did was worthwhile? Alternatively, have you worked for a leader that made you feel worthless?

What have you based your leadership on – emulating what a good leader has demonstrated for you or making sure you never repeat their awful mistakes?

About 6 weeks ago I wrote a short blog post titles ‘Where have all the role models gone?’ It was born out of frustration at the lack of values and clear decisions being made by political leaders in my country. In my last blog post I put forward that there are several things you need to consider to fully assume responsibility as a leader for your team.

Leading the Team is Not a Part-time Responsibility.

Owning a pet, much like deciding to have children –  is not a decision to be taken lightly. You are responsible for the welfare, care and protection of something / someone other than yourself. This task requires you to perform many different roles requiring many different skills – some of which are innate and others that you learn as you go. All of these tasks require responsibility and dedication, and are not dissimilar to the requirements for leading a team.

Breaks in discipline / performance can’t wait until later to fix.

Discipline has become a dirty word. The word itself brings up connotations of punishment and detention (at least in my mind anyway!). A new dog in the house has forced us to look at discipline in its truest form, that it, correcting behaviour that is not at the right standard. The same behaviour change process applied with Jake is also used by successful leaders managing successful teams.

Look after your team and they will look after you.

While the concept of looking out for your team is not new, many people seem to forget that the process is ‘give and take’ rather than just ‘take’. A common mistake amongst new team leaders / supervisors is to assume that they can ‘take’ from their new team without giving anything in return.