Philosophies of Leadership – A comparison

Good and efficient leadership is important not only in professional life but personal life as well. Different types of leaders and their different skills have influenced people in multiple ways, but what are leadership skills? Or do they even exist? Today we have various consultancies and firms which help in training people in developing leadership qualities.Here are 3 of the world’s top leadership gurus leadership philosophies:

 John Maxwell–  A name that has become legendary as a leadership speaker and consultant. He has been voted the top leadership thought leader and leadership speaker continuously for 6 years; a speaker, a coach, a pastor and author, John Maxwell has a lot in his kitty to offer but one of the most influential parts of his life is his philosophy of leadership which he has time and gain mentioned is books like The 21 IrrefutableLawsofLeadership, The 21 Indispensable Qualities ofLeadership etc. These are also some of John Maxwell’s best-selling books.

His philosophy of leadership is simple, John believes that everything rises and falls on leadership and a good leadership are an influence, nothing more and nothing less. Voted the top leadership professional six years in a row on GlobalGurus.org, The ideology behind this is simple, you are not a leader until you have followers and there is no leader who cannot influence his/her followers. You must give people a reason to follow you, a quality or a skill which they can admire and aspire. Apart from this, in one of his books, John mentions that it is important when you lead people rather what to do and where to go. To sum it up, good leadership is about the right timing and influencing the people.

Robin Sharma – Robin Sharma was a litigation attorney but later he decided to move on and become a leadership consultant. Taking his pursuit for leadership training ahead he has published 15 books and one of the popular in the series includes, the MonkWho Sold His Ferrari. One of his books, The Leader WhoHad No Title mentions that leadership is not restricted to the position, rather anyone can show leadership.

Taking his zeal to initiate leadership skill development in people, he has opened Sharma Leadership InternationalInc. which is a global consultancy that trains the employees? Throughout his philosophy, he has emphasized on the fact that one should not wait to achieve a title to become a leader, this quality is not depended on any kind of title. You can be a leader if you went to be.

Ken Blanchard – He is popularly known for his book, “The one minute manager”, he has defined leadership as an influential process where we tend to influence people around us. Whenever you try to accomplish anyone through thoughts and actions to achieve their personal and professional goals, you are getting engaged in leadership.

Ken Blanchard propagates the idea of being a servant leader; a servant leader wants to create a difference in the life of their peer or people around them.The role of a servant leader is to anything which can help his or her people win and achieve their goals.

Words of Wisdom –   To sum it up, leadership is all about influencing people and making a difference in the lives of people around us.Even if you do it on a very small scale, you have turned out to be a good leader. One shouldn’t wait to attain a position to inculcate this skill rather it can be inherited at any point in life. A good leader and his leadership skills completely transforms the life of people around them.

There are more philosophies and concepts that are brilliant by other leadership thought leaders like John Mattone’s Intelligent Leadership Coaching Process, Arthur Carmazzi’s Leadership Anti-model, Marshall Goldsmith’s Personal Leadershipcoaching process and more. We recommend searching them out to define what works for you.