A Question of Leadership: Reflections on What Is

“Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people.”
Taking these words of Prof. Joanne Ciulla as its starting point, A Question of Leadership has been written to help you reflect on and re-think the fundamentals of leadership.
Through a series of more than 30 essays, all with linked coaching questions, you will discover and clarify exactly what leadership means to you and the importance of developing your own leadership style, one that is specific to your particular situation, the task that you are facing, the people you are working with, and your own unique personality. You will consider what sort of phenomenon Leadership is, why it is so difficult to define, whether there is a distinction between Leadership and Leaders (SPOILER yes, there is!), and how you can study leadership without sucking the life-force out of it.
You will then progress to the power of Questioning, exploring what makes for a good question, the generative effect of asking positive questions, and how to ask the right question at the right time. Then comes Listening, and learning how to listen, to listen to your colleagues as intensely as a conductor listens to an orchestra. And, finally, there’s Change, one of the most perplexing organisational problems, often seen as almost insurmountably difficult. If, according to the Harvard Business Review, “three-quarters of change efforts flop” could there be an alternative to your current strategies? (SPOILER ALERT #2: yes, there could!)
The idea underpinning this book is a simple Off-the-shelf solutions won’t help you. With Leadership, as with everything else of value in life, you have to find your own way. Instead of accepting the answers provided by others, you have to find your own. It’s a long process. And there are no shortcuts. But, the upside is that, en route, you will uncover what truly matters to you. And that is priceless.