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1. 

   2/27/08

   kdawg68

   I'll make it really simple. "Leadership" itself simply involves pointing and saying "go that direction."
   
   "Good Leadership" is when you point people in a given direction and it happens to be the correct direction.
   
   It also depends on how many different aspects of leadership you are tasked with. I guess this warrants an example. I look at a guy like "little Mac" - George B. McLellan in the Civil War. He's a great organizer and his efforts to create the Army of the Potomac and instill a sense of "espirit de corps" within it's ranks totally changed the prospects for victory in the Eastern theater. However, as good as he was at administrative affairs and organization, he didn't seem to have that killer instinct when it came to tactical command.
   
   The battle of Anitetam (aka Sharpsburg to us Southerners) is a perfect example of this. He's got Lee pinned with his back to the Potomac and outnumbers him almost 3 to 1, yet he commits his forces piecemeal and allows Lee to shift his beleagured men from south to north along his defensive line to repel little Mac's half-hearted attacks all day long.
   
   Finally the yanks overrun the "Sunken Road" in Lee's center, and are also succesful in driving a few hundred Georgians from the southern most bridge across the Antietam creek. What does McLellan do? He keeps an entire corps in reserve and refuses to commit them (I know a "tactical reserve" has it's place, but this was bad move compounded by his earlier mishaps...things had got so bad that Lee's #2 officer, James Longstreet, was actually working a cannon trying to hold off the yanks that had taken the Sunken Road - it was desperate stuff and the coup de grace should've been delivered), and allows his IX Corps to stall after crossing the aforementioned bridge.
   
   What happened? Oh nothing much. A.P. Hill's exhausted rebels finally arrived from an all-day march from Harper's Ferry and slammed into the IX corps flank, driving them from the field and staving off Confederate disaster.
   
   What are the ramifications? Well, that was a prime chance to conclude things decisively in the Eastern theater. He had the army to do it, he had the enemy trapped where he wanted them, and good lord, he even had copies of some of Lee's orders showing how spread out his forces were. He could've even hit him a day earlier and faced less opposition. Instead the war goes on for 3 more horrible years, each one seemingly exponentially worse than the others. It will cost hundreds of thousands of lives before someone has Lee pinned like this again outside of Petersburg.
   
   Moral of the story is that just because folks excel in leading in one capacity, it doesn't mean they are necessarily a "good leader" in general that can be counted on in EVERY capacity.
   
   I could've probably been much more concise by using Offensive/Defensive coordinators in the NFL who can't handle head coaching positions, but part of me wanted to talk about Antietam for some reason. I guess it's my OCD.

   [reply]
   1. 

      2/27/08

      migcmc03

      Nice example, i agree and like this comment; "just because folks excel in leading in one capacity, it doesn't mean they are necessarily a "good leader" in general that can be counted on in EVERY capacity." Thanks for offering some incite.
2. 

   2/27/08

   markstoneman

   Good question, though as you found out, a dictionary is not the best place for these kinds of things. I tend to come at this from a military perspective, though different contexts will bring different emphases with them. For example, an important subtext of the debate between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama is about what leadership is about.
   
   Here's the Center for Army Leadership: usacac.army.mil/CAC/CAL/ (This is U.S.) The page includes a link to their new leadership field manual as a PDF file.

   [reply]
   1. 

      2/27/08

      kdawg68

      beautiful source....I had never seen that Field Manual before. Looks like I've got some reading to do. Thanks for sharing!
   2. 

      2/27/08

      migcmc03

      stoneman, thanks for the link! I might link this in a post for my web page. Thanks for your input!