I know personally i had not considered this question very deeply until i was forced to read and write about my own leadership as part of the EMBA. I always had some conception of leadership, that i had picked up from my experiences, the media i had been exposed to, my upbringing and the stories i have been told. You most likely have these ideas as well. Often these conceptions or ideas about leadership are so deeply "ingrained", that we often do not realise it is there. It is just a part of our being, under the surface. More often than not, we do not question these ideas.
My conception of leadership has changed over the years. In 2013, as CEO of a startup CHOWHUB, My ideas about leadership, "I was in the front, leading" . I was the "visionary" to come up with the ideas.I had to go through the pain and suffering, to come out victorious at the end. The archetypical "hero's journey".
In 2015 with another startup ZapAride it was "co-ordination" and "protecting the team". The proverbial metaphor of holding the umbrella to protect the team from the "shit storm". While it was useful for the environment within which ZapAride was launched, it is not a complete model. Some of these conceptions of leadership are more or less useful in specific situations
Could we evolve our understanding and stance on leadership to something more useful given the current context and world we find ourselves in:
Can our view of leadership, evolve to a space where it helps us deal with this reality we collectively find ourselves in?
There are many "approaches" or perspectives on leadership. These include: