When I first started contemplating leadership and studying our text on the subject, my initial response was to identify the common characteristics, attributes, traits, and abilities of “great” leaders, past and present, in order to identify similarities, differences, patterns, and trends. What I discovered is that there aren’t any. Next, I took the time to distinguish leadership’s elemental parts. Again, I experienced failure. One great leader’s strength was another equally successful leader�

We are searching for simple, predictable, and stable answers when leadership may be unstructured, constantly changing, and uncontrollable. It is as much an art as a science, and likely a well-designed blending of the two. Leadership is an indefinable concept which is difficult to codify, however, it’s impact is hard to ignore. In its elementary form, I believe that leadership is influence which initiates change. Both influence and change are non-negotiable. Few have been called great leaders without their influence being felt or without causing something to change. The leader’s influence can be negative or positive, the change can be immediate or incremental, the leader can be present or absent, they can have many or few followers, they may use great power or none, control others through love or fear, and age means nothing. These mutually exclusive groups can be followed indefinitely. Leaders influence others, build momentum, initiate change, and produce results that impact others. The bottom line is that leaders cause things to happen.

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