What Is Leadership? Meaning, Examples and What It Takes

Leadership is setting a direction and getting a group of people to move toward it willingly. A leader works out where the team needs to go, makes that clear, helps each person get there and takes responsibility for the result. It is about influence, not position: a manager is given authority, but people choose whether to follow a leader.

That definition is easy to agree with and harder to practise. This guide looks at what leadership means on a normal working day, using the words of people who lead teams in Western Australia and spoke to host Paul Cohalan on The JRNY podcast. Dan Bailey spent 11 years in the army, became an electrician and now runs Tradie HQ, a co working space for trade businesses, as he told Paul on episode 21. Simone Sichel runs Cup & Co cafes in Floreat and Claremont (episode 18). Paul himself has managed teams since his twenties, from the Navy and mining to the insurance brokerage he runs now.

What leadership means

Most definitions of leadership share three parts.

• Direction. Someone has to decide where the group is heading and why. Without that, a team is just people who happen to work in the same place.
• Influence. A leader gets people moving through trust, example and persuasion rather than only through rank. People follow because they believe in the direction or in the person.
• Responsibility. A leader owns the outcome, including the parts that went wrong.

Notice what is missing: a job title. Plenty of people have the title and not the influence. Dan saw this in the army, where he says promotions did not always go to the best person:

seeing people, you know, ascend to leadership roles ... a lot of the time through pure attrition.

Someone leaves, he explains, and the next person in line gets the job. Being handed authority that way does not make anyone a leader. What they do with it does.

Leadership and management are not the same

Management is about keeping work running to plan. It covers budgets, rosters, processes, quality checks and making sure the job gets done. Leadership is about deciding where the work should be heading and bringing people along. A business needs both, and in a small business they usually sit with the same person.

Simone describes how he and his business partner George split the two across their cafes. They stay close to the floor, but they have put managers in place to run each day's operation:

We always hands on. We try to not micromanage until a point.

That is a fair summary of the balance most owners are trying to strike. Stay involved enough to protect the standard, and step back far enough that the people you have put in charge can actually lead.

What good leadership looks like in practice

Ask people what makes a good leader and you get a list of traits: honesty, confidence, vision, empathy. Those matter, but they are hard to act on. The people below describe leadership as a set of habits instead.

Set the expectation

Paul's view is that most problems at work, and at home, trace back to one thing: nobody spelled out what was expected. Whether it is a handover, a scope of works on a job up north or the morning routine with the kids, setting the expectation changes the whole game, he says. The trap is assuming that what is obvious to you is obvious to everyone else:

we assume sometimes as leaders that people know what they're doing. And just because, you know, it automatically doesn't mean the guy over there knows it automatically.

Give the intent, then adjust to the person

In the army, Dan learned to train people one way, by the book. Out of uniform, teaching apprentices and tradespeople, he realised that people learn in very different ways. Some need step by step instructions written down. Others only need to know the goal, which he says the Defence Force calls the commander's intent: "I want this house wired", and they work out the rest. Neither kind of person is better, he says:

It just means that, yeah, as the leader or as the sort of supervisor, foreman, whatever, you need to appreciate the fact that other different people need different degrees of tuition or guidance ...

Good leadership, in other words, is not one style applied to everyone. It is being clear about the outcome and flexible about how each person gets there.

Own what went wrong

When a job goes badly, the easy response is to find out who made the mistake. Dan starts from a different assumption: nobody comes to work intending to do a bad job. So when something goes wrong, the leader's first question is whether they explained it properly:

it falls on you as the supervisor, leader, whatever, to understand what went wrong, you know, and take ownership of that too

If the person did not understand the scope, he says, that falls on him as the one who gave the instructions, because he did not confirm they understood it. That does not mean anything goes. Dan is clear that on a small team everyone has to pitch in and get the job done, otherwise it is unfair on everyone else.

Be someone people can come to

A team will only tell you about a problem early if they feel safe doing it. Dan works hard on being approachable, partly because he knows his direct, unemotional style can come across as cold:

the last thing I want is someone to feel as though they can't approach me.

Paul makes a similar point about listening. When an apprentice or a third year comes to you with an idea, he says, don't dismiss them the way the old school would have. Dan agrees, with one caveat: there are times when experience, safety or risk mean the leader still has to say, I appreciate your input, but this is the way we are doing this task.

Lead from underneath

Talking with Perth electrician and business owner Lewis Offenburg on episode 22, Paul described how he stopped thinking of himself as the boss. He suggests getting rid of the word boss and swapping it out for leader, and turning the usual hierarchy over:

I always actually say I run an upside down org chart.

As he puts it, "I go to work to support my team." This idea is often called servant leadership: the leader's job is to remove obstacles and help the team do its best work, rather than sit at the top of a pyramid. Lewis describes his own job in similar terms, as getting the most out of each person and helping them be the best person they can be.

Lead by example

People watch what a leader does far more closely than they listen to what a leader says. Paul made the point while talking with Lewis about the values parents pass down to their kids, and it applies just as much at work: "Lead by example, not what we teach them or tell them." If you want your team to turn up on time, own their mistakes and treat customers well, they need to see you doing it first.

Are leaders born or made?

The guests do not agree, which is a fair reflection of the wider debate. Leo Gonzalez, who taught himself footwear design while working as a barista in New York and now runs a sneaker label in Perth, believes some people are natural leaders and some are not, and that both are needed (episode 20):

some people are born to be leaders. Some people are born just to work, which is fine.

Dan's experience points the other way. Much of what he believes about leading adults he learned coaching his twin boys' baseball teams, where you cannot scream at the players and quickly realise that no child woke up planning to drop every ball. Watching another pitcher berate a teammate from the mound confirmed it for him: shouting does not help anyone catch the next one.

coaching kids sport is a great leadership development tool, I think.

Some people may start with more confidence or presence than others. But the habits above, setting expectations, adapting to people, owning outcomes and being approachable, can be learned by anyone willing to practise them and listen to feedback.

Common leadership styles

You will see leadership described through a handful of styles. They are useful as a vocabulary, as long as you remember that good leaders move between them depending on the situation.

• Directive. The leader decides and gives clear instructions. Right for emergencies, safety critical work and new starters.
• Coaching. The leader develops people by asking questions and giving feedback, like Dan on the baseball field.
• Servant. The leader's role is to support the team and clear the way, like Paul's upside down org chart.
• Democratic. The leader involves the team in decisions, which builds commitment but takes longer.
• Delegating. The leader gives an experienced person the goal and lets them run, much like commander's intent.

No single style is the right one. The skill is reading which one the moment and the person in front of you need.

Where to go from here

The quotes above are short extracts from long conversations, and the full transcripts are on each episode page so you can read the context for yourself.

• Episode 21: 11 Years in the Army to Building Tradie HQ, with Dan Bailey, on expectations, coaching and leading people who learn differently.
• Episode 22: From a Fractured Spine to Trade Guru and NDIS Housing, with Lewis Offenburg, on running a trade business and getting the most out of a team.
• Episode 18: The Real Cost of Opening a Cafe, with Simone Sichel, on managers, standards and staying hands on.
• Episode 1: Pizza Box Commitment, with Dave Clare and Levi Saunders, on leadership, culture and commitment.
• The Best Leadership Podcasts, with fifteen current shows on leading people, seven of them Australian.
• How to Build Resilience at Work: Seven Habits From Real Jobs, on habits people tested on real jobs, and the part that belongs to employers.
• Self Discipline: What It Is and How to Build It, on keeping the standard you set for others.