What Is Leadership?

The accepted model of leadership today is spiritual-based values leadership (Fairholm and Fairholm 2000; Fry 2003; Malmberg 1999). Leaders become leaders as they define a set of core spiritual values that define their core character—whatever its nature. The leadership task is to attach a socially valuable meaning to doing work, to the way the work is to be done, and to the outcome intended. Armed with this understanding about the work the work community will be asked, “ do leaders then educate coworkers about work values and their social utility in the work community.” As the leaders ideas are seen as acceptable coworkers will adopt them as their own. The end-product is a culture that lets workers and the leader combine in voluntary interrelationship around an agreed-upon work culture that becomes both legitimate and mutually desirable. The culture, values, and goals become commonly-held expectations that the leader and all stakeholders voluntarily accept as their own for this work unit. Then the leader’s job becomes a task of continually educating stakeholders about shared values and their power to trump past ideas, values, or work experiences. Workers come to reorient their past work values and even existing work community policies when they see that they might be incompatible with these standards. Together they coalesce around a culture of free volunteer acceptance that defines the leader–follower relationship.