What Is Leadership?

What is Leadership?
Leadership is a word that is hard to define and easy to observe. A simple definition is that
leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common. A
leader inspires other people to act and directs their actions to make them follow their
direction.
To be effective, leadership communicates ideas, visions, and thoughts in a way that engages
others to perform in a way that the leader wants them to act.
The Importance of Leadership
Having strong leaders at every level of the business has never been as important as it is
today. Leaders need to excel in leading others, to implement ideas, to initiate change and
motivate people to execute long-term initiatives necessary to overcome the challenges in a
competitive world of business, and ultimately, to achieve long-term success.
Can leadership be taught?
Are leaders born or made? This is one of the most basic questions asked about leadership.
The answer to this is that leaders are ‘mostly made’. The latest research suggests that
leadership is about one-third ‘born’ and two-thirds ‘made’. The job of effectively leading an
organisation is incredibly complex and to suppose that a person can be born with all the tools
needed to lead is difficult to support.
The fact that leadership skills can be developed means that people can learn to be leaders.
However, there are still some attributes that are required for people to become ‘good’
leaders such as being assertive, taking risks, and being good at analysing situations and
making decisions. Being intelligent and having good social intelligence is also important and
these are also skills that can be learnt.
Horizons Learning Leadership Courses
The range of courses offered by Horizons Learning focusses on the qualities required to
ensure successful leadership.
Participants in our programmes explore the leadership values, principles, and characteristics
that are needed by leaders to give them leadership strengths that can be enhanced as well as
the strategies needed for addressing opportunities for improvement.
Leadership skills are not necessarily developed overnight, but our courses give leaders the
foundations that are required to develop their continued leadership learning journey and
gives them the fundamental dynamism and force to make a lasting impact on themselves and
their organisation. In our range of courses, we look at 4 levels of leadership.
Key Benefits of our Leadership Courses
To maximise their effectiveness and contribution to the organisation, leaders need to be

equipped with the most relevant knowledge, skills, and tools available today.
Horizons Learning’s portfolio of Leadership Development solutions provides efficient and

proven learning solutions that help leaders at all levels of the business to be more successful
in fulfilling their leadership expectations.
Working with you, we help you to;
 learn the latest new skills and strategies,

 immediately apply what you learn to drive innovation in your organisation,
 gain business tools and techniques to implement and accelerate change in your
organisation, and,
 collaborate and innovate effectively within your team, unit, and organisation.
About Personal Leadership
Leadership is usually seen as an outward-focussed discipline where a leader ‘leads’ other

people in order to achieve specific goals. However, as a leader, it is necessary to know how to
inspire and motivate others to perform and also, how to direct and influence them.
Personal leadership reverses that perspective inwards by asking if you know how to inspire
and motivate yourself, and also, how to direct and influence yourself.
It is not necessarily the case that a manager can easily assume the role of leader and lead. So
one of the most important challenges that current and future leaders face is to be able to
‘lead themselves’.
Being aware of your own values, your preferences and methods of working and being able to
effectively communicate with others, especially in times of stress and pressure, is a crucial
first step to becoming an effective leader.
Personal leadership allows you to master the art of inner leadership and, consequently, to
give you the ability to successfully ‘master the art of leadership’ of others.
The Benefits of our Personal Leadership courses
Mastering the art of personal leadership has many benefits and enable you to;
 effortlessly maintain high levels of motivation and commitment,
 engage in challenging situations with interest instead of panic,
 assume total control and power of your experiences, to understand the cultural
paradigm in which you exist, and to reframe the structure of your thoughts in a
positive way,
 be creative, innovative and flexible when faced with organisational change or
transition,
 amplify and enhance the authentic behaviours that are essential when forming
relationships,
 generate a range of dynamic options for action where previously there were none
apparent, and,
 advance through storming into performing and become more confident and resilient.
About Team Leadership
A lot of writing on leadership today focusses on capabilities and behaviors that are required
for teams to be effective. We read about important characteristics such as transparency,
vision, authenticity, and optimism, and behaviors such as setting SMART goals. These are
obviously critical to success, but many organisations increasingly rely on teams to help solve
problems and achieve results, and leaders of these teams need to consider other things as
well. Although teams are not a new creation, the different things about the teams of today
are that;
 teams are led by individuals who have no formal authority over their teams or team
members,
 team members do not report to a leader nor are some of them even in the same
business unit or division as the leader,
 team members are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of things such as culture,
function and geographic location,
 new networking technologies has made virtual team meetings, in theory, easier to
manage.
These trends have created many different challenges for leaders of these types of teams and
because some of these team leaders have no ‘legitimate power’, they must rely on other
sources of influence to motivate and engage the team. Team leaders need to ensure that the
environment they create encourages team success, that they are able to ‘engage and excite’
the team with a shared vision, and that the team processes are effective and efficient to
allow team members to achieve their potential.
Team leaders are the keystone of the organisations of today and it is a challenging
assignment being a team leader which brings great rewards from a personal, professional,
and organisational perspective.
The Benefits of our Team Leadership courses
Many team leaders will admit that there are occasions when a team can become a source of
problems and conflicts. Part of the many tasks a team leader has, is balancing people issues
with task issues, of being able to successfully manage differences, and ensuring that there is
clear alignment between performance and goals. So, with so many issues to consider, it takes
a confident and skilled leader to ensure that a team stays focussed on the task at hand.
Horizons Learning has over a decade of experience in providing clients with customised team
leadership training that is specifically designed to address the needs of each organisation.
Horizons Learning Team Leadership courses link practical leadership theories to dynamic
team leading. Our courses engage and excite through practical challenges and provide the
delegate with the tools needed to get the best performance from a wide variety of people
who need to work together.
About Organisational Leadership
Organisational leadership normally focusses on creating collective leadership capabilities. It is

about creating and implementing people-related strategies, structures and processes, as well
as developing and enhancing the capabilities of people to develop a leadership culture that
enables effective implementation of organisational strategy.
Organisations need leaders who are versatile and who can act on a broad vision, introduce
and implement change, engage and excite the workforce, and to sustain competitive
advantage. Leaders are continually challenged to achieve these high expectations and they
must consistently perform beyond their current capabilities.
The Benefits of our Organisational Leadership courses
Good leadership is an important component of an organisation’s success. Organisations

usually promote employees into leadership positions because of their technical expertise but
it takes more than technical knowledge to make a successful leader. Effective leadership can
be learnt and developed, and our organisational leadership training programmes can help to
support leaders by accelerating the development of essential leadership skills. Some of the
benefits that leadership training provides are that it;
 boosts employee engagement and motivation by allowing leaders to understand

more about human behaviours and motivators to allow successful engagement within
the team, to adapt their approach where necessary and to utilise team members’
strengths,
 improves performance and productivity through successful engagement as this leads
to team members who are more satisfied, productive and innovative and this, in turn,
leads to greater performance and profitability within the organisation,
 reduces turnover because effective leadership through training and development is
crucial to ensure employees remain committed to their roles and the organisation,
 attracts and retains high-quality leaders because usually, individuals look for
opportunities to develop skills and improve their career pathways and when
leadership training is provided to individuals, not only does it show that the
organisation is investing in its people, but it helps to nurture leaders through
succession planning and career development and the combination of the two assists
in attracting and retaining high-performing leaders, and,
 improves decision making by creating leaders who are well informed and who display
a high level of emotional intelligence which enable them to make well-informed and
intelligent decisions that are in alignment with organisations goals.
About Community Leadership
Community leadership is different from organisational leadership being more complex and
requiring different skill sets.
Within this context of leadership, how things are done in community is just as important as
what gets done.
With community leadership, energy and dynamism build as the people involved begin to see
new possibilities in themselves, in one another and in their community. The members being
to create shared meaning about issues that affect community health and understand how
shared meaning and shared action influence choices.
Community leaders come from all walks of life including schools, local business, local
government offices, and training agencies.
The Benefits of our Community Leadership courses
The benefits of our community leadership programmes are that they help community leaders
learn more about ways to inspire and support members to become actively involved in
community issues that have a direct impact on themselves. Our programmes
 strengthen the capacity of the community and its stakeholders to build and develop a
community belonging and to increase social capital,
 strengthen the relationships between local community leaders who are engaged in
diverse forms of community development, it arts, and its education,
 encourage and support a ‘complete community process’ of learning, action and
evaluation.

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What Is Leadership?

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What is Leadership?

The Importance of Leadership

Can leadership be taught?

To maximise their effectiveness and contribution to the organisation, leaders need to be

Horizons Learning’s portfolio of Leadership Development solutions provides efficient and

Working with you, we help you to;

 learn the latest new skills and strategies,

Leadership is usually seen as an outward-focussed discipline where a leader ‘leads’ other

The Benefits of our Personal Leadership courses

The Benefits of our Team Leadership courses

Organisational leadership normally focusses on creating collective leadership capabilities. It is

The Benefits of our Organisational Leadership courses

Good leadership is an important component of an organisation’s success. Organisations

 boosts employee engagement and motivation by allowing leaders to understand

The Benefits of our Community Leadership courses

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