麦肯锡-什么是领导力？（英）

September 2024McKinsey ExplainersWhat is leadership?Leadership is a set of mindsets and behaviors that aligns people in a collective direction, enables them to work together and accomplish shared goals, and helps them adjust to changing environments.All leaders, to a certain degree, do the same thing. Whether you’re talking about an executive, sports coach, or schoolteacher, leadership is enabling others to accomplish something they couldn’t do on their own. Some people in formal leadership positions are poor leaders, and many good leaders have no formal authority. In this sense, leadership is something you do and not something you are. It is a person’s actions, rather than their words or job title, that inspire trust and commitment.What’s more, leadership is not something people are born with. Because good leadership is often expressed through behavior rather than personality, it is a skill that can be learned. How? Getting to know oneself is a key first step. The most effective leaders are highly conscious of their own thoughts and beliefs and show up with integrity as their fully authentic selves.There are many contexts and ways in which leadership is exercised. According to McKinsey analysis of academic literature and a global survey of nearly 200,000 people in 81 organizations, there are four types of behaviors that account for 89 percent of leadership effectiveness: — being supportive — operating with a strong orientation toward results — seeking different perspectives — solving problems effectivelyEffective leaders know that what works in one situation will not necessarily work every time. Leadership strategies must reflect an organization’s context. For example, a situational approach enables executives to focus on the leadership behaviors that are most relevant to the organization as it evolves.Learn more about McKinsey’s People & Organizational Performance Practice.What is the journey of leadership?Most great leaders learn to lead over time. Within organizations, the combination of programs, books, and courses to cultivate these skills is often referred to as “leadership development”—though the results vary.McKinsey’s latest book, The Journey of Leadership (Portfolio/Penguin Group, September 2024), draws on the authors’ decades of experience guiding the world’s top leaders to become the best versions of themselves. With these insights, the authors have developed a distinctive approach to leadership development, one they believe is more effective than most other programs.Ramesh Srinivasan and Hans-Werner Kaas are codeans of McKinsey’s Bower Forum CEO leadership development program, where, over the past ten years, more than 500 of the world’s top CEOs and business leaders have bravely confronted personal and professional challenges. Dana Maor is the global cohead and European leader of McKinsey’s People and Organizational Performance Practice, and Kurt Strovink leads McKinsey’s global CEO Initiative to help build great CEOs and C