John Adair's 100 Greatest Ideas for Effective Leadership

Idea 2: Leadership function – action-centred leadership

At whatever level of leadership you are, you must continually think about task, team and individual needs. To achieve the common task, maintain teamwork and satisfy individuals, certain functions have to be performed. A function is what leaders do as opposed to a quality, which is an aspect of what they are.

These functions (the functional approach to leadership, also called action-centred leadership) are:

• Defining the task: What are the purpose, aims and objectives? Why is this work worthwhile?
• Planning: A plan answers the question of how you are going to get from where you are now to where you want to be. There is nothing like a bad plan to break up a group or frustrate individuals.