Leader to Leadership: A Paradigm Shift?

Global estimates of employees in the post-pandemic era have shown that a large portion of the workforce has been impacted- most negatively impacted. Leadership needs to be redefined as consisting of two parts, leader and leadership. The first is that the individual must learn how to be a leader. This often involves individuals learning new skills in change management, conflict management, culture/diversity/inclusion, morals and ethics in business, and teamwork skills, to name only a few. Once individuals can lead themselves, and only then can they grow to lead others. This growth component involves individuals practicing their leader skills while being exposed to feedback and evaluation from peers to learn better how to be more effective at leading other people. At the practitioner level, a differentiation needs to be made between leader and leadership development. Each level needs the opportunity to practice and mature. Leader and leadership development initiatives must be directly associated with the correct competencies because the competencies at the leader level are different from those at the leadership level. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)