Leadership - continued

Increased awareness of leadership develops while involved in this class and I am having more discussions on the subject since the beginning of class, and today I even used some of the material from the first couple of reading assignments when interviewing a potential candidate for a position of Director. Some of his answers led me to believe that he had also read some of the same material!
Even over coffee last Saturday, (at Starbucks, of course) the subject arose when talking to a girl friend who is extremely frustrated with the head of the school where she teaches, and she relayed some classic examples of how not to lead, furthering the premise that employees more often than not, leave their manager, not their job.
Browsing through the web resulted in an interesting article outlining traits that identify leaders. However, in my opinion, much of this information can be purely subjective.
"A person who doesn't feel the thrill of a challenge is not a potential leader."
" People locked in the status quo are not leaders."
"Leaders need the capacity to create or catch vision."
" Brainstorming is not a particularly helpful practice in leadership because ideas need to remain practical."
"Leaders have a willingness to take responsibility."

It is critical to distinguish between the skill of performance and the skill of leading a performance. The brilliant violinist does not necessarily become the best conductor.

I find it interesting that the first two books of the reading assignment, one being written over 15 years ago, have the same theme, without much change in the authors' assessment of the leaders attributes of 15 years ago and today. Somehow, we have to emerge from the quagmire of what is seemingly status quo within our leadership.

I also found a self leadership self assessment quiz that I found interesting. It categorized the skill sets into attributes, skills, and knowledge. The dates might change, the premise remains.