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What makes a good leader?

The search for the essence of ‘leadership’ has been like the search for the Holy Grail, has existed for longer, and has absorbed huge amounts of research time and paper. The published literature on leadership is huge and complex, which suggests that there is no easy answer.

There are many approaches to examining and explaining leadership, and they all have much to offer but no one fits every situation perfectly. What leadership is and should be in an ‘every‐day’ veterinary setting, for example, may be very different from leadership in a large global corporation. Much of the leadership research has, inevitably, been carried out where resources are available to support it such as big business, the military and among college students. There is a body of evidence from human healthcare and this can be mined as a useful source. Nevertheless, there is a need to contextualise leadership for veterinary settings.

There are various leadership theories to draw on when collating ideas on what attributes make for good leadership. A number of leadership theories have been espoused over the years, such as trait theory, goal path, leader‐member exchange, transactional, authentic, transformational, charismatic, servant, and relational leadership, and these are described in depth elsewhere (Uhl‐Bien 2006; Northouse 2019; Yukl and Gardner 2020). Trait theory was one of the earlier ways of examining leadership and assumed that there were ‘natural born leaders’, with definable and immutable characteristics. Unsurprisingly, these early studies indicate that those who advanced into leadership positions (particularly in military and business settings) shared characteristics that fit the conscious and unconscious biases prevalent at the time and in the organisations under study. The ‘great leader’ concept is, however, unhelpful when we are looking to develop leadership throughout complex, dynamic, volatile, and uncertain circumstances. Leadership takes many shapes and forms and is clearly fluid and situational. We can find as many examples of ‘good enough’ leadership that do not fit the assumptions as we can those that do, and of individuals stepping into leadership authentically from ‘untraditional’ positions.

From these various perspectives, it is reasonable to draw together a repertoire of competencies that are shared, to some degree or another, across many of the different leadership theories and approaches. Many of these may seem like common sense, and some will have more of an underlying evidence base than others. Each of us will have a different repertoire, which we can develop and use in ways that suit us. The aim is not to outline what a leader should look like but rather to provide a palate of competencies around which one can construct a leadership repertoire in a way that is accessible and appropriate. Veterinary professionals should find that their development and experiential learning has selected for, emphasised (sometimes overemphasised), and developed many of these competencies which are deployed in day‐to‐day practise.

In this attempt to draw together a set of competencies, I have broken them into cognitive, emotional, and intuitive (Figure 3.1). I have also tried to condense things as much as reasonably possible and, as well as defining each competence, examined its significance and the effects of both its under‐ and over‐emphasis. There is an underlying assumption that these competencies can be developed and modified as needed and in the following chapter (‘Self‐Leadership’) we will look at how to gain awareness of, and adapt, your own leadership repertoire. There is an additional assumption that different situations will require deployment of different repertoires.

Figure 3.1 Components of leadership repertoire. Cognitive, emotional, and intuitive competencies that may be associated with ‘good‐enough’ leadership.