Let me start by giving you my definition of leadership. And the best place to start is with what it’s not.

Leadership is not about being in charge. Some people are in charge of teams simply because they were lucky. They happened to be in the right place at the right time. Too many people are in charge of teams because they have great technical skills, but they unfortunately have no talent for leadership.

So if it’s not being in charge, what is leadership? Well, I suggest that leadership is best defined as the ability to build and maintain a high-performing team.

Let’s look at this definition from a performance perspective, because extracting high-performance is what I’m suggesting leadership is about. My favourite performance equation, probably because it’s so simple, is:

Ability x Motivation = Performance

Take a close look at the component parts that make up performance, and you’ll notice that you have a great deal of influence over the performance of the people on your team.

Let’s start with ability, which really comprises a number of issues. Have you selected the right people? Do they have the right fit with the team. Do they have the right industry and job experience? Do they have the right skills and knowledge to perform? And are you providing them with the training and development opportunities they need to perform to their potential. As a leader, you have control over all of that.

Now we have ability covered, let’s take a look at motivation – which is probably best described in this context as work motivation. The new-age term for work motivation is employee engagement. Spend 10 minutes on Google researching employee engagement and you’ll discover two things:

1. A higher level of employee engagement is linked to a wide range of performance improvement – higher productivity, high profitability, higher sales per employee; along with lower employee turnover, lower inventory shrinkage and fewer accidents.
2. The primary enabler of employee engagement is a person’s immediate manager. That’s you, their leader.

You have full control over the performance of your team. So by definition, the real measure of your leadership ability is your ability to build and maintain a high-performing team. Simple.

Do you have a better definition of leadership?