Why "Acts of Leadership"

Why would anyone call a blog "Acts of Leadership"?

Good question!

Jackson and Parry say that leadership “is a process that goes on between all people and that all people can be involved in leadership, almost in spite of their formal position” (2008, p. 83).

That says to me that leadership is not just the province of a position; that leadership can happen anywhere. Phil Dourado (2007) wrote a book that focused fairly significantly on this idea of acts of leadership, which can be taken anywhere, at any time, by any person.

A leadership act takes place when, in the words of Marie Corelli, we “Seize this very minute. Whatever you can do, or dream you can begin it; Boldness has genius, power, magic in it” (misattributing Goethe, 1905, p. 31, after Anster, 1985, p. 15).

It's a nice thought. We mustn't wait for leadership to happen to us: we must go out and make it happen around us.

References:

• Anster, John (1835). Faustus, A Dramatic Mystery; The Bride of Corinth; The First Walpurgis Night, Translated from the German of Goethe, and Illustrated with Notes. UK: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman  
• Corelli, Marie (1905). The Spirit of Work in The Daily Mail (Editors) The Queens Christmas Carol: An anthology of poems, stories, essays, drawings and music by British authors, artists and composers. UK: Ballantyne Press
• Dorado, Phil (2007). The 60 Second Leader: Everything you need to know about leadership, in 60 second bites. UK: Capstone Publishing Ltd
• Jackson, Brad & Parry, Ken (2008). A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying leadership. UK: Sage

Sam