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4.1 Good leadership

• What is leadership and why is it important?
• Indigenous concepts of leadership
• The values and qualities of good leadership
• Evaluating your leadership

What is leadership and why is it important?

There are many definitions of leadership and many different kinds of leaders.

One simple definition of leadership is:

"the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal"

A good leader has the style, qualities, skills, experience and knowledge to mobilise other people to get things done. Good leadership is about providing guidance and direction.

Leadership and management are not the same thing. An organisation needs to have both, but not all good leaders are good managers, and equally, not all managers are good leaders.

Depending on how they exercise power and use their authority, leaders can either undermine a community or organisation, or foster commitment, cooperation and success.

Leadership qualities and skills are critical to good governance.

Good leaders:

• act with a set of values in mind
• are accountable and commited to their role
• use power wisely
• gain respect and inspire people to work together
• recognise their own weaknesses
• understand their role and its limitations
• know when to seek further knowledge or expertise
• help communities and organisations achieve their goals

Leadership is not just for people at the top. Everyone can be a leader by using their talents to make a difference each day. Building team leadership is an important part of building an organisation.

Indigenous concepts of leadership

It is important to understand how Indigenous concepts of leadership differ from contemporary western ones. The word ‘leadership’ is unknown in many of the languages of Indigenous Australians.

In most Indigenous communities there are leaders for culture, mostly elders, and often leaders for men’s and women’s business. These leaders have authority in the community because of their knowledge. These leaders are sometimes also leaders on boards, but there are also other types of leaders who have knowledge of finances and how to run an organisation.

Indigenous leadership is based on traditional values, knowledge, laws, kinship systems, and extended family relations.

Because Indigenous leaders also need to operate in Western-style governance environments, with corporate rules and grant funding requirements, organisations need to think about getting the right mix of skills and knowledge in their leaders.

Balancing these cultural differences is one of the biggest challenges for leaders in Indigenous organisations. They are expected to meet both Indigenous and Western expectations and standards of behaviour. Sometimes Indigenous leaders say that they have ‘two-way’ accountability.

The values and qualities of good leadership

Leadership values

Values are a set of beliefs, standards or qualities about what is right, good and appropriate.

There are many different types of values such as financial, social, spiritual, natural, moral or ethical, and they may vary greatly between cultures.

Before you start making changes to your leadership, it may help to identify the leadership values that you support and want to strengthen.

The qualities of good leaders

Many qualities and skills have been identified as being important for strong Indigenous leaders, including:

• respect for culture
• self-awareness and confidence
• integrity and wisdom
• good negotiation skills
• enthusiastic and inspirational
• good communication skills
• sense of humour and adaptability

See: Resource 4.1 Check list—The qualities of good leaders

You may be able to add other skills and qualities to this list that might be relevant to your own leaders and your own work.

Evaluating your leadership

How do you know if you have a leadership problem?

Signs that leadership is lacking or not working may include:

• conflict
• the organisation isn’t doing its job
• low morale
• staff turnover
• lack of board engagement
• lack of transparency in decision-making processes

See: Resource 4.2 Check-up—Your leadership health

This evaluation is for leaders working both formally and informally in organisations or the wider community.

The check-up shows how effective, capable and legitimate your leadership is.

It is not meant to replace a thorough evaluation of your leadership arrangements in your organisation or community. It also doesn’t assess traditional systems and practices of Indigenous leadership. Its main purpose is to help you:

• identify major areas where leadership may be weak
• identify leadership strengths
• encourage discussion and get people involved in leadership issues
• identify priority areas for closer evaluation and possible change

Some tips for filling it out...

• Do the check-up on your own or as a group and compare results. Do you all agree on the same problems and issues? Or do some people see things differently? And if so, why?
• Consider getting someone from outside to conduct the process, so that each person can give their assessment to the facilitator in confidence. This person can then collate the responses and provide a report.
• The check-up uses positive statements because it’s important to identify your strengths as well as your weaknesses.
• Your responses should be spontaneous.

And when you’ve finished...

Go back and look at your answers to the statements:

For the statements where your rating suggests there is a leadership issue, go down the list and write what level of priority (low, medium or high) you think they should be given. This helps identify your main leadership issues, and where to start making changes.

Once you have identified and ranked the problem areas you can then:

"develop a strategy and set of actions to make the changes you want."

Another way to learn about your current leadership is to look back at your leadership history. Talk with others in your community or committee about the kind of leaders you had in the past – who did a good job and why? Who had too much pressure and stopped working? –and think about what kind of leaders you need in the future.

Read next: 4.2 Roles and responsibilities of a governing body

Read previous: 4. Your governing body and leadership