Brewed Fresh Daily

What does it mean to lead? I'm not even going to reproduce that definition, but I highly recommend you click through it. I thought I'd start with the dictionary definition:

lead�er�ship (ldr-shp) n.

1. The position or office of a leader: ascended to the leadership of the party.
2. Capacity or ability to lead: showed strong leadership during her first term in office.
3. A group of leaders: met with the leadership of the nation's top unions.
4. Guidance; direction: The business prospered under the leadership of the new president.

Why does the language that we use focus around business and politics? Is that the nature of being a leader? What would happen if we were to start with:

"I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." - Henry Ford

How would you produce more leaders? What about the assumption of followers? If you're talking about leading, who's following? What if you were to act in such a way that you assume no one is following what you're doing? I'm thinking of Kant's categorical imperative: "Act in such a way that you would will your action to become a universal law". How would that effect the way we think about leaders and leadership? What about role models? Do all of our leadership role models have to come from business and politics? Are we forgetting servant leaders like Jesus, Buddha, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and other spiritual leaders? Where are those men and women in our conversation? I look forward to your comments. Thank you for your continued involvement in the discussion. If you're like me and don't remember all the things you learned in Philosophy 101, pick up one of Immanuel Kant's books.