Reassessing: A Different Kind of Leadership

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Khadijia White-Thomas
March 18, 2022

As early as the 1900s, the terms, management and leadership, have existed, and they continue to evolve in meaning and scope. Management usually concentrates on a result and focuses on someone authoritatively directing the work. While leadership is known to embody the creation and the connection to people, in which the intensity of collaborating efforts ensures that tasks and goals come to fruition.

As we continue our journey on the leadership path, we hope that our lived workplace experiences continue to permit reflection on how best to provide leadership services to assist others while we remain authentic to our calling of envisioning success within ourselves and for those we lead.

The term leader, and the phenomenon of leadership, offer an enjoyable conversation with varying perspectives of best practices in which someone can flourish with maximum effect and contribution. In making this case of reassessing a different kind of leadership, we delve into this new process of thinking and acting.

Reassessing Leadership

This renewed leadership embodies a different mindset approach to thinking, connecting, communicating and collaborating. As leaders, we often discuss responsibilities such as ensuring appropriate delegation, managing expectations or the often stated, organizing staff to “work smarter, not harder.” By reassessing leadership, leadership is viewed through the dimensions of performance, persistence and purpose.

A New Kind of Leadership: Performance

A leadership performance mindset:

• There is a desired process of successive learning which shapes cooperative efforts for implementation and planning performance in the future.
• It indicates a focus on creating positive disruption through innovation and creativity, encouraging more significant performance outcomes.
• Not relying solely on creating performance metrics, but an emphasis on key internal creativities that continue to convey a shared vision that further improves team performance.

Performance is successful learning.

A New Kind of Leadership: Persistence

The leadership persistence mindset:

• This occurs through the continual crafting of the strategic architecture, which lies in the steadfastness of creating what some refer to as turning a thought, idea or notion into a form of reality.
• Interconnects and marries two strategies, adaptive (flexible) approaches and programmed (planned) approaches for addressing change and implementing solutions.
• A deeply held feeling of providing resources and being imaginative leads the way to the future through the enjoyment of discovery, the integration of skills and fulfillment while promoting higher degrees of autonomy.

Persistence is a commitment to discovery.

A New Kind of Leadership: Purpose

The leadership purpose mindset:

• Through purpose, what continues to ring true is the component of one’s leadership walk that has the capability to influence the heart and the mind.
• This leadership thrives on intrinsic motivation and continues to develop values and beliefs that support collaboration, empowerment and talent and further connect to what is meaningful to others and one’s self.
• It is the utilization of interpersonal power, in which one’s leadership purpose continues to thrive by accomplishing what is desired and enlisting others.

Purpose is fulfillment.

How to Create Performance, Persistence and Purpose as a Leader

There is no absolute recipe for ensuring excellent leadership success. Nevertheless, it can be worthwhile to embrace a different approach as a leader. In summary, performance relies on leaders creating and incorporating strategies that positively influence others to accomplish responsibilities successfully.

In terms of persistence, it ensures a meaning-making process that threads together innovation, strategies and resources for intellectual growth. Lastly, our purpose as leaders is to provide the opportunity to do something well, change the way things are and stay attuned to self-awareness and social awareness.

So, here are three suggestions to consider as you reassess a different kind of leadership in your environment and along your leadership journey.

• As you lead others and reassess yourself, are there new leadership roots that lie at the juncture of performance, persistence and purpose? 

• What specific change can you spark to create positive disruption that will allow the new mindset expression of performance, persistence and purpose as you continue to lead?

• Conduct your leadership SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) to determine areas of leadership that can best be served with an emphasis on performance, persistence and purpose.

We either grow, or we become stagnant. As I reassess my leadership experience, I remind myself that it is about rewriting the so-called leadership rules and leading from an exploratory, open-minded and intrinsically motivating perspective.

A nudge of inspiration comes when we concentrate on reassessing our skills, and spend time performing self-reflection so that we experience cumulative instances of thriving as a leader, and are not just merely surviving behind a title.

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Author: Dr. Khadijia White-Thomas works in the federal courts as an executive leader. She is also the Founder and CEO of Decree Consulting & Publishing, LLC, providing business coaching and strategy and marketing consulting services. Contact Dr. Khadijia at www.decreeconsult.com.

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