Leadership is commonly assumed to be based in influence processes. To me, this is an assumption worth looking at a little more closely. What follows is a contribution I made recently to a discussion on leadership and influence on LinkedIn.

Bud West has raised the topic of influence as a discussion on the ILA's Linked-In group pages. I find this really interesting as influence tends to be a sacred cow of leadership. For many scholars and others, influence is a defining characteristic of leadership, as in “leadership involves processes of influencing others toward organizational goals”. Discussion tends to happen only inside the walls of definitions like this. 

What if we allow the possibility that influence is one way of defining leadership – but not the only way? 

The belief that influence is a defining feature of leadership is closely tied in with the notion that leadership is what leaders do; that leadership is the province of leaders and only leaders. (In contrast, I prefer to think of leadership in process terms, allowing that both recognized leaders and others – non-leaders – can contribute to the work.) 

Influence-based leadership frameworks that center (explicitly or implicitly) on the leader tend to take as given that: 

• The leader can “see farther” than others, the leader knows best 
• If others have differing views/additional contributions, they will be able to speak up and will do so 
• The leader will be able to appreciate their perspectives, and incorporate their contributions into his/her own.

I’m not saying that influence is not useful as a frame for understanding leadership. It clearly is in some settings. But it’s one of a number of ways of understanding leadership. 

We need to recognize that people regard leadership in fundamentally different ways: 
• Some see it as the exercise of formal authority, as with making decisions and pointing the way forward 
• Some see it as being at the cutting-edge of a professional or academic field (as implied by the terms, “intellectual leadership” or “thought leadership”), and 
• As noted, many see it in conventional influence terms – such as persuading and enlisting others to move in a desired direction. 

The problem is if we define leadership exclusively in terms of influence processes – or from any other singular standpoint – we run the risk of completely screening from view other, potentially powerful, ways of constructing leadership. 

One such alternative means of conceiving of leadership is as involving learning processes, particularly in working through contentious issues. Such a perspective recognizes: 
• Stakeholders to a contentious problem are likely to possess much relevant intelligence 
• Dominant patterns of defensiveness in organizations and groups will tend to make it difficult for people to share what they might otherwise contribute 
• Leadership involves – in part – delving into the hidden or unspoken side of issues, to tap potential reserves of intelligence 
• Doing so requires relationally-oriented communication practices, such as recognizing the presuppositions and beliefs that we bring to a problem; that we are connected to the issue, as are others, by virtue of our mindsets regarding it. 

In such a formulation of leadership - I use the term "learning-centered leadership" - understandings about current realities and preferred futures emerge from conversation – rather than just being something a leader supplies or formulates. 

The accent is on learning, both collective and individual: collective in the sense of shared understandings emerging out of the intelligence shared by group members; and individual in that those practicing leadership (including formal leaders and/or other group members) stand to gain insights into their own underlying assumptions, interests, feelings and knowledge in relation to the issue. 

I’m not opposed to influence-based conceptions of leadership. But let’s understand them as one set of lenses for comprehending leadership, not the only set.