“Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.” (Northouse, 2016, p. 6)

As I reflect on all of the leadership roles that I have held, and all of the follower roles that I have held, the word that strikes me in this definition is “process”.  When I think of the word “process”, I always assign “time” to this word.  Every process takes time.  Does true leadership take time?

We have all experienced situations where an individual can lead or influence a group of people in a moment in time.  Assigned leaders are expected to be able to make decisions, cast vision, develop and implement strategy from the moment that there position is announced, and successful leaders appear to accomplish all of these things.  Emergent leaders can influence others and create a following from the time that they enter a room, and we have all seen this play out in positive and negative ways.

The best way that I can pull together my thoughts and my learning from the reading is to apply it to examples from my healthcare world.  I have two professional licenses:  Physical Therapist and Emergency Medical Responder (EMR).  Responding to an emergency scene requires an entirely different set of leadership skills than treating a rehabilitation patient.  On an emergency scene the group context and goals are known, and power is absolutely necessary.  The incident commander has legitimate power that is assigned to him/her, as well as expert and informational power.  There may be a relationship with the commander, in which case there may be referent power, but even in the absence of relationship everyone must follow that person’s lead.  The influence on the team is through assigned power – the group context dictates this in order to attain the goal of saving lives.  This is positive leadership that is established in seconds.

In the physical therapy world, the process is quite different.  The team is often two people:  the physical therapist and the patient.  The physical therapist does have informational and expert power, but wielding this without referent power is often disastrous.  Coercing a patient in pain to do exercise is almost never successful.  The group context, and the goal attainment requires the use of referent power and the development of a trusting therapeutic relationship so that the patient understands that our purpose is mutual.  This is positive leadership that is established over days.

Obviously both scenarios are different, and the different leadership styles are absolutely.  Based on the reading, one could argue that the first leader is functioning more in a management role than in a leadership role.  So I pose the question again (more to myself than to my fellow students):  does true leadership take time?