[March 23, 2014] Warning to all my readers … there a few articles written about “hybrid” leadership, some of which are recycled ideas and others are poorly constructed concepts. What one will find typically, are leader traits dressed up to look different or something on male-female hybrid attributes.
The former concept is no different than what has been written in these pages except at a more junior leader level. The second is elitist (or sexist depending on your perspective) and discusses how women are better than men.
Here is the conclusion of one author that recently discusses hybrid leader traits:
“Hybrid style works, and women are best at it.”
Leaders that I know certainly do not adhere to this ideology. My personal experience is working with military and business professionals, those who are leaders from the most junior to senior levels of leadership. Leadership, irrespective of style, is not the purview of one gender over another, nor is it contained within a certain race, religion, etc.
Leadership is certainly not about inborn traits. For example it is not that women are better than men, not that tall men are better than short men, not that white men are better than black men. It’s about leaders who can lead, period. Anyone saying that any particular physical trait makes one a better leader, knows very little about true leadership.
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