Why not a science? why an art? it is because of the fact that there are no hard and fast rules, that is why Leadership is defined an art. Everyone has the right to create his own leadership style. The leadership style is mostly defined by the various factors to name a few the principles they follow, business ethics, interpersonal relationship. Let us see the key points that define a leader.

The most prominent principle of being a leader is to be a authentic leader. This is the most important principle or quality any leader should have. It is the most defining factor to be a leader. Authentic means you reflect and follow what you say and mean! In layman terms it is NOT saying something and doing something. The most obvious question that arises is why? why is "Authenticity" a defining factor? The sole reason is the fact that your credibility increases, your dependability increases. Please note that it does not mean that doing whatever you say irrespective of the consequences. What it means is you commit yourself to what you say! just in case you face problems, you acknowledge gracefully and checkout the alternative courses or corrective measures.

The second important principle is being people's man rather than the management's guy. Well, the managers out there might be after me! but the fact is that "People first" should be the rule. No matter what people come first than anything else. Because they are the building blocks over which the entire management rests! If they fail or grumble the company is at loss. In business terms you might want to calculate the loss of productive hours, poor quality output etc. Once these key principles are in place, the next important factor is the business ethics. It is hard to define business ethics, so in short it is all about cross the line. Trust me, you will know it when you are bound to cross it.

The next important aspect is the interpersonal relationship, how the leader deals with people around him? Here too there are no defined rules, because the rules are bound to change depending upon the person you are interacting with. Not every other person is the same, are they? So each one has to be handled differently depending upon their weakness and strengths. The leader builds upon the strengths of the individuals and helps them to strengthen the weakness. This concept of making them strengthen their weakness, plays a major role in their personal growth as well as the organization they work for. Most people disregard this aspect that once they are trained or shaped they might switch companies. Well, in that aspect that is a risk we need to take, for the evolution of the organization.

Some of the other key factors that are key for a leader are as follows:

The other important aspects in leading a team are to keep them informed periodically about the vision/path ahead of them. The prospects, the pitfalls, the irony everything has to be set out on the table, so that the team is aware of reality. In a sense this will help the team to adapt to reality and make changes as quickly as possible.

Making people realize that the limit for their potential and ideas is the sky. i.e the limits they define are illusions. Need to help them understand that whatever they envision can become reality once they start strengthening their vision.

Periodic feedback after a milestone or key achievement is mandatory. This does not include the corrective or immediate feedback, these have to be given then and there. The periodic feedback mostly concentrate on developing the team members strengths and strengthening their weaknesses. And most often bring back focus to what they want to achieve in their career. This is advantageous in two ways, i.e. the leader knows what is happening exactly and the team knows where they stand always!

The other most important aspect you might want to cultivate in your team is the maturity to see the problem and the person differently. i.e. whenever somebody complains or points out a problem it does not reflect on the person but on the solution proposed by the person. This is one of the major causes of confusion in any organization. This creates havoc within the teams, and most often lead to the splitting up of the team into sides, which is one of the least you want as a leader.

The leader should talk about only the current problem at hand, and forget the previous recurrences when resolving a issue. This gives the team the clarity and focus to solve the problem at hand, rather than looking back what went wrong last time and who to blame this time.

One of the important factor that you might want to cultivate in your team is the frankness to accept when something is wrong, even if it is the leader! This openness in the team helps to build a open culture organization.

Moreover you need to educate the team that falling short is ok! as long as you get back quickly and learn from the past and forge ahead. Because the normal tendency of people is the "Fear Factor" i.e. what if I fail? well, it is a tough question to answer, but let me put it this way, as long as you did your best and it failed, it does not matter. All the team has to do is learn from the mistakes and forge ahead! That is the key!

Many have defined leadership in terms of their own perspective. This is a novel attempt to redefine Leadership in my own terms.