Page 21 - Develop your leadership skills- John Adair. -- 2nd ed

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12 ■ Develop your leadership skills

life; and knowledge is linked to authority. There are four forms
of authority among people:

■ The authority of position and rank – ‘Do this because I am
the boss!’

■ The authority of knowledge – ‘Authority flows to the one
who knows.’

■ The authority of personality – in its extreme form,
charisma.

■ Moral authority – personal authority to ask others to make
sacrifices.

Nelson Mandela, for example, has dignity, integrity and charm.
Because he endured years of imprisonment he has acquired the
moral authority to ask his fellow countrymen and -women to
accept difficulties and hardships on the long road to national
unity and prosperity.

Why do sailors do what the captain orders when the ship is
tossed to and fro in a storm? Because they sense that the
captain has the knowledge of the sea and navigation, deepened
by experience of many other storms, to know what to do.
Knowledge creates confidence in others.

For this reason your acquisition of technical and professional
knowledge is actually part of your development as a leader.
You are equipping yourself with one essential ingredient. To go
back to Churchill for a moment, in 1940 he was the only
cabinet minister with experience as a war minister in the First
World War, quite apart from his own background as a profes-
sionally trained officer who, as a regimental commander,