If you’ve ever been part of a dysfunctional team, you understand why quality leadership is important. Without it, it is impossible—or at least very difficult—for individuals in a group to organize, plan, create rules, and execute. No clear vision or goals materialize; and the future always looks murky at best.

So what is quality leadership? For starters, it is leadership that recognizes the importance of everyone in the group. Instead of seeing the leader as separate and sovereign over all subordinate members, it sees the leader as an integral, organizing, and vital component of the group. Rather than dominating others, the leader inspires them, challenges them, and helps them improve where they have deficits.

One example of this style of leadership is the development of the Maddington-Kenwick Community Leadership Network. Created originally to survey, encourage, and respond to citizen involvement in local governance, it eventually grew to provide a rich model of leadership through networking. Rather than concentrating all the power in the hands of a single individual, it works by dispersing power throughout a “core” group of individuals who make up a network. In general, this model of leadership can provide a strong example for businesses, organizations, and government institutions.

To summarize, quality leadership can be a number of things. But most importantly, it is leadership that recognizes the worth of each individual involved in a project. It does not focus on the leader alone, but how that leader interfaces with all the other individuals in the organization to accomplish a goal.