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leadership

UK/ˈliːdəʃɪp/US/ˈlidɚʃɪp/
nounB2Common in everyday speech and writing · #3,739 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: leaderships

Leadership is the act of leading, and the people who lead. Strong leadership, the party leadership, a leadership contest.

It names both the quality and the group, which is why a sentence about leadership can be about a person's manner or about a committee. The research finding that holds up best is unglamorous: what leaders do matters more than what they are like.

ABAC Indonesia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Definitions of leadership

  1. 1nounleadershipThe act of leading, and the people who lead.B2

    “Under her leadership, the company doubled in size.”

leadership is a role.

Where it comes from

  1. Middle English

    ledere

  2. English

    leader

  3. English, today

    leadership

From leader + -ship. leader comes from Middle English ledere. by surface analysis, lead + -er. Cognate with Scots leader (“leader”), West Frisian lieder (“leader”), Dutch leider (“leader”), German Leiter (“leader, conductor, manager”), Danish leder (“leader, manager”), Swedish ledare (“leader, conductor, director”), Icelandic leiðari (“leader, conductor”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Word Building

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leadership in the wild

  • ALS focuses on developing leadership abilities, the profession of arms, and building effective communication.

    Airman Leadership School

  • Harriet Harman, the Deputy Leader, became Acting Leader but announced that she would stand down following the leadership election.

    2015 Labour Party leadership election (UK)

  • Less than a year later, a leadership challenge saw another leadership election, where Corbyn again won, with an increased share of the vote.

    2015 Labour Party leadership election (UK)

  • By the end of June, Angela Eagle and Owen Smith were being promoted as intending to contest the leadership.

    2016 Labour Party leadership election (UK)

  • Smith told the BBC that Eagle was a "star" and that she would be "at right hand" if he won the leadership.

    2016 Labour Party leadership election (UK)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

  • lead
  • leader