Leadership - different things to different people

I recently found an extract of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth's address to the Sovereign's Parade at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and I thought it rather neatly captured the differing aspects of leadership. So often I hear of the need for leadership within an organisation and to take an organisation forward. For me, leadership has always been about people and maximising their potential and their strengths to deliver beyond the sum of the parts.

Within the extract there are 3 pieces that I rather liked:

• The best and purest form of leadership is example; that 'Come on' is a much better command than 'Go on'.
• A Leader; a person whom men will follow into danger, discomfort and every ordeal which nature, climate or a human enemy can contrive.
• Leadership demands a dedicated responsibility towards the men under your command. Their lives will be in your hands and they will have the right to expect from you the highest standards of character, professional competence and integrity.

It worries me a little that we have come to think of leadership - at times - so differently. Is our focus on the organisation to the detriment of the individual one of modern society's challenges that we need to overcome? If we could perhaps reflect upon personal leadership, what it means to the individual, the team and the task in hand, perhaps modern society might not be so blighted. As Churchill expressed "It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required". That, surely, is a form of personal leadership.