Leadership Versus Leaders - Which Usually Wins?
Posted by Michael Dattilio on Fri, Feb 18, 2011 @ 06:59 AM
I read an article last week reflecting on the question of "Are we hard-wired to always want or need a leader (someone in charge)?". The recent events in Egypt served as the canvas on which the author was painting his opinion.
To me, there is a distinct difference between "leaders" and "leadership". Leaders being "needed" puts the cart before the horse. Leadership is not needed, it emerges, usually as a popular idea. Once this happens, it is embodied in some form of structure. That's what we humans are good at, creating a system to help us understand and conrol our world.
Quite often in our history, the leadership has been embodied in a person or a group of people with hierarchical structure to whom others look for answers. Just like in any system, every decision that's made then drives intended and unintended consequences. It's the latter that usually blind-sides the leaders in power and usually in a crisis state.
This hierarchy model conveniently (in my opinion) transfers responsibility in the eyes of the followers to the "leader". I personally may feel less responsible to exercise my leadership since someone else is doing that. Just look at voter numbers in the United States, where 50% turnout is considered great.
The question is, what form will future leadership take? Dismiss Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools if you like, but they are driving an information decentralization that affects the bedrock of current leadership models.
I don't think we are hard wired for wanting someone at the top. It's probably more like a cross between millennia of "natural selection" and conditioning by traditional organizational structures. As with events in Egypt, once we individually take more responsibility for exercising leadership, "leaders" will become temporary facilitators instead of permanent directors.
What's your take on this? What "systems" have you created in the name of leadership to try to control your organization? What unintended consequences have you seen as a result?