The first thing that should cause us to question the value of the current dialogue about leadership in our organizations is the wide variety of peculiar sorts who appear in it. Bear in mind that this dialogue, peopled with so stunning an array of protagonists, is conducted everywhere from major consultancies and universities to the best-selling business books. But this landscape we attempt to navigate with their aid is, indeed, littered with peculiar fellows. . .
The issues we’ve discussed here over the past weeks revolve around ill-considered or non-existent premises for individual leadership. These, as we’ve attempted to show, result in attempts to unthinkingly apply antiquated models today, or in dreamy notions that are propelled to our attention with great fanfare and excitement, but that then, lacking foundation, simply drift pointlessly and aimlessly away. There is one thing we do fairly consistently, though. . .
That’s the word of the day: echolalia. It is used generally to refer to the reflexive repetition of what one has just heard. There are two ways otherwise normal people can find themselves falling into this peculiar habit.
We saw yesterday that Occam’s Razor cuts both ways. But it certainly is worth keeping close at hand. As in so many things, an even more serious problem than oversimplifying an issue can be the obfuscation of it with superficial complexity. Many people thrive on this. . .
Charisma is, obviously, a compelling characteristic precisely because those who have it effortlessly draw our attention – and, sometimes, our “followership” as well. This latter is why it is so often identified as a leadership trait; by some even as a requisite one. But there are many types of charisma. . .
The inner sanctum. This is a place we all regard with awe and wonder – a place we would like to be someday, one of the select few privy to the private consultations which generate the decisions about strategic planning, policy, and practice to which the rest of us are bound. It is a grave, mystical place, with access to information and knowledge beyond our grasp, occupied by denizens possessed of wisdom beyond our ken. Or, that’s how it seems from the outside. . .
We have been discussing what must be the assumptions upon which are based the concept of individual leadership as promoted by so many observers. Our emphasis has been on the form initially posited by the leadership gurus, which is that of a larger than life personage with superlative abilities to perceive the future, understand the means of adapting to and surviving in it, and lead our organizations into it. The problem in attempting this, though . . .
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