We have seen, since the opening of the current series on the problems with the notion of individual leadership in organizations, that the most fundamental of them is that such leadership is inescapably not about those organizations – it is about the purportedly peerless and vital qualities of those putative leaders. Whatever after-thoughts or carefully contrived qualifications are thrown at the topic, there is no avoiding the truth about individual leadership as “discovered” and promoted by the modern leadership movement (MLM): it is about relationships with individuals who exhibit the described leadership – it is only peripherally, if at all, about the work at hand, from which, in any event, it most decidedly does not arise.
We have also looked at some examples of what appear to be actual instances of individual leadership in the workplace, only to see that they are either not really examples of leadership or are clearly not results of the teachings or other activities of the MLM.
That’s a peculiar puzzle, isn’t it? . . .
