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I've got a problem taking leadership advice from someone who extracted as much money as Welch did from his firm, and who behaved in such an unethical manner by conducting an affair and betraying his wife. This happens all the time, but most people who commit infidelities don't write books about how other people can emulate them.

I posted about leadership this week at lifehack.org, because I share some of the same concerns you express here -- "leadership" is a squirrely word. It appears all over the literature on education, as well as in business, as a kind of empty, value-neutral skill-set rather than as a quality. "Teach leadership", we're exhorted -- though left implicit is who we're teaching students to lead (Jonathan Kozol's work on inner-city schools suggests it's the poor and the black and hispanic who are being taught to follow in almost explicit terms). In business, leadership is often treated interchangably with "management", but the skills that make people effective managers are not necessarily the skills that make them effective leaders -- in fact, often they're the opposite (a lot of people trapped in a meaningless "Office Space"-like existence have very effective managers indeed!).

I think leadership is found in the inspiration of others and, eventually, in the recognition and unlocking of the leadership potential of everyone -- leadership without followers. In a business world that likes to consider itself distinct from the concerns of the rest of the world (e.g. stuff like pollution is considered an "externality", as if it doesn't also effect the corporations that produce it and all of the people that make it up) the idea that leadership should inhere in the act of rising people up and inspiring them is probably a tricky sell.

Let'/s face facts:

Leadership is etymologically connected with lederhosen; also, historically closely allied with lead. In mythology, a 'lead ship' is one that quickly sinks upon contact with mercury and its ions. Therefore, a leader could be any person with a leather mask. see: dominatrix

You may want to check out one of the classic seminal works on leadership, French, J., Jr., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In Cartwright, D. (Ed.), Studies in Social Power (pp. 150-67). Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research. Following on from that is a somewhat more contemporary work, Raven, B. H. (1992). A power/interaction model of interpersonal influence: French and Raven thirty years later. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 7(2), 217-244. Both of these explore the sociological roots of different styles of leadership, or to be more specific, styles of power relations between leaders and followers.

Welch and his ilk exemplify hierarchical leadership, which I argue is obsolete under today's conditions of interconnectivity. We're seeing some new thinking about leadership as an emergent property among organizations conceived in complexity terms. An interesting reference here is Lawrimore, B. (2005). From excellence to emergence: The evolution of management thinking and the influence of complexity. In Richardson, K.A. (Ed.), Managing organizational complexity: Philosophy, theory and application. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Pub. Inc.

(There's also a medium-size discourse about transformative vs. transactional leadership that also pretty much misses the point from both complexity and critical grounds. So-called transformative leadership, read from a critical ground, is all about instilling the corporate identity among employee drones so that they play follow-the-leader without (much) complaint.

Thanks for the pointers 'n' thoughts. Very helpful. And if you've got more, please post them.

Spot on David, the term Leadership has no clothes! And what about Knowledge Management and Change Management? And what do most "Consultants" do? Is their output written reports that people pay money for?

Weinberg's Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach is one of the better books I've read on the subject, albeit with the worst title. It sparked several "aha" moments for me anyway.

Just red your book 'Everything is Miscellaneous' Really enjoyed it particularly the ideas about knowledge and how we view it needs to change.
I think there are links in there to leadership. to often we think of leadership as 'first over the hill' to make things happen. As a self proclaimed leader in education, leadership is about moving out of the established patterns and places into the unknown. It is slow and works by small incremental change. It is not something sudden and instantaneous. Nelson Mandela (a great leader) spent decades in prison invoking his leadership.
Joseph L. Badaracco book 'Leading Quietly' is a great read on this. Too often leaders are not leading they are just following or managing. Our concept of leadership needs to change to solve the issues of our world just as our concept of knowledge needs to change to cope with the technological developments of our world.

Dave, you should have a look at Warren Bennis' "Managing the Dream". Clever ideas and very good points about leadership from a man who spent most of his time analyzing that issue.

Anyhow, the subject you're willing to tackle is so complex that maybe one way to approach it is to focus on a specific aspect to avoid doing a PhD on it.

Good luck!

David,

Now reading, and loving, EIM. Bravo on a very strong writing. Leadership in the creative organization is the subject matter consuming the majority of time on my day job. May I suggest you look into the work of Robert K. Greenleaf. His writings on the concept of "servant leadership" deserve your attention. btw, my sense is you are not a leader without followers and the true followers are volunteers. More on Greenleaf here
http://www.greenleaf.org/

I found Harlan Cleveland's Nobody in Charge and Robert Terry's Authentic Leadership inspiring.

David,

A simple definition from my BU Project Management course:

Leaders manage change. (while managers manage complexity.)

Best,

Jon

Although your post spoke to individual leadership, there is room to consider the concept of organizational leadership - consistancy of purpose and action. As the organization flattens, individual leadership flattens as well and morphs into collective, aligned, purposeful action. IMHO, leadership web trumps chain of command any day.