Change

Chapter 10More Leadership from More People

Reflecting on the disappointments and occasional grand successes that organizations are having in accelerating needed change using various methodologies, including the most common ones described in this book, no single lesson comes across as clearly as one related to leadership—specifically, the need for more from more people.

As organizations began to greatly expand in size, reach, and complexity 150 years ago, management experienced an explosion of sorts, evolving from an intuitive, simple process into a sophisticated job now held by many millions of people worldwide. In a somewhat similar way, as the context around us is becoming more multifaceted and speeding up in terms of change, creating a greater need for faster movement and agility inside enterprises, leadership has begun undergoing a revolution of sorts.

We speak of a revolution in what it means to lead but even more so in regard to who and how many people need to provide that leadership to create winning organizations and a prospering society for all.

Management Is Not Leadership

Too often, “leadership” and “management” are still thought of as positional (though the research on this point says it is not). Within the framework of the more-than-century-old modern organization, that means a few people at the top of the hierarchy provide leadership and a much larger group in the middle of the hierarchy provide management. There is much truth there, which is why this concept ...