The leadership illusion

One aspect of the BBC's coverage of the EU summit is really irritating me - the persistent reference to "European leaders."
This is plain false. Leaders have followers. And those are exactly what Chirac and Balkenende obviously lacked on the last big issue on which they tried to offer "leadership." And Schroder and Blair don't have many genuine followers either.
No. The summiteers are heads of government. That's all.
I don't say this merely to make a pedantic point. It's wider than that. Attributing "leadership" to people who merely fulfill bureacratic positions is a common managerialist trope. Bosses invariably like to consider themselves as "leaders" and equally invariably are no such thing. It's just self-aggrandizement - a feeble effort to legitimize some very suspect power hierarchies.
I'm not denying that leadership can exist. Blair exercised it in the early days of his leadership of the Labour party. And it's common enough on sports fields or battlefields.
But let's face it. It's pretty rare in business and everyday politics. Certainly, I've never had a boss I'd call a genuine leader, and I know very few people who have. So, am I an exception here? Are there loads of bosses out there who inspire and motivate their underlings by force of personality and clarity of vision?  Sure, there is a theoretical place for "leadership" in the Coasean theory of the firm - leadership can substitute for market-based contracting. But how often does it really do so? Feel free to challenge my priors. 

Comments

[dearieme]

Spot on:I hate that use of "leaders". How about that old, blunt word "bosses"?

[dearieme]

Or, I'm tempted to suggest the phrase "big bananas", as in "Today, European big banana Toni Blair met Chancellor Hairdye and President Crook in Brussels...."
Alas, there would then be much mockery for their evident failure to satisfy the European regs on firmness, abnormal curvature etc.

[Angry Economist]

"Leadership": its exactly the kind of intangible nonsense but with promised f*ckloads of benefits that management gurus, and their sad footsoldiers the management consultants try to punt for shed loads of cash to the NHS and the like.

The "seven highly effective habits.." etc - like so much was made of such basic common sense. Like I need to read 200 pages to tell me to breath in and out regularly...

For me its a major plus if a senior bod can clearly articulate what they actually want us to do and why. It should be a basic criteria of their job interviews as so many are piss poor at it.

Some sense of wanting to follow that person into death or glory by a thousand papercuts might be a bonus... if you are an idiot.