I once worked in an organisation where the boss was the scariest man around, his “jokes” were like grenades and you hoped not to be in the area when he unleashed one … but the business seemed to hum. Then again, I’ve experienced the most personable leader who couldn’t quite get the financial runs on the board. I have known autocratic leaders, sensitive new age leaders and seriously weird leaders, and every day I encounter a bewildering new leadership style. 
Think about the leaders you have experienced in your time, what have they had in common? Were they charismatic, were they controlling, were they funny, attractive, presidential?
Yet I’d bet that none of them were complete leaders. So who could be?
If one person can’t lead everything all the time, could everyone lead something some of the time?
In any group of people there will be some who are inspirational and can get everyone excited by possibilities, some who are a little more practical and focused on immediate realities. Still others might be attuned to problems and limitations, they can see why something won’t work before it’s even been tried, while some people can see how those problems can be overcome with some clever design.
Everyone of these people has something powerful to offer the rest of the group, both as a contributor and as a leader. Sometimes we need creativity more than cynicism, sometimes it’s the other way ‘round. Sometimes we need caution, other times we need courage.
Each time is an opportunity for us to step up, to show leadership through our own particular skillset, so imagine if we could determine when that time would be and took a more flexible approach to leadership; the right person providing the right talent in the right place at the right time.
Maybe we need to shift our view of leaders, from talented individuals to multi-talented teams.
Imagine a leadership model that allowed people to shine when they wanted to, a collaborative model that meant that no one person would have to bear all the burden. Imagine an approach that would allow everyone to be engaged in the process, one that would lead to greater professional development of the entire group.
Maybe today’s leaders should be thinking about how to delegate their responsibilities to unlock the leadership potential of the people around them..
Fiona
Just like we sometimes need a particular type of person in our team, we also need different leaders at different times. Think of an organizations life cycle – I have worked with entrepreneurs at one point in a business then real pedants as the business matured. OK so I did not hang around and at some point I left to do my own thing but the business needed the change.
Jason
I’m pretty sure Churchill would agree, Fiona. He said that leadership was the collision of character with circumstance and certainly the British people seemed to recognise that he was the right kind of leader to get them through The War but not what they needed to get them through The Peace. The minds that start something are usually the wrong ones to keep the thing going, which is why I suspect situational leadership is so much more powerful than positional, which tends to block not just efficiency but innovation as well.
David Seignior
Definitely agree that collaboration, or distributive leadership to be all HBR on you is the way to go. With the size, number and complexity of the challenges we face, we need leaders with many heads and many legs, indeed perhaps this has ever been so.
Jason
There’s so many aspects of our lives screaming out for real leaders, I suspect there’s more than enough leadership opportunities to go around for all of us to have at least one.
Radha
Sometimes leadership also involves knowing when to let go – scrap the project so that you can move onto something better.
Lisa
I couldn’t agree more. How many times have we seen a project clung to desperately because we’ve spent x dollars and x time on it and it would look bad to let it go, rather than thinking what have we got to lose if we keep going? Sometimes the hardest decisions like letting go in the face of good evidence are the ones that define us as leaders.