After Leaders

Abstract

We have for such a long time tied ourselves up in knots with the word leader. We argue in this chapter 1 that the field of leadership would make its greatest contribution thus far by jettisoning the word leader and giving prominence to leading and leadership. The preoccupation with, on the one hand, seeking the entitative traits, style, authenticity, and charisma of leaders, and, on the other hand, endlessly problematizing the existence of such heroic mythical creatures, has consumed so much resource for such little gain. This view is not new. Drath and colleagues 2 expressed this well in their pitch for repositioning leadership toward outcomes and process. Yet despite the eloquence and authority of their reasoned argument, they could still not let go of leader. In a parallel way, there is a growing group of researchers seeking to push forward with the notion of leadership-as-practice 3 —where leader is problematic, and notions of agency are rightfully given much greater attention.