Leaders of leaders - I don't think so

Sheelagh Deller responds to Adrian Underhill'sleading article in this issue

Adrian Underhill's article Learning leadership and ELT today gives much food for thought and a mass of new research ideas. My response is an unacademic, unresearched reaction.

My first feeling is that there seems to be an assumption that everyone wants to be some kind of leader - and I really don't think this is the case. There are many of us who prefer to be led and don't want to find ourselves in the situation where we lead others. So the idea o f a leader being a leader of leaders may not appeal to everyone.

Having said this I'm very glad that we are moving away from the leader- of -followers view. After all, I'm someone who had a boss who told me his door was always open. He wasn't too pleased when I suggested he came out of it occasionally.

The research of Beverly Alimo-Metcafe claims that successful leadership is Genuine concern for others' well-being and development.
This could be the case, but it has to be said that many people with that quality do not make good leaders, and don't even aspire to be in a situation where they have to lead.

My overall impression is that the recent research on leadership is in fact a description of the attributes of a good team member. Fine, but someone has to take responsibility, particularly if the rest of us don't want it!

Perhaps I'm worried that the pendulum might swing too far. There are times when a leader needs to have emotional toughness, self-reliance and independence. But we need to get away from the 'distant fathers' Perhaps Max Depree in his book Leadership Jazz expresses a happy medium.
I have talked to people with the special gift of being at the heart of an organization - not the centre. CEOs and members of Congress and deans, by the nature of the power that accumulates around them, are at the centre. They can't avoid it. Being at the centre, being in control, differs from being at the heart. People with the special gift of being at the heart (and there are some rare and wonderful instances where a person is both at the centre and at the heart) have an exotic perspective. Leaders can learn from these people, who see the diversity in organizations and understand how to take advantage of it. They affirm good values. They understand the role of high-quality relationships., They know that significant change requires a form of dying.