Leadership: an enemy of the people?

Abstract

This article argues that the default preference for interpreting situations as critical and the associated decision‐style of command often undermines our attempts to address wicked problems adequately. As a result, ‘leadership’, defined as persuading the collective to take responsibility for collective problems, is often regarded not just as difficult and dangerous, but as ‘the enemy of the people’. Not only are we likely to be addicted to command but we are also likely to be allergic to leadership.