Leadership Within the Paradox of Agency →

Nora Bateson challenges our notion of leadership:

There is no such thing as an isolated individual—we are all interdependent. Period. Our evolution is only in our mutual contribution and learning. Mutual. Leadership is an evolving process and, as such, our understanding of what leadership is must evolve in accordance. In the past the world understood leadership as the great deeds of heroes; now we are in another phase of global transition that requires an understanding of leadership based on our understanding of interdependency.

The hero leader is a myth and idealising individual leaders disempowers and disengages us. In a changing world we’ll need to move past the ‘me’ of leadership to the ‘we’ as a collective. In organisations this means changing the focus away from developing individual leaders towards developing a leadership culture.