LeadershipIsPlural

It is often said that leadership is a lonely business.  To be sure, the toughest decisions in an organization find a way of persistently floating themselves up the hierarchical chain until they land themselves on the desk of the leader.  As Ronald Reagan has oft been quoted, “The buck stops here.”

For the most part, leaders understand this phenomenon and accept that finality of authority that comes with the turf.

However, the best leaders understand that leadership is a not a job for isolationists.  They have learned (or will, or they'll perish) that the best sort of leadership is when the folks in each nook and cranny of an organization are enlisted and empowered in the leadership web.  

These are the leaders that major in empowerment.  They invest in the members of the organization in structural ways, in resource allocation, in education and development, in the distribution of authority, and in relationship building. 

These are the kinds of leaders that understand that leadership is really a plural concept, not singular.