Leadership - a team sport

Much has been made of the individual leader. But we think leadership is more like football than long distance running, much more like a morris dance than a ballet solo, much more like group hugging than rocking gently in a corner by oneself. It's no secret now – ask any research from the last 3 years that the secrets to commercial high performance are the clarity and engagement created by leaders. What we know is that this is done by a cohort of leaders at the top of the organisation – say the top 50 or so. So working on the extent to which things are shared between them (like purpose, like stories, like norms of behaviour) is a faster route to high performance than simply honing their individual muscles.