You bring up the great point that it sometimes seems necessary to bring someone in from the outside to provide new thinking, or even to shake things up if they seem to have gotten stuck in a rut.

The thing is, this is sometimes done when not necessary. For example, a division may not be stuck – its manager just may not be as enamored of the CEO’s latest enthusiasm as the latter is, or a board may simply make a strategic change of direction that it believes requires a change of the team at the top.

On the other hand, there may really be a problem, but there is no guarantee that the person brought in will solve it, and certainly not because of his or her putative leadership qualities. I have seen countless “rescues” fail because they were perceived as dismissively manipulative by staff, or because they were plainly wrong-headed and just couldn’t work given market or other competitive circumstances.

What’s more, the reason for a unit or business getting “stuck” is often because of an inability to surmount the gap between strategy and execution that sometimes opens up when “leaders” are not good managers. This calls for the injection – not of leadership as it is commonly understood, but of effective, professional management.

But when outside rescues do work, or seem to, they are, of course, imputed to the rescuer’s supposed “leadership,” lending more momentum to the myth of this magic solution.

As for “purposefully collaborative organizations,” I mean by that term to refer to those assembled to pursue a corporate aim, rather than those with more static intentions such as, say, a venue for social gatherings (although even most of these can be perceived as purposeful groups).

Also, leadership “injected” into an organization doesn’t refer just to outsiders coming in to do it – it refers to those at the top injecting it downward into the organization, where it is presumed to not otherwise exist.

So, once again, you have pointed to shortcomings in my presentation of my argument that I will need to address. Moreover, for all my protestations above, you are certainly correct that the situation you pose happens often enough to warrant respectful consideration as support for current notions of individual leadership.

More post topics! Thanks, as always, Steve!

I was reflecting on your closing line about “leadership as naturally originating in, rather than needing to be injected into, such organizations.”

You were referring to “purposefully collaborative organizations.” My experience is this: Organizations may decided to be purposefully collaborative. However, they may not be effective in their quest because they don’t have a critical mass of individuals who know how to make it work; they lack the leadership needed.

In these cases, I’ve only seen successful outcomes when people with the ability to lead effectively are brought in from the “outside.” Now, here is the kicker:

Once the critical mass of effective leadership is in place, people learn by watching and responding to their example.
“The way business is done” then changes. And a new generation of people who do “get it” can emerge from within in the way you describe.

This isn’t the *only* way such things happen, but it is a frequent-enough phenomenon to be taken seriously.

Great discussion. Keep writing, Jim.