When hearing the words “leader or leadership,” most people assume that the reference is to the people at the top – in the power positions with authority and not the managers, supervisors, and team members who make up the organization.
Ask any room full of managers how many are leaders, and you will find that most managers do not see themselves as leaders – and yet, how do you manage without leading? Leadership is one of the world’s oldest and most widely studied subjects. Leaders as prophets, priests, and kings have long served as symbols, representatives, and models for their people. In modern times athletes, musicians, actors, businessmen, and gurus have replaced the kings of old.
Leadership is often perceived as something elite, hallowed, special, and reserved for the minority of people at the top with “true” power concentrated in their hands. These people tend to dominate the organizations or groups they lead (at least until someone overthrows them and takes their position) through the use of the age-old methods of authority, domination, command, and control.