Believing in Heroes
A number of business writers have written about the drawbacks of believing in "heroic leaders and managers". Michael Beer (co author of a very good book: Breaking the Code of Change) (Michael Beer, 2000) suggests that change by "heroic leadership" has some serious drawbacks - the largest one being that people shy away from telling "the emperor he/she has no clothes." In other words, change is proclaimed and others follow without questioning. Hardly the climate found in most organizations today.
As Wheatley and Frieze write in their article, Leadership in the Age of Complexity, suggest that we all too often make the mistake of thinking, “Somewhere there’s someone who will make it all better. Somewhere, there’s someone who’s visionary, inspiring, brilliant trustworthy, and we’ll all happily follow him or her. Somewhere… (Wheatley & Frieze, 2011),
What are your views about “heroic leadership”? How does this shape your views of organizational transformation?