At the end of yet another eventful year, many of us will be pondering how to lead ourselves and others during the coming months. Sadly, even with the best of intentions and prompted by earnest and solemn New Year’s resolutions, “becoming a better leader” is no easy task…

1. Leadership TRAIT Theories Don't Work

Chances are you’ve received one of those multi-coloured, slogan-rich “airport” management books—brimming with lists of “critical” characteristics or secret “power traits” that supposedly define every great leader. Humility, perseverance, discipline, openness to change, toughness, curiosity, cleverness, empathy, courage—you name it. These checklists usually come paired with polished case studies of famous entrepreneurs, spirited (but equally meaningless) statistical analyses, highly subjective interpretations, and polaroid conclusions.

Sadly, the fact is: only about 5% of those supposedly essential character traits actually overlap across major research efforts, and—even more sobering—it is impossible for anyone to possess them all. Over a century of leadership studies—hundreds of large-scale meta-analyses and trait surveys—have failed to identify a stable set of “universal” leadership traits that reliably predict effectiveness across contexts, cultures, or eras. “Great” leaders exhibit wildly inconsistent combinations of personality, temperament, and skills. More importantly, the entire "positivistic" notion that leadership success depends on a fixed set of individual traits, ready to be acquired and carried from one role to another, is, in a word: nonsensical. When attempts are made to correlate lists of traits with actual performance, any apparent overlap or predictive power evaporates when you control for context, sector, or team factors—so much so that claims about “key traits” border on statistical noise. Any replicable correlation between leadership traits and success is largely spurious, as even recent personality models such as “Big Five” barely account for variance in actual leadership performance.

That said, the claim that "anyone can be a leader," entirely regardless of personality traits, is, of course, equally flawed. Personality matters, but its influence is radically contingent—often trumped by circumstances, history, and social structure.

2) Leadership STYLE Theories (Mostly) Don't Work Either

Next on the list of leadership philosophies comes what’s usually called "style theory." Here, the focus shifts from specific traits to characteristic behaviours. Again, leadership is mostly defined reductively as “influencing others to do something they otherwise would not do,” and the behaviourist assumption is that followers work harder if leaders display certain styles (as Antoinette Weibel always says: “Happier cows give better milk”). Style “washing lists” are just as long, taxonomy remains brittle, and naming conventions overlap—think “democratic,” “coaching,” “visionary” (as opposed to “authoritarian”) styles, and so on.

To cut a long story short: style theory is not well supported by evidence. Studies show that the vast majority of “leadership styles” do little to explain variance in organisational outcomes once industry, role, or macroeconomic context is controlled for. Mainly, differences between styles are supposed to relate to the use of power and control by a superior, and it is rather simplistically assumed that more “democratic” styles—ceteris paribus—are superior, since they allegedly better fulfil employees’ needs for participation and self-actualisation. Yet, research routinely finds that for every case where “participative” or “coaching” leadership boosts morale, there is another where it undermines clarity or accountability; meanwhile, “command and control” styles often outperform in high-risk, complex, or routine environments, even if morale suffers.

While meta-research shows that “supportive” styles can have some positive effects, most studies fail to demonstrate any meaningful improvement in productivity based on styles alone. Notably, in “routine” work, where tasks can be separated and monitored independently, structured leadership styles (i.e., “command and control”) unsurprisingly prove more “effective”—even if they often reduce employee morale. The more we look for evidence that “style” predicts success, the more we find that context, culture, and task structure are what really matter.

3. CONTINGENCY Theories Are Better, But It Quickly Gets Complicated

History moves on, and soon the next wave of leadership models hits (Western) business schools: suddenly, the so-called "contingency theory" is all the rage. Contingency theorists turn away from fixed behaviours or styles, seeking instead more holistic leadership strategies tailored to specific situations—defined in particular by the (optimal) fit between task, team or individual, and the position or personality of the leader within the team (see, for example, John Adair).

Within this context, Fiedler, for instance, argues that optimal leadership behaviour depends on: (1) whether the leader is liked or trusted; (2) whether the task is well defined; and (3) whether the leader has power to reward or sanction. The model is intriguing: Fiedler proposes that when tasks are well defined and leaders are well respected—or, conversely, when tasks are ambiguous and leaders weak—a greater "psychological distance" between leader and team (again: “command and control”) increases effectiveness. By contrast, ambiguous tasks combined with strong leaders seem to call for participatory approaches. Another researcher, Vroom, adds even more complexity and additional factors, but once again, both models enjoy only limited empirical support.

The basic idea of contingency theory is undeniably compelling: that a leader’s “right” intervention will depend on multiple factors. Thus, the leader’s ability to perceive context and adapt performance is critical. As my wistful statistics professor used to say, “If we torture data long enough, nature will confess”—yet, in spite of such optimism, field studies repeatedly find that real-world results rarely match the intricate predictions of the theory. What is empirically clear is that “the right style” always depends on context, culture, power structure, and team dynamics, but exactly which factors matter most is hard to pin down. Massive cross-industry data reviews reveal little consistent pattern, except that adaptability and judgment, rather than “style,” matter most for long-term effectiveness.

4. "Transaction versus Transformation" Is Mostly the Same Old Wine In New Bottles

At this point, many of us are probably oscillating somewhere between mild desperation and serious frustration. After scanning thousands of Google links on leadership, one thing becomes blindingly clear: theories, models, methods, case studies—they abound and proliferate endlessly. Yet, rather than providing clarity, popular leadership texts seem only to muddy the waters further, constantly introducing “innovative” vocabulary, inventing an infinite stream of “helpful” tools, and loudly parading (unsubstantiated) lists of “lessons learned.” Academic essays, sadly, are no better. But our story does not end there…

As the millennium draws to a close, leadership-mania reaches its preliminary apex—marked by a general shift away from “closed system” management and “behaviourist” models (which more or less assume a stable environment) towards “transformational” and “visionary” narratives, now intended to fuel new growth, scalable ecosystems, and technological disruption. By now, leadership has become the single most venerated ingredient in popular management fiction and the stuff of mythical business transformation stories (remember “Good to Great,” anyone?).

Riding the latest wave of hype, a particularly popular classification now posits a dichotomy between “transactional” and “transformational” leadership styles. This model attempts to integrate earlier style and contingency theories, while eagerly exploiting the simplistic “leader vs manager” divide—so delightfully deconstructed by Henry Mintzberg. In essence, the “T vs T” model claims that leadership scenarios can be neatly abstracted into two types: (a) the traditional, steady-state, production-oriented firm, and (b) the change-driven, innovation-led, service-oriented organisation. For the former, a stricter, task-, process-, and results-oriented leadership style—rewarding self-motivated individuals “transactionally” for their progress—is deemed most effective. For the latter, “transformational” leadership is championed: leaders are expected to inspire followership, nurture and motivate employees, and empower teams to think independently and creatively. Of course, transformational leadership, so the story goes, also demands greater coordination, communication, and collaboration.

Yet for all its popularity, this “new” recipe suffers from the same old flaws of abstraction and simplification as its predecessors—with the added vice of sanctifying transactional leadership in some cases, while turning transformational leadership into a kind of secular dogma in others. Large-scale studies have found that the “transformational effect” shrinks dramatically after controlling for context and measurement bias. None of these frameworks withstands longitudinal analysis: when you track real-world organisational outcomes, leaders of wildly divergent “types” produce comparable results, and “success” is nearly always a multi-causal accident of history, team, timing, and luck. In reality, there is little solid research to support these sweeping claims, nor do they bring much in the way of genuinely new insight to the field or to leadership education.

The 21st Century Beckons… With Babelian Confusion

Eventually, as legacy discourses and theories fade, today's leadership thinking appears to be fuelled by three primary—often overlapping—streams of conversation:

In a nutshell, what was already a messy landscape of leadership theories and practices has only grown more confusing. A proliferation of approaches—servant leadership, responsible leadership, authentic leadership, and others—tries to integrate these disparate perspectives and provide inspiration. Yet, for both practitioners and researchers, the field remains, as ever, an unholy patchwork.

And that is no surprise. Our “leadership discourses” (thanks to Simon Western for his brilliant work on the subject) have always been tightly bound to prevailing societal narratives. “Leaders,” as public roles, necessarily embody an implicit statement about the social order we inhabit or aspire to. In this context, Amy Edmondson observes that certain positions—policemen, teachers, politicians—carry enormous symbolic significance, and are, as Alejo Sison argues, invested with a kind of “special morality.” Thus, our debates about leadership, and our judgments of leaders, reveal a deeper anxiety and uncertainty about how to evolve postmodern society itself.

Regrettably, most of today’s leadership discourse remains locked within a fundamentally “disembedded” way of thinking. Even now, the focus is often on manipulative methods and tools, aimed at wringing out greater profit and ever-higher employee performance. Where this is not the case, the new “leadership purposes” on offer frequently lack serious ethical or philosophical legitimacy—serving instead as little more than the strongly-held, often idiosyncratic opinions of their respective proponents.

Reflecting on more than 25 years in leadership, it seems clear that becoming—and remaining—a good leader is more challenging than ever. Leaders have always contended with competing expectations about “what leadership means” within their own organisations; now, the confusion and fragmentation of views is ever greater even outside business, and the role itself is growing more complex and unavoidably political. Today, leaders are expected not only to deliver results, but to take a principled stand on the kind of future—and society—we wish to create together.

Perhaps, then, it is time to rediscover the “leader’s prayer” (with a grateful nod to Charles Handy for the ongoing inspiration)… 😉

Joking aside, where does this all leave us? From my perspective, what matters most for leaders—especially from the standpoint of personal development—is, first and foremost, to become “good people.” Drawing on neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, this means cultivating character and developing practical wisdom: the capacity to make optimal and ethical decisions amid uncertainty. This requires accurately reflecting on situations, discerning their salient features, examining multiple perspectives and ethical theories, and ultimately enacting the most appropriate and timely intervention—one that brings about the good we identify with, both in our roles and in our lives.

As I reflect at year’s end, I find it helpful to clarify what I stand for and what unique good I can contribute to my organisation and community in the coming year—and to consider which virtues I might need to practice more in order to bring my best self to life.

Of course, individual agency alone is insufficient. Modern leaders must also equip themselves with the skills, tools, and methods to craft organisations where “good leaders” generate “good leadership” across system and ecosystem. As Peter Senge once suggested, true “leadership is the capacity of a community to create its future.”

In this context, through our own #GoodOrganisation inquiry, we aim to construct a systemic theory of ethical and effective leadership—one in which “success” is measured not only by efficiency or outcomes, but by the quality of our interactions, the development of our people, and the flourishing of our communities. An organisation is, ultimately, only as good as the people it shapes through work. In our model, leadership effectiveness is not simply about influencing others to behave in certain ways, nor even about relinquishing positional power to let individuals become self-entrepreneurs. Rather, it is about leaders embodying the symbolic expression of “who” the organisation aspires to become. The leader’s role, then, is to cultivate an environment that balances task performance with the deliberate development of people and communities—and, crucially, to serve as guardians of the identity, meaning, and character of their businesses, as part of a broader blueprint for a good society. No easy task, to be sure.

For many of us, leadership will remain an important, if sometimes perplexing, conundrum. Its messiness will not disappear any time soon—and perhaps that is ultimately a good thing. As long as this complexity pushes us to keep asking those deeper questions about what it means to fulfil leadership roles responsibly, and how we might continue to work on our capacity to become our very best, for the good of all, we are on the right path.

So, with that, best wishes for many successful New Year’s resolutions—and a year filled with good leadership!

#Management #Philosophy #Business #Politics #Sustainability 

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Further Resources

More information about Good Organisations: https://goodorganisations.com

In case you are not familiar, do have a look at Simon Western's insightful "Leadership Discourses" (Simon is one of our sparring partners for #GoodOrganisations): https://sk.sagepub.com/books/leadership-a-critical-text