The Myth of Leadership: Creating Leaderless Organizations - Tapa dura

When we join an organization, we're immediately slotted into a hierarchy based on a rank-based system of "leaders" and "followers." We then make false assumptions about our place in these hierarchies that divide our efforts, limit our growth opportunities, and rob us of meaningful, dignified work. These assumptions are what Jeffrey Nielsen calls the "myth of leadership." In this manifesto, Nielsen calls for an end to "rank-based" organizational structures, which foster secrecy and miscommunication, and steal the joy from work, while breeding corruption and abuse of power. Nielsen's new model is the "peer-based" organization, which uses rotating peer leadership councils and cross-functional task forces to manage the organization's work. These new entities are better suited to make decisions based on the organization's competencies and customer needs, rather than on static functional groups or other artificial divisions. His experience with dozens of organizations showed that while workers are universally motivated to make their organizations profitable, artificial barriers consistently prevented them from reaching their potential. Real-world examples from contemporary peer-based organizations help make his point for creating leaderless organizations.

Jeffrey S. Nielsen is an internationally recognized consultant whose firm, Intellectual Capital Development, helps individuals act strategically and think like business owners. Previously, he worked with the Franklin Covey Company and Right Management Consultants, an international outplacement and consulting firm.