If you Google the word “leadership”, you’ll get nearly three billion hits. And below that, there will be ads for leadership courses – enter “leadership course NZ” and wade through over nine million hits. Type in “leadership awards NZ” and gaze in wonder at the breadth and variety of annual dinners and ceremonies feting leadership.
Personally, I think the whole leader thing is becoming somewhat overblown. In large organisations – and the Public Service in particular – it has grown to become an end in itself, something to be grasped and possessed by ambitious individuals. To my eye leadership is becoming unmoored from results, and that is a very bad thing.
