There Is No Shortage of Leaders

“Our world looks in vain for strong leadership,” lamented the commentary for a new report by the World Economic Forum about the global outlook for 2015. The Geneva-based foundation, best known for its gatherings of world leaders, surveyed 1,767 experts about the major trends likely to keep troubling us in the year ahead.

Despite hailing from fields, sectors, countries, and generations often at odds—or even in conflict—with each other, respondents put their differences aside when it came to assessing leaders. 86% agreed that the world faces a “leadership crisis.”

“Lack of leadership” came third among the global issues listed, behind deepening income inequality and persistent jobless growth, and ahead of such challenges as the weakening of democracy, rising pollution, and intensifying nationalism.

These results are not surprising. They express a discontent similar to that captured by Edelman’s annual survey of popular trust in business and government leaders. And they echo the battle cry of pundits the world over: We need more and better leaders to tackle the pressing issues of our times.

The picture such data and opinions keep painting for us is that of a leadership vacuum—a dangerous shortage of strong and effective leaders that universities, governments and corporations are struggling to fill. Or are they?

Compare that picture with the growth of the “leadership-industrial complex.” That is, the sprawling global industry encompassing educational institutions, publishers, magazines, start-ups, think-tanks, foundations, agencies, corporate universities, consulting firms, training outfits, freelancers and so on (of which I am, of course, a member) dedicated to the construction and maintenance of leadership—the models and images of what leaders and leading look like; and to the development of leaders—the selection, instruction and endorsement of those who aspire to lead.

Since 2010, while confidence in leaders has remained at historical lows, corporate spending on training has grown 39% in the United States alone. Leadership development is the largest item on that bill. Companies worldwide spent USD 45 Billion on developing leaders last year.

The numbers don’t add up. While leaders are reported as weak or nonexistent the business of leadership is thriving.

Maybe those investments are inadequate to cover the demand for leadership. Maybe the leadership-industrial complex does not develop leaders as well as it claims and it is paid to do. Both may well be. But I’d like to suggest a third possibility. That the shortage of leaders is a convenient yet misleading story—a take on the “leadership crisis” that covers a more disturbing interpretation of the data.

There is no shortage of leadership at all.

There are plenty of strong leaders. Eagerly and effectively pursuing the goals they are selected and rewarded to pursue—in the ways they are trained and expected to.

Those goals are simply not aligned with the changes most of us wish to see, and their pursuit benefits only narrow circles on whose approval those leaders depend.

Take the WEF report again. The rise of inequality is not fated. Companies profiting from jobless growth are not on autopilot. Democracy does not suffer and pollution does not rise just because no one cares. Nationalist movements have heads too.

These are not side effects of the leadership we lack. They are consequences of the leadership we have.

Leadership is abundant, but like much else these days, it is unequally distributed. Homogeneous groups, established organizations, and well-endowed circles own plenty of leadership. Championing their provincial pursuits attracts the financial backing, prominent positions, or popular support that allow one to lead. Broader constituencies—namely, less homogenous and less sharply defined—can afford and bolster little leadership.

The WEF report suggests that much, and conforming to a well-worn convention, calls for a new breed of leaders, leaders with skills better suited to our age: a global perspective combined with the ability to collaborate across sectors, communicate, plan for the long term and keep the public interest in mind. One could not possibly disagree.

That narrative, from daunting global problem to prescriptions for individual action, follows a familiar arc. It promises redemption and salvation through the emergence of new (role) models and the acquisition of requisite skill. It suggests that if we “lead right” the rest will take care of itself.

Leading right, however, does not mean leading for the common good.

Think about it. You would still condemn a leader if they, with a cosmopolitan outlook and consensus-driven style, inspired a diverse team to commit a crime. And you may forgive an ill-tempered leader if his or her work changed your world for the better.

The question, then, is not whether we have enough leaders, or leaders with the right skills. It is what aims leaders are called to pursue, why, and who benefits.

There is no shortage of leaders, and perhaps not even a crisis of leadership. There is a shrinking of collective imagination, a crisis of purpose—and much leadership development, with its overemphasis on leaders’ skills and styles, is complicit in it.

We entrust to lead, and follow, not the most skillful among us but those who conform to our expectations of what leadership is. And in our collective imagination—that the leadership-industrial complex reflects and shapes with its images and tales—leadership is still the exercise of influence of the gifted few upon the admiring many, for the achievement of goals that benefit our group.

Those images affect who gets to lead. Aspiring leaders willing and able to sacrifice some of their groups’ gains for the broader good may well be there in troves. But their skills matter little if they keep being cast aside in favor of those who promise to steer the ship to a safe harbor no matter the fate of other vessels in the storm.

Upgrading leaders’ skills, in other words, won’t make much of a difference until we change the images that give leadership its meaning—and leaders their mandate.

Lamenting a shortage of leadership is good for the business of those who sell leadership skills and those who pay their bills. Lamenting the weakness of leaders is a boon for the leadership industry’s critical arm. But neither is enough to address the leadership crisis. It makes us part of the problem rather than of the solution.

When it focuses on skills alone, the leadership-industrial complex demonstrates the same self-interested narrow mindedness of the leaders it chastises. The emphasis on leading right lets us avoid the harder question—what we are leading towards.

While leadership remains a synonym of getting our way while conforming to the latest etiquette manual, we shall continue cultivating stylish instrumentality. To stop doing so, we must help leaders help us redefine the expectations, norms, and structures we labor within—and the ends they are designed to pursue.