Is Everyone a Leader?

When you hear the word "leader," who comes to mind? Be honest with yourself. Despite years of progressive management theory and mounds of business literature pushing the virtues of distributed leadership, chances are you're like me, picturing someone in a suit in a corner office, not the casually dressed intern at the front desk.

This unconscious bias is a deeply ingrained habit that persists even in organizations priding themselves that their culture supports  "everyone as a leader."  Our tagline at Keppian is “We help leaders strategize for growth,” and yet I still am victim to this bias.

Walk into any modern company, and you'll likely hear buzzwords like "self-management," "flat structures," and "empowered employees." Scratch beneath the surface, however, and you'll probably find a different reality:

1. "Leadership meetings" still exclusively cater to those with more senior titles.

2. Leadership training is mostly reserved for those higher up.

3. Decision-making power remains concentrated at the top.

4. When a crisis strikes, all eyes turn to the C-suite for guidance.

This disconnect between our stated beliefs and our instinctive reactions creates a form of organizational cognitive dissonance. We preach one thing but subconsciously practice another. This results in a workforce that's told they're leaders but doesn't feel empowered to lead - and likely doesn’t have the need to lead.

As we confront our unconscious biases, we're left with some challenging questions:

1. Should everyone truly be a leader? Is this a realistic or even desirable goal?

2. Are we conflating leadership behaviors with the expectation that everyone should be a "leader"? Is there a meaningful distinction we're overlooking?

3. Should we be more explicit about different levels or types of leadership within organizations? How might this impact our current hierarchies and power structures?

4. In our push for distributed leadership, are we inadvertently creating new pressures and expectations that may not suit everyone's strengths or career aspirations?

Observe your organization and teams closely. Do you see these contradictions playing out in your workplace? Notice how leadership is discussed versus how it's actually practiced. Is there a gap between the advertised culture of distributed leadership and the reality on the ground? What impact does this have on employee morale, decision-making processes, and overall organizational effectiveness? Are there instances of hypocrisy where leadership rhetoric doesn't match actual behaviors and policies?