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What's wrong with leadership?

Wilson, B. (2004). Leadership: What's wrong? Paper presented at the Curriculum Corporation 11th annual conference. http://cmslive.curriculum.edu.au/leader/default.asp?issueID=9691&id=4693

In this paper, Wilson (2004) argues that current accepted ideology about leadership contains three ideas that are essentially wrong. These are:

That power should be shared
That everyone is a leader
That we should talk about 'leadership' rather than 'management'

Wilson discusses each of these premises in turn and argues for two kinds of differences between current ideology and what is needed to

rebuild the idea of a strong, courageous, talented individual who takes on responsibility for a school and school community, who acts ethically and responsibly, who exercises the kind of power that is appropriate to the position. I want to see principals use their power to ensure that the school focuses clearly and explicitly on the only goal of schooling: the improvement of student learning. (p. 4)

Cultural differences

Honesty about power
Moral character of leadership
Strong and committed individuals

Operational differences

Management skills
Engaging everyone
Developing potential leaders
Performance management

A related link can be found at Leadership from a system perspective