6 - Change and Responsibility

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Change is often considered to be a defining characteristic of leadership. Referring to business contexts, John Kotter points out that “in almost every case, the basic goal has been the same: to make fundamental changes in how business is conducted.” Goss, Pascale, and Athos also grant the universality of this characterization of business leadership: “[E]xperienced businesspeople see the problem as ‘leadership’ because they see the solution as ‘change.’ And surely, they tell themselves, any leader deserving of that name can successfully implement change.” Commentators in political contexts are no less likely to forge a conceptual link between change and leadership, for instance, agreeing that “[t]he leadership process must be defined, in short, as carrying through from the decision-making stages to the point of concrete changes in people's lives, attitudes, behaviors, institutions.” In fact, change is so central to our understanding of this process that it is hard to see how our leaders might otherwise be identified. To make this more general point, James O'Toole draws parallels between political and business leadership and suggests that in both contexts leaders respond to “followers' natural resistance to change.” In essence, individuals who conform closely to what others are thinking or doing, thereby subjecting their behavior to the Millian “despotism of custom,” betray their status not as leaders but as followers.

Advocates of the conceptual connection between leadership and change sometimes go so far as to claim that this is what distinguishes leadership from management: “Good management brings a degree of order and consistency … Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change.