The Myth of Leadership: Creating Leaderless Organizations

by Jeffrey S. Nielsen

When we join an organization, we're immediately slotted into a hierarchy based on a rank-based system of leaders and followers. We then make false assumptions about our place in these hierarchies that divide our efforts, limit our growth opportunities, and rob us of meaningful, dignified work. These assumptions are what Jeffrey Nielsen calls the myth of leadership. In this manifesto, Nielsen calls for an end to rank-based organizational structures, which foster secrecy and miscommunication, and steal the joy from work, while breeding corruption and abuse of power. Nielsen's new model is the peer-based organization, which uses rotating peer leadership councils and cross-functional task forces to manage the organization's work. These new entities are better suited to make decisions based on the organization's competencies and customer needs, rather than on static functional groups or other artificial divisions. His experience with dozens of organizations showed that while workers are universally motivated to make their organizations profitable, artificial barriers consistently prevented them from reaching their potential. Real-world examples from contemporary peer-based organizations help make his point for creating leaderless organizations.

Genres: Leadership, Business

140 pages, Hardcover

First published March 25, 2004

Reviews

[Mark Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Challenges the assumption that leaders are a necessary component of organizational life. I'm drawn to descriptions of "peer based thinking" that is clearly more egalitarian than most business worlds. On the other hand, I struggle with the idea that leadership should be rotated among all organizational members. In my experience, leadership talent has not been evenly distributed and there are times when a clear leader is beneficial - if not downright necessary. Three stars for challenging conventional thinking.

[Peter Wolfley · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I was in charge of a company, city, organization, etc., this is how I would want to run it. It's interesting that in the United States democracy has penetrated everything we do except business. Our business organizations are run like the Stalin-era Soviet Union with one "great man" at the top who makes all of the decisions and everyone under that person can get in line or get out. The main idea here is to ditch the corporate hierarchy, empower all of your people to make decisions and take ownership, treat them with dignity, and watch your organization sky rocket.

The most discouraging thing about this book is that nobody has been able to pull it off yet. There are companies out there that have incorporated bits and pieces but no one seems to embrace it fully.

[Kenton Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written by my current Ethics and Values teacher at UVSC. If you're like me and you feel that there is an unfair and unbalanced business system currently being used and taught in the U.S. then you will find this book an interesting read.

[Grant Weaver · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was skeptical of this book at first, but I really enjoyed it and agree with it in theory... for the most part.