Heroic vs. post-heroic leadership

Heroic vs. post-heroic leadership

Heroic vs. post-heroic leadership
Three key characteristics of heroic (unitary command) leadership
First, heroic leaders do not believe that regular people are as creative as they are.
Whenever participation is proposed in the organization as a means of gathering ideas and
insights from employees on a complicated problem, the firm’s senior managers will usually
obstruct such activities (Wheatley & Frieze, 2010). Secondly, heroic leadership depends upon
the illusion that somebody can be in control (Wheatley & Frieze, 2010). Heroic leaders
consider engaging the entire system as a threat to their own control and power. In addition,
heroic leaders always choose for control as well as the resulting disorder instead of inviting
people in to solve complex and difficult problems. Thirdly, in unitary command, individual
leaders are seen to personify corporate organizations and countries, and leadership is
exercised by single individuals (Crevani, Lindgren & Packendorff, 2007).

HEROIC VS. POST-HEROIC LEADERSHIP 2
Three key characteristics of post-heroic or shared leadership
In post-heroic leadership, the leader knows that problems are intricate. They know
that to comprehend the entire intricacy of any issue, every part of the system has to be
involved to take part and contribute (Wheatley & Frieze, 2010). Secondly, post-heroic leaders
know that people readily support the things which they have contributed in creating; they do
not expect people to buy in to projects and/or plans that were developed somewhere else
(Wheatley & Frieze, 2010). The third characteristic is that in shared leadership, 2 competence
areas and dissimilar personalities that complement each other are common. It could be
collaboration between the CEO and chairman, or the COO and the CEO (Crevani, Lindgren
& Packendorff, 2007).

Organizational advantages of unitary command perspective
One of the advantages of heroic leadership is that the leader is able to provide high
control for high risk situations. Secondly, Wheatley and Frieze (2010) stated that as situations
become more challenging and complicated, power has to move to the top with the leaders
who really know what to do. The third advantage is that heroic leaders promise to get people
from their mess and sometimes they actually have the answers to problems they face. They
usually retreat into isolation with some of their advisors and try to find a quick and simple
solution to an intricate problem (Wheatley & Frieze, 2010). The fourth advantage of heroic
leadership is that heroic leaders believe in positive thinking – they always think positively –
and this makes them to anticipate winning. They always keep their eyes on the prize and not
what they would like to avoid. Anticipating positive results may sometimes result in success.
Organizational advantages of shared leadership perspective

HEROIC VS. POST-HEROIC LEADERSHIP 3
The leaders in shared leadership perspective are frank and open enough to
acknowledge that they do not know what to do; they recognize that it is actually absolute
idiocy to rely only on themselves for answers (Wheatley & Frieze, 2010). Secondly, post-
heroic leaders know that they can trust the commitment as well as creativity of other people
in order to get the work carried out. They understand that regardless of where other people
are in the organizational hierarchy, they could be as creative, diligent, and motivated as the
leader, given the right invitation (Wheatley & Frieze, 2010). Thirdly, shared leadership
avoids concentrating power on the hands of just a single individual. This form of leadership is
particularly important when a company is faced with complex challenges which necessitate a
broad set of skills that only one single person cannot possess (Crevani, Lindgren &
Packendorff, 2007). Fourthly, the leaders in post-heroic leadership invest in important
conversations amongst people from several divisions of the system as the most productive
way of engendering new insights as well as possibilities for action. These leaders believe that
people have the willingness to contribute; they encourage other people and create
opportunities for others to contribute (Wheatley & Frieze, 2010). They also believe that many
people want very much to find meaning as well as possibility in their functions and lives.
They understand that difficult and complex problems can only be solved by involving other
people (Wheatley & Frieze, 2010).

HEROIC VS. POST-HEROIC LEADERSHIP 4

References

Crevani, L., Lindgren, M., & Packendorff, J. (2007). ‘Leadership Virtues and Management
Knowledge: Questioning the Unitary Command perspective in Leadership
Research’, in M-L Djelic and R Vranceanu (eds), Moral Foundations of
Management Knowledge, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, pp159-176
Wheatley, M., & Frieze, D. (2010). ‘Leadership in the Age of Complexity: From hero to
host.’