eone confident enough to push forward, but not so overconfident as to get us all lost, all the while assuring us that we're doing fine and almost to our destination. If there are particular hazards along the way, we expect the leader to warn us of them in advance. We also expect the leader not to leave the rest of us behind and on our own. In fact, we generally expect that the leader will stop and assist us if we are having trouble keeping up, while also accepting that the leader may insist that we keep up a reasonable pace.
The characteristics of an effective leader in this basic, literal sense are at the root of what we mean by leadership. Anyone who has led the way across town for a friend in another car who does not know the route has experienced the basic challenges of leadership - keeping an eye on the rear-view mirror to make sure the follower is still behind us, and if need be pulling over to explain that the route is uncertain, and ask someone for directions.
Leadership in this literal sense plays only a minor role in most of modern life, and failures of such leadership have only a slight cost. If we are following a friend across town and the friend loses his way, or leaves us in traffic, we are merely inconvenienced. For our ancestors, living in small wandering bands amid vast wilderness, literal leadership was supremely important, a matter of life and death not only for individuals but the whole community. It is no wonder, then, that the concept of leadership is deeply rooted in our psychology and our values. We see life itself as a path, and we respond strongly, at a primal level, to the qualities of leadership, that combination of knowledge, confidence, and no-nonsense emphasis on keeping up progress, yet concern for fellow-members of the traveling party.
The concept of leadership in organizations derives from this powerful, ancient emotive connection with literal leadership. Until quite recently, the...