Leadership as an emergent property of everyday interaction

A recent HBR blog post, When to Hire an Extreme Leader, features a short video by Harvard Business School assistant professor, Gautam Mukunda. In it, he introduces his theory on the characteristics and importance of what he describes as "extreme leaders". These, he suggests, play a crucial role in determining events in particularly challenging circumstances.

This proposition, which continues the seemingly never-ending search for the 'Holy Grail' of exceptional leadership performance, sees leadership as being within the gift of a few, exceptional individuals. And it is this view of organizational dynamics that I want to challenge here.