Frances Frei and Anne Morriss: The dynamics of empowering leader/follower relationships

摘要

Much of the vast literature on leadership to date has tended to focus more on the characteristics and qualities of the individual leader and less on the nature, quality and dynamics of the relationship between the leader and the led. Yet Kent Thiry, widely recognized as a transformational leader when he was CEO of DaVita, one of the largest kidney care services companies in the world, offers a different perspective. He observed, "It does not matter a bit what kind of leader you think you are, you are the type of leader that other people experience you as being." [1] Similarly, in Discover Your Own True North, Harvard professor and former Medtronic CEO, Bill George, points out that when it comes to leader- follower relationships, "trust is the coin of the realm," and the primary focus of leaders should be on how to empower others to lead, rather than just on how to inspire them to follow. [2]