There is no such thing as leadership, revisited

Purpose – This essay reflects a profound sense of frustration with the concept of leadership and the enormous and every increasing body of research and pontification about it. Given the ongoing failure to define leadership as a coherent construct, it aims to argue that continuing along this omni‐directional path is not likely to produce anything truly useful for those who study, teach about or work in organizations; rather, abandoning the concept altogether and emphasizing a focus on improving decision making in organizations may prove more fruitful. Design/methodology/approach – Looks at different concepts of leadership and the enormous and ever‐increasing body of research and pontification about it. Findings – In the end, however, the author believes that we are mostly left with endless discussions and perspectives of a word that simply sounds better. We seem to remain intent on calling almost everything leadership – but, if everything is leadership, then logically nothing is leadership. Originality/value – This review is a useful source of information for anyone interested in the concept of leadership.