Putting a charge in leadership?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a a response to an opinion piece by James Clawson on leadership.Design methodology approach - The paper extracts from the author's managerial and consulting experience.Findings - The paper concludes that the concept of leadership gets in the way of understanding what is really needed to lead; leaders are constantly on stage, and everything they do counts, not just behavioral attempts to "lead." Numerous dilemmas face all leaders.Practical implications - This paper should help understand the difficulty of most leadership training, and give a new perspective to action.Originality value - The paper takes a different view from traditional research papers on leadership and points to the heart of the complexities that make it hard to "teach." It addresses a number of seldom researched or discussed leadership topics.