³2XUP\WKRORJ\UHIXVHVWRFDWFKXSZLWKXV$QGVRwe cling to the myth of the Lone Ranger, the
romantic idea that great things are usually accomplished by a larger-than-life individual working
alone. Despite evidence to the contrary ± including the fact that Michelangelo worked with a group of
16 to paint the Sistine Chapel ± we still tend to think of achievement in terms of the Great Man or the
UHDW:RPDQLQVWHDGRIWKHUHDW*URXS ́(p.29).
Another reason for the neglect may be related to the ontology of the tripod itself, which has been the
primary perspective for leadership researchers, and the fact that the notion of shared leadership does
not fit well with the ontology of individual leaders and followers. Moreover, the idea of shared
OHDGHUVKLS³OD\GRUPDQW ́(Gronn, 2000 , p.324) ± the likely reason being that new leadership theories,
such as transformational and charismatic leadership with a focus on the hero leader have dominated
the field (Bolden, 2011). The latter argument is elaborated in the next chapter of this dissertation.
The ³FRQQHFWLRQLVW ́ 21 st century has triggered an awareness of the relevance of holding a system
perspective, in which phenomena are explained by means of the interactions between elements
(Friedman, 2005). In The World is Flat, Friedman (2005) suggested that the nature of relationships
with one another has fundamentally changed, and that one is now being called to μrelate¶, and thus by
implication, also being called to μlead¶, in ways that honor a new paradigm. This paradigm runs
counter to hierarchical structure, embraces an ever growing interconnectedness, and acknowledges
that leadership is not only the product of social interaction, but that it actually must be viewed in this
way if one is to thrive in inFUHDVLQJO\³IODW ́FRQWH[WV
Originally, the idea of shared leadership was introduced by Gibb (1969) under the label of ³distributed
leadership ́. Gibb questioned the traditional assumption that leadership resides in a single leader and
argued that such roles should be distributed across a team. In searching the literature for discussion on
the very concept of shared leadership, one runs into difficulties, as researchers tend to use different
terms, or use the same term with different meanLQJV7HUPVVXFKDV³GHPRFUDWLF ́OHDGHUVKLS(Bass,
1990a) ³FROOHFWLYH ́ OHDGHUVKLS(Burns, 1998), ³VKDUHG ́ OHDGHUVKLS(Judge & Ryman, 2001),
³GLVSHUVHG ́ OHDGHUVKLS(Bryman et al., 1996) ³GLVWULEXWLYH ́ OHDGHUVKLS(Brown & Gioia, 2002) or
³GLVWULEXWHG ́ OHDGHUVKLS(Brown, 1989; Brown & Hosking, 1986) are used. Although these terms
differ in their particulars, the common element in all of them is that leadership is not concentrated in
the hands of a single person, but is divided and performed by many if not all organizational members,
simultaneously or sequentially (House & Aditya, 1997). Likewise, Yukl (1999a), noted that it, ³GRHV
not require an individual who can perform all of the essential leadership functions, only a set of people