Leading Organizational Learning

Chapter Eighteen

What’s the Big Idea?

The “Little Things” That Build Great

Leadership in Organizations

Lauren A. Cantlon

Robert P. Gandossy

As James Kouzes and Barry Posner have pointed out, “Leadership
isn’t the private reserve of a few charismatic men and women. It’s
a process ordinary people use when they’re bringing forth the best
from themselves and others. Liberate the leader in everyone, and
extraordinary things happen.”^1
It all begins in graduate school. Case studies are clear: leaders
lead; others follow; change happens. Organizational life seems
straightforward and uncomplicated. As practitioners and consultants,
later in our careers, benchmark studies and descriptions of best com-
panies begin to make us feel inadequate. We design and implement
the “right” interventions, but they never quite work the way we
intended or the way the best are chronicled. We lead organizational
change efforts that aren’t ever smooth but rather are tough, hard
work. Change management becomes more like wrestling jellyfish
than the four- or five-step process we studied. Something is missing.
Why does it always feel like we’re “muddling through”?

The Little Things Arethe Big Things

After twenty-five years of combined experience, we have reached
a startling conclusion—the little things arethe big things. What

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