ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on a number of experiences of consulting to organizations seeking to implement or experiment with distributed leadership, to explore the dynamics associated with these challenges. The patterning of emotional relations may change when a new leadership concept is espoused or when leadership development activity enables people to reflect on the leadership concept informing their behaviour. The difficulty in implementing distributed leadership emerges in client work not only as an issue for organizations that are explicitly adopting this model, but equally for more traditional organizations trying to move away from the notion of one leader to a more corporate team approach at senior levels. A central challenge facing organizations seeking to implement distributed leadership is how to mobilize or create new processes and structures that enable anxiety to be held and worked through outside conventional hierarchical channels. The shift from external, hierarchically embedded authority to a more personal and laterally distributed exercise of leadership is psychologically demanding.
