ABSTRACT
Leadership and business management have been taught on the basis that 'the company' is a single entity, with a strategy, a model and a set of processes. Recasting the leadership challenge as one requiring a high level of people and analytical skills, devoted to the challenge of long-term resilience as well as short-term effectiveness, is profound. The ideological emphasis in recent decades on market freedom has led to misinterpretation. A free market does not emerge from a complete free-for-all; it requires rules and standards, like a game of sport. It is important to make the distinction between governance, leadership and management: the setting of strategy; the execution of strategy and oversight of management; and the day-to-day operations. It is absurd that, while policy-makers and the economists who influence them often call for labour market reform, there is almost never a call for leadership and management reform.
