ABSTRACT
In the dominant discourse, the leadership/management debate explores whether leadership and management are distinctive and separate activities. This chapter argues that the archetype of the entrepreneur has been conflated with that of leader in mainstream literature. Consultants and corporate trainers followed the business school lead, replacing management development with leadership development and promising to develop the 'new' leadership capabilities that managers were deemed to be lacking. The economic crises of the 1970s and growing competition from Japan during the 1980s signal a backlash against technocratic and bureaucratic managers and a call for their replacement by visionary leaders. The economic downturn of the 1970s alarmed company shareholders, and the subsequent search for solutions saw economic commentators and neoclassical/neoliberal economists scapegoating bureaucratic management. Business schools, stung by criticism that they had contributed to the economic downturn by concentrating on developing bureaucratic managers rather than visionary leaders changed tack.
