ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the idea that leadership thinking produces images of the mind, or, to use Francis Bacon's phrase, 'idols of the mind'. A common-sense idea of an image suggests that it makes little sense to speak of images beyond the sphere of pictorial images. The idol is the image that pretends to give access to a higher reality, whereas the icon truly provides access to the divine: there is a world behind the icon, just like the icons on one's computer desktop, but behind an idol there is nothing. The canonization process of Saint Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) is a recent and interesting example, both of the controversial nature of a leader's image, but also of the sacred nature of a leader's image. The chapter looks at the most radical attempt to disentangle leadership studies from the paradigm of the charismatic leader, namely the idea of leaderless leadership.
