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Management research has traditionally assumed that leaders play an essential role in both public and private organizations and are required for a business to run smoothly. However, more recently, a vein of critical research has claimed that leaders can do more harm than good, creating confusion and putting their reputation before production and employee wellbeing. This book asks the question - what would happen if there were no leaders? Would employees be better off without formal (or informal) leaders? And even if such a utopia were desirable, would it be realizable in practice?

Some vanguard companies have evolved to a higher level of decentralization originating in the enabling-and-autonomy paradigm. A new kind of deep leadership is practiced by these spirit-driven organizations. This book brings together theory and case studies to cover historical origins and developments of both types of decentralization.

The author charts an ethical roadmap for successful management in the 21st century. The information age is about knowledge, ideas and creativity which result in a dizzying array of external forces including globalization, new technologies and competition. The author argues that leadership and the human factor are being overlooked and that unless companies can convince employees and customers that they are going in the right direction then they will have no chance to survive.