This is a great question that many scholars and practitioners have been trying to answer for decades. There are many reasons why leadership is essential for any organization. First, leadership will make or break your organization. Good leadership lifts and promotes the agency into the positive. Poor leadership holds organizations back and impedes progress and productivity. Leadership affects every facet of an organization, from performance, productivity, retention, recruiting, morale, culture, etc. Leadership is vital because good leaders develop replacements while poor leaders hold back their top performers or superstar employees. Leadership is critical because most employees want to come to work for organizations that are operating effectively, and good leaders affect this. In contrast, poor leaders have the opposite effect, which contributes to toxic work environments, among other things. This is a topic that I will revisit in future posts.
