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It takes an uncommon common sense to see opportunity where others continue to take the same old actions. Henry Mintzberg may be just one of those people. Most people know him from his provocative writing in the Harvard Business Review. A few have the pleasure of engaging with him as Professor Mintzberg, at McGill University, Montreal. In Professor Mintzberg's latest opinion piece he argues for less leadership, Enough Leadership, HBR, November 2004. But read it closely; what he really is calling for is more leadership from people throughout the organization.

The professor asks three questions:

• If leadership is about stimulating teamwork, how are the stock options distributed in your company?
• If leadership is about taking the long view, how many of these stock options can be cashed in in the short run?
• If leadership is about building trust, if people are really a company's "greatest assets," how many of these assets have been shown the door in recent years? And how much trust has that engendered among those who remain?

Provide just enough leadership to support the efforts of others.

We know too well the answers to these questions. And we see the business results that go with those answers. The common sense in the business world places too much responsibility on a few people for the well-being of the firm, the employees, shareholders, and customers.

The professor uses an example from the IBM company turnaround to make his point. Lou Gertsner is often credited in the press with riding in on a white horse to save IBM. In the example of IBM's entry into the world of e-business, Professor Mintzberg argues:

"Instead of setting direction, (Lou Gerstner) supported the direction setting of others. He provided less leadership, but appropriate leadership. Just enough leadership."

The professor prescribes three actions for providing just enough leadership.

1. Stop the dysfunctional separation of leadership from management.
2. Involve the followers in the selection of the leaders.
3. Recognize the importance of (leaders) being engaged.

In closing, Professor Mintzberg characterizes the situation with lines from a play,

"Unhappy the land that has no heroes."

"No," says another. "Unhappy the land that needs heroes."

The parallels to our situation on projects couldn't be clearer. So often I hear people say that what we need is a change or injection of new leadership. Rarely does one person make that significant difference. What we need on projects is to cultivate leadership throughout the project team.