9 Universal Leadership Tasks: The Key to Success Beyond Leadership Style

In the 2024 Leadership Quarterly article "Zombie leadership: Dead ideas that still walk among us", the authors pinpoint the following 8 Leadership axioms they deem outdated and wrong, but still very common and alive and therefore call them "Zombie leadership":

1. Leadership is all about leaders
2. There are specific qualities that all great leaders ‘have’
3. There are specific things that all great leaders do
4. We all know a great leader when we see one
5. All leadership is the same
6. Leadership is a special skill limited to special people
7. Leadership is always good and it is always good for everyone
8. People can’t cope without leaders

(https://lnkd.in/dX-XbPii)

While I found parts of their reasoning selective, incomplete, and inconsistent with its conclusions, and I doubt most leaders still embody these beliefs, I largely agree with their invalidity, apart from 3. that "There are no specific things that all great leaders do"

📍 The 9 things ALL successful leaders DO

Assuming there are of course always exceptions and adding that we're assuming "successful" leaders ("successful" needed definition) and also omitting the pointless pseudo distinction between "leaders" and "managers", there IS a set of activities that all successful leaders share to varying degrees and expressions:

1. Provide a vision and often a purpose (in whichever process)
2. Ensure goals are set (in whichever system)
3. Ensure a strategy is devised to reach this vision and these goals
4. Take final decisions (in whichever participation model)
5. Organize work & resources (in whichever organizational design)
6. Assign tasks (in whichever granularity)
7. Control outcomes (at whichever level)
8. Give feedback (in whichever rhythm)
9. Mobilize and develop people (with whichever leadership style or tools)

These are leadership TASKS—the "what" of leadership. They are clearly identifiable, consistently performed by successful leaders, and absent in unsuccessful ones. They are also not situational, they apply in all contexts.

👉 Leadership style matters but is overrated

What is context-dependent is leadership STYLE—the "HOW" of leadership, often linked to “being quality”. This should vary situationally and align with your personality.

Success as a leader depends primarily on “WHAT” he “DOES” and way less on “How” he does it or he “IS”.

Yes, leadership STYLE matters, especially in mobilizing people, but only if the WHAT is done correctly. The focus on leadership styles in research and literature is vastly disproportionate compared to the significance of leadership TASKS.