**6. Conclusion**

Leadership research then also has to include the doings of leadership, and should investigate questions such as what is leadership work, how is leadership work done, what constitutes common barriers to leadership, and what can be done to remove these? This will open up the pos-

For leaders, this is liberating, in so much as they would not need to focus on unattainable ideals. Developing oneself based on one's strengths, but also on one's weaknesses, and doing one's best to improve, as well as accepting some of one's own faults, is a more effective strategy for most leaders. Becoming aware of their barriers and doing what they can to minimise them is a better way forward that triggers personal and professional development. Developing oneself requires self-insight, honesty about oneself and the will to work with one's own patterns over time. This may lead to leaders developing an awareness of their own practices, and the organisational practices they are part of. This is the best advice that can be given, along with lowering expectations as to how much they can achieve as leaders within a limited timeframe. And what about employees, what is good enough for them? Certainly, as Gabriel [125] argues, employees may want a leader who cares for his/her followers, who is accessible, who is omnipotent and omniscient or who has a legitimate claim to lead others, perhaps because they themselves as employees have high expectations of their own performance. However, such wishes are problematic as there is a gap between the words and actions of leaders and how employees experience leadership in practice [22]. It breeds an underlying cynicism: a sense that leaders are out of touch with reality and therefore not to be fully trusted. Such cynicism creates a dangerous disconnection between leaders and employees—a disconnection between ideals and reality. A recent study of 3500 employees in Norway investigated how leadership influenced job satisfaction over time [126]. The researchers surprisingly found that a good leader did not necessarily increase job satisfaction. Employees took leadership for granted as long as the leader avoided laissez-faire behaviour. This type of leadership behaviour was stress-inducing as well as demotivating. The researchers also found that passive and active destructive forms of leadership seem to have a stronger influence over time than constructive forms. The picture is obviously mixed, but in many cases, avoiding laissez-faire behaviour is perhaps the best answer to what is good enough. Leaders should clear away obstacles so employees can do their job. Accepting that there are not always clear answers. Accepting that one as a leader can say that he or she does not know what to do. Binney and colleagues [127] claim that vulnerability is a key element in leading, but this is not easy. Too much vulnerability and a leader is of no use to others, no vulnerability and employees will not engage with them. Holmberg and Tyrstrup [84] have argued that the most typical everyday leadership situation experienced by leaders is one the researchers label 'well then—what now?' This is a problem-oriented situation where leaders are not certain how they got there, where they stand and what the situation means. It is hard for them to assess how the situation fits with previous intentions, to tell what has been completed, to understand what is going on or to figure out what is still to be accomplished. Nevertheless, leaders still need to act, and, at least, to identify the next step in the process. Moreover, this is good enough. Can a leader accept their own shortcomings while at the same time be good enough in the eyes of the employees? Yes, it is imperative that a leader accepts their own imperfections, as well as being aware of their strengths; this is the only way a leader can minimalize some of their own barriers for effective leadership. People want to be led by human beings, not flawless superheroes. Obviously, there

sibility of fresh understandings of the barriers to effective human interaction.

58 Dark Sides of Organizational Behavior and Leadership

When we know so much about leadership, why do not leaders exercise more effective leadership? The simple answer is that leadership is ineffective because people are imperfect, including leaders themselves. There is certainly something to gain from creating better education and training programmes for leaders, as well as more robust and transparent methods of recruitment and selection of leaders. Moreover, in the future, technological developments will be able to minimise biases and ineffective behaviour by providing leaders with better decision support, more real-time data about organisations and environments, better and more precise methods for selecting upcoming leaders and talents, and more information about leaders themselves and others. However, until this becomes a reality, we must accept the fact that leadership is often ineffective and that in many cases we should settle for 'good enough'. We need to humanise leadership. And this is, perhaps, a better way forward than the present dominating focus on unobtainable ideals involving flawless acts carried out by perfect human beings operating in rational organisational environments. This type of thinking only supports a self-reinforcing leadership industry consisting of actors who have self-interest in inflating the phenomenon of leadership—so they can increase their profits, acquire new consultancy assignments, create better careers for themselves, acquire more citations in academic journals and expand their network. Because many of us strive for the perfect, we love to believe that we are led by the best. To think otherwise is worrying. Therefore, many are clinging to the feel-good understanding of leadership—one that is influenced by normative leadership theories, inspired by exciting Ted talks and by lectures given by leadership gurus; and by the airport literature that provides them with the 'holy grail' of what effective leadership is all about—may be because this is the more comfortable option.
