Leadership: what it is (and isn't)

Despite our familiarity with - and craving for - leadership, its precise meaning is often elusive and resistant to consensual definition. Partly because of this, actions that are adjudged as exemplary leadership by some are damned as failures of leadership by others. The debate about the federal government's vision for the country, as reflected in the recent budget, is illustrative of this. It is framed as the government's response to a crisis, a 'budget emergency', and seeks to make us receptive to an authoritative, commanding approach to problem solving.