It is very tempting to assume that because people want simple answers, the answers are indeed simple. The trouble is that leadership is highly complex. A more useful approach is to accept that simple answers are delusions, but that answering simply is powerful and achievable. The leadership leviathan Huge amounts of research and an equally huge diversity of views and perspectives have created the leadership leviathan. While descriptions of the leadership leviathan are all different, all are true.
Leaders can give convincing, enlightening and truthful descriptions of their unique situations.
Moving beyond these individual perspectives to a generic definition quickly leads to dead ends. This explains why there are so many definitions of leadership and so little consensus. Our solution to this is simple. We see leadership as specific to a situation. There are no absolutes and no generic definitions.