Radio Show #657 – Want Better Employee Engagement? Ditch the ‘Great Man’ Theory of Leadership

Guest: Leandro Herrero – Chief Organizational Architect at The Chalfont Project, psychiatrist, author, and international speaker.

We may think we left the “great man theory” of history behind in the 19th century. We didn’t. We simply smuggled it into corporate life. And this leadership lens is especially seductive in turbulent times. Modern organizations still behave as if performance, culture, and even ethics hinge primarily on a handful of heroic individuals at the top. The result is a persistent overinvestment in leadership personalities and an underinvestment in the systems, networks, and everyday behaviours that actually shape how work gets done. In this interview, Leandro challenges the heroic-leader narrative and reframes organizations not as machines directed by exceptional operators, but as living systems shaped by patterns of behaviour. It argues that our obsession with “who is in charge” is crowding out a more useful question: what everyday behaviours are being encouraged, tolerated, and replicated — and by whom? Until we shift attention from heroic individuals to contagious behaviours, we will keep misdiagnosing both success and failure in leadership and culture.

Join us as we discuss his pioneering Viral Change™️ methodology – where a social movement approach creates lasting change

Host: TBC