Perhaps not everyone wants to be the leader, but many do actively seek the role and many more secretly wish they could lead even if modesty or low self-esteem holds them back. If the world divides between leaders and followers, if that is your choice, surely leadership is preferable? "A great leader' sounds like a better epithet than a 'great team player'.

Leadership may be a thankless task but there is the reward of power, of determining the agenda and, in business, of lots more money. Peter F. Drucker, the management and leadership guru describes it thus:

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things"

In other words, everyone else in business must do, as well as they can what they are told to do but if you are the boss you get to do the telling and get paid lots for the privilege.

There is an interesting index you can apply to any subject using Amazon. If there are a lot of books written about a particular subject then it is highly appealing (and highly unlikely that any one of them has the definitive answer). Leaders are supposed to take charge, among other things, of successful business strategies and business growth strategy in particular. And when they have finished this successful leadership practice, if they are men, and sadly most of them are, they play golf so we are told. There are more than 8000 books on strategy and 9000 on golf. Very appealing and equally unlikely that any one book nails the perfect strategy or the perfect golf swing. However, there are more than 17,000 books on leadership. When it comes to leadership skills development we are not short of gurus. Stephen R. Covey, whose lucky number is 7 judging by how much money he has made, will tell you what makes an effective leader and thousands of others have added their advice successful leadership. There is even advice on how to be a bad leader. Syd Finkelstein has made a name for himself in this field pointing out the most common mistakes leaders make. Thousands of books, lots of gurus, advice on how to do it well and how to avoid doing it badly - leadership is a hot topic.

Yet despite all this interest in leadership and wise advice about leadership, we live in a vacuum of leadership. Governments fail through 'a lack of clear leadership'. Our sporting teams underachieve through 'a lack of decent captain'. Businesses change leaders at an increasing rate, recently the banking industry has failed, through 'a lack of effective leadership at the top'. No shortage of volunteers, no shortage of experts in leadership skills development - huge shortage of leaders.

Plato identified the biggest problem with leadership a long, long time ago in 'The Republic'. He pointed out that the last person you should offer leadership to is the one with their hand in the air. Only statesmen, as he called them, who have to be persuaded to do the job and accept only out of a sense of duty, should be considered. That certainly narrows down the field. The second issue is that leadership skills are not straightforward even if a good leader is. They can be divided into 3 areas. There are attributes one needs to possess, intelligence and judgment rate highly here. Then there are skills one must have acquired, the ability to communicate or motivate are regarded as good things. Finally there is one's style - visionary leader who focuses on the big picture or sleeves rolled up with an eye on the detail, delegator or empowered? It appears there are all sorts of leadership styles and all can be effective depending on the circumstances - cometh the hour cometh exactly the right kind of leadership style.

Colin Powell is a detail man:
"Never neglect the details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant".

Henry Kissinger was more of a big picture guy:
"Leaders must evoke alchemy of great vision".

Eric Hoffer, the American working class hero turned writer/philosopher demands,
"The leader has to be practical and a realist yet talk the language of the visionary and the idealist", which is probably right for any situation but tough to pull off.

But back to Plato, it is not just that successful leaders must not aspire to be leaders, they must not take credit when things go well. They get to delegate the required actions but must take all the responsibility for failure. Every commentator agreed with Andrew Carnegie when he said:

"No one will make a great leader who wants to do it all themselves or to get credit for doing it".

Who fits the bill as a leader? Who do you know that has all the right attributes and skills, the right motivation and style, who is prepared to delegate and take responsibility for failure but none of the credit when things go well, who is both visionary and a details person if they need to be? You? Your boss?

Perhaps instead of developing your leadership skills you should stick to finance in a senior support role. Amazon lists 32,000 books on that subject and it is very well paid.