Why do we care about leadership?

This might sound like a strange question to ask, let alone answer, as the director of a leadership centre.

One of the things that we teach is that to lead often means to be able to lead with a question. A good question forces a system to do some work.

So I will pose it again: "Why do we care about leadership?"

Clearly we do care about the word 'leadership' even if we don't understand why.

We know also that many others care as well. Look at the centres of business and government and you can see many people care deeply about leadership-to get it, to keep it or get someone else to do something with it. You may say that they care about a different type of 'leadership' than us: an outdated, un-useful and dying idea. That we are interested in making a difference and they are more interested in power and serving themselves. But I am not so sure there is such a clear distinction between us.

I am not so sure that there are clearly good and bad reasons for caring about leadership. Because what we all share is that, while we are so enticed by the idea of leadership, we do it at the same time as being disappointed and exasperated by it. I think that's intriguing. If we are all so disenchanted by leadership, why do we also follow it, ask for it and care so much about it? Why do we, despite seemingly being disappointed so many times, still find ways of building up our hopes again?

Some would say that there is a simple answer to this. That we are stupid and have short memories. And that is something we also share.

I think that is too easy an answer and misses something deeper.

I think what we share is a high dream about leadership which gets sucked into a low fantasy. A fantasy where we mistake power, control and personal advancement as the end and not just the tools. We put the toolbox in front of our faces and forget that it should be at our side. Perhaps because the dream is so hard to hold … and so bold.

So what is this dream? The dream is that by leadership is that we can be useful, make progress and leave things better than we found them; that we can have the greatest benefit for the most people for the longest time.

This is why I believe we care about leadership. Those who want it and those who complain about it.

I think caring about leadership is inextricably linked to being human. We are not willing to just accept how things are. We don't just accept how power is held, who holds it, how it is used and for what purpose. We don't just struggle for power and dominance as humans, we also struggle to do something useful with it. And we are not content with the status quo. We are compelled to move forward and to make progress. But we struggle to do that at the same as caring for each other.

So perhaps we care about leadership, despite all the disappointments, because we can't help ourselves. It's part of who we are. We cannot resist the desire to make progress and improve things, no matter how many times others or we have failed. And in such a daunting task we may wish that others would take up this role. Or if we have the privilege and power, and if we feel the responsibility to do something with that, then we take up that task ourselves.

You may be in this position now. You may have the power, privilege, awareness to do something useful with that, not just for yourself.

I would say that this actually is leadership. It is the doing: the constant striving and effort and recalibrating and learning. Leadership is not the end goal in itself. Because we know as much will be undone as done, leadership is the doing. Like humanity, it is a long story of change and adaptation.

And this brings me to the final part of these wonderings. As I thought about this question for myself and wondered why I care about leadership, I realised how much what I was describing sounded like something else. Something else that we hope for, build our expectations up for and that some die for. Something that is also, we would say, uniquely human.

Of course, it sounds like love. Like leadership, love has no destination: it is in the doing. It requires a constant deepening, understanding and interdependence-just like leadership. It requires us to constantly learn about ourselves and others, understand our power and know when to let go.

We often think of the leaders we admire as exhibiting great courage. I think what they show is love. Love takes courage. It takes courage to love enough to push ourselves into places where we might be wrong, might be disliked and are uncertain about the outcomes. It takes courage to love enough to be willing to let go of the protection.

But most of all it takes courage to love enough to step into the full potential of who we and others are: our compassion, wisdom, power, head and heart-all our imperfections and strengths put together.

This kind of love makes us really stretch to understand what is being asked of us right now. I am sure this is something you have thought about for yourself in this last year. We are being called from the future to continue the story of leading and loving which are inextricably linked.

If we can answer this call perhaps then we can truly understand why we care so much about leadership. And also understand, really, what it means to be human.