Talent and Leadership

Multiple leaders

In the Australian Financial Review today, there's an article  (pp. 58-59) titled "Talent spotting gets it wrong most of the time" by Fiona Smith.  Two quotes from David Clutterbuck ("management author") related to leadership, management and their respective competencies took my fancy - and fed my convictions on these matters:

1. "unless the talent looks like them, managers just can't see them"
2. "organisations need different kinds of leaders for different situations"

On the second point Clutterbuck describes how firefighters need "one leader who manages, organises and makes things happen" for one situation and when things get hot (my lame joke) they need "someone they would follow into hell".

Managers not Leaders/Leaders not Managers

The first situation described above supports a typical "management" role - making the hum-drum happen and continually improving performance using, perhaps, both positional and personal power.  The second doesn't necessarily require someone with positional power, just personal power.  They do not necessarily need to have legitimate power.

But does the first have to be someone in formal authority?   Why could a team not have a person or person who organises etc?  Couldn't it also have multiple leader(s) who take charge depending on the situation?