Define Leadership Broadly as the Responsibility of All Employees

To find out whether best-practice organizations in developing and maintaining leadership capabilities develop all employees or focus on top-performers, APQC conducted in-depth case study interviews with companies known for their effective leadership development: Cardinal Health, Caterpillar, Ford Motor Co., Monsanto Co., and W. L. Gore.

The findings of the best practices report show that unlike most organizations, all of the best-practice organizations define leadership broadly by operating to varying extents in accordance with an "everyone is a leader" philosophy. Although all of the best-practice organizations have formal leadership roles, each organization also expects all employees to act as leaders and be responsible for the organization's success. Accordingly, sustaining leadership capabilities is everyone's responsibility. In the following article, case study examples of the definitions that the best-practice organizations use are provided.