Who Really Leads? Reclaiming Leadership from the Bottom Up

The idea for today’s blog came alive in the classroom. We were deep into a discussion on Organizational Culture and what really shapes how teams behave.

When the conversation turned to leadership styles—especially the hierarchical kind—I brought up a phrase that always seems to hover over boardrooms and breakrooms alike: “the fish rots from the head.”

It’s one of those lines that lands with gravity. Everyone knows it. It almost feels like a law of nature. The assumption: if something is broken in an organization, it starts at the top.

The tone, the culture, the problems—all can be traced to those holding the most authority. CEOs, senior leaders, the executive suite.

But as I listened to my class reflect, a deeper question bubbled up:

What have we inherited about leadership, and how is it shaping (or limiting) us?

The Weight of Authority: What We’ve Been Taught

From the earliest age, we’re taught to look up for answers. The teacher has the final say. The parent holds the rules. In our workplaces, it’s the manager, the director, the CEO.We absorb, often without ever questioning, that real leadership belongs to someone else—someone “above,” someone with the title.

So much of our organizational life is built on this model. It’s a way of seeing the world that’s rooted in authority and hierarchy. The leader is the visionary, the problem solver, the hero—or, if things go wrong, the villain.

But here’s something we rarely talk about: this story doesn’t just place immense pressure on those at the top. It quietly trains the rest of us to doubt, defer, and step back from our own power and responsibility.

We start to believe that shaping the future is someone else’s job.

The Cost of Leadership as a Select Privilege

Over the past 50 years, something else has shifted. The stakes of being “the head” have grown.

In 1965, the average CEO in the U.S. earned about 20 times what their average worker made. Fast forward to today, and that ratio has exploded—now CEOs in Fortune 500 companies can make more than 350 times the average worker’s salary. (Source: Economic Policy Institute, 2023)

What does this widening gap do to the story of leadership?

When so much value is placed (financially and symbolically) on a select few, the pressure to prove worth becomes relentless. Senior leaders are expected to produce big results, dramatic changes, constant innovation—sometimes at the expense of stability or wisdom.

There’s an unspoken need to justify not just the paycheck, but the very existence of the hierarchy itself.

Too often, this breeds change for change’s sake, reactive decision-making, and a whiplash culture for everyone else.

Organizations become preoccupied with the next big thing, the next strategic pivot—forgetting that sometimes what’s needed most is listening, learning, and slow, steady growth.

Meanwhile, when only a handful of people get to steer the ship, the rest of us can feel more like passengers than crew.

What Happens When We All Wait at the Bottom?

There is a quieter, deeper cost to this inherited view.

When leadership is seen as belonging to a select few, we all—consciously or unconsciously—shrink our sense of what we can and should contribute.

We learn to keep our heads down, wait for direction, second-guess our ideas.Problems go unsolved, not because solutions don’t exist, but because the “right” person isn’t the one to see or voice them.

It’s more than just missed opportunity—it’s a collective forgetting. A forgetting of our own agency, wisdom, and ability to shape outcomes.

And what does this do to our world?

It creates cultures of dependency, blame, and even resentment. When things go wrong, we cut off the “head,” but never ask how the whole system is complicit in what unfolds.

When things go right, most people feel like bystanders rather than creators.

Ancestral Reminders: What We’ve Forgotten About Leadership

This narrow definition of leadership isn’t universal.

Indigenous and ancestral communities the world over have long practiced leadership in ways that are distributed, relational, and rooted in service.

In many traditions, leaders are “first among equals,” chosen not by title but by their ability to listen, care, and serve the collective.

Elders guide, but the wisdom of the group is valued. Leadership is shared, emergent, and grounded in what the community needs—not just what one individual thinks is best.

There’s a Māori proverb that always comes to mind:

“He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.”

What is the most important thing in the world?

It is people, it is people, it is people.

This is a different story about leadership—one that honors every person’s potential to shape, to influence, to steward.

The World We Create When Leadership Belongs to All

Imagine if every person in your organization, your community, your family, saw themselves as responsible for the whole.

Imagine the creativity, resilience, and connection that could come alive if everyone felt empowered to care, to notice, to speak, to act—not because their job description told them to, but because it’s in our shared interest.

What might we solve together?

What beauty, innovation, and joy might we discover if leadership was not a rare badge, but a shared birthright?

Unlearning, Remembering, Reimagining

We have inherited systems—schools, organizations, even families—that divide, rank, and separate us.

But underneath all that programming, another possibility is always waiting:

We can remember what we’ve forgotten.

We can see ourselves—and each other—as leaders, right now, right where we stand.

This doesn’t mean chaos.

It means shared responsibility, distributed wisdom, and a culture where everyone’s gifts can come forward.

It means noticing the ways we’ve been taught to shrink from our own leadership and asking:

What if it was safe, even necessary, for me to lead from where I am?

Maybe the true “rot” isn’t just at the head, but in the belief that only a select few are worthy—or capable—of leading.

What Kind of World Might We Build?

As I reflect on that classroom conversation, I’m left with more questions than answers.

But maybe that’s the beginning.

What might we remember—and what could we create together—if we stood in our own capacity to lead, and invited others to do the same?

Perhaps it’s time to rewrite the old proverb.

Maybe the fish thrives when every part remembers it belongs.

What story of leadership are you living?

And what story will you help create—starting today?