No other leadership layer is associated with so many negative labels as middle managers. The language used to describe middle managers shows a need for more respect for their contribution to business continuity and organisational performance.

In a world of speed, busyness, and information overload, it is easy to accept the claims of 'experts' rather than thinking for ourselves.

The phrase ‘lies, lies and damn statistics’ tells us that the selection and arrangement of facts is central. The facts are dead without context or theory. How we select, arrange, sequence, and provide the context for facts influences policy and practice.

The conductor interprets the mechanics of the music to give the listener access to the art. The listener hears the players' specialist skills expressed through the conductor's interpretation. Organisational performance is the mechanics of management expressed through leaders' interpretation.

What if we tried to maintain a picture of the whole organisation and focus on the interaction between the background and foreground systems? We could see the texture (the fine weave) of how people, work, and organisation interact.

Leadership and management in a network might be defined as an ensemble of actors that, at their best, perform in harmony according to each actor's particular functional skills and competence. The leadership team is seen as a whole, and individual leaders and managers as its part.

While much effort has gone into better understanding management research and practice, we might not be getting any better at it.

There is something deeply instinctual and emotional about the ability to move a group of people to sense, breathe, move, feel, and think as if they were of one mind. All leaders should take the time to reflect on the deeply satisfying privilege it is to lead.

What would Sir Ernest Shackleton make of the breathless claim of researchers at a respected business school that a review of the 35 years of research into emotion reveals that: “…emotions constitute potent, pervasive, predictable, sometimes harmful and sometimes beneficial drivers of decision making.”?

Attentiveness and care in exercising leadership does not feature in modern leadership theory and practice. Indeed, just the opposite. Modern leaders are told to be out-front, directing, planning, controlling, results-driven, and outcome-focused. What if we thought about leadership as a light touch?