Everyone Leads

Have you ever looked at a problem in your organization, community, or even your own family and thought, “Someone should fix this”? Ed O’Malley and Julia Fabris McBride’s When Everyone Leads turns that question around—it insists that you are that someone. This book dismantles the old, hierarchical view of leadership as something reserved for people with titles or authority. Instead, it redefines leadership as an activity available to everyone, at any moment, regardless of position.

The authors, leaders of the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC), have spent over fifteen years teaching this radically democratic notion of leadership. Drawing on their experience facilitating leadership programs for teachers, CEOs, nurses, civic activists, and engineers alike, they argue that progress on our most important challenges happens only when everyone leads. Their thesis is as practical as it is idealistic: anyone can learn to notice challenges, mobilize others, and make progress—even when they’re not in charge.

Redefining What Leadership Really Means

At the heart of the book is a bold manifesto: leadership is an activity, not a position. Most people think leadership means having authority—being the boss, the teacher, the CEO, or the captain. But those roles, while important, aren’t synonymous with leadership. O’Malley and McBride distinguish between authority (managing and maintaining order) and leadership (mobilizing people to tackle tough, adaptive challenges). You can have authority without leading and lead without having authority.

This conceptual shift changes everything. Instead of waiting for a “leader” to act, everyone can start seeing moments in daily life where their participation could make a difference: calling out an unspoken problem in a meeting, voicing a tough truth in a relationship, or helping a team member feel heard. Leadership, as O’Malley says, is less about titles and more about intentional actions that move people closer to what matters most.

Why Our Toughest Problems Persist

The book argues that society’s greatest failures stem not from a lack of management but from a shortage of leadership. Complex issues—like political division, organizational stagnation, or racial inequity—persist because too many people assume someone else has the responsibility (and authority) to solve them. The authors call this gap between our current reality and our aspirations “The Gap.” Every organization, community, and individual has one.

Seeing “The Gap,” however, requires courage. It's uncomfortable to acknowledge what's not working. But that discomfort—the “heat” of facing reality—is necessary for transformation. The authors emphasize that leadership always starts from dissatisfaction. You don’t lead when everything is fine; you lead when something significant must change.

Adaptive Challenges vs. Technical Problems

Drawing from the work of Harvard scholars Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky (Leadership on the Line), O’Malley and McBride teach one of the book’s foundational distinctions: technical problems versus adaptive challenges. A technical problem is solvable through existing expertise—you fix a broken pipe, hire a new manager, or update a software system. An adaptive challenge, by contrast, demands learning, experimentation, and shared change—rethinking how an organization includes voices, how a community builds trust, or how an individual confronts bias and fear.

When leaders mistake adaptive challenges for technical ones, they reach for quick fixes that mute discomfort but fail to create real progress. Adaptive work, the authors remind us, is messy. It involves loss—of old habits, structures, or identities. Progress therefore requires dealing honestly with resistance, navigating clashing values, and embracing risk.

Everyone Has a Role to Play

Building on KLC’s motto, “Leadership is mobilizing others to make progress on our toughest challenges,” the authors outline how progress emerges only when leadership is distributed. Top-down authority isn’t enough; the CEO, mayor, or principal can’t carry the weight alone. Those in authority must learn to create conditions for others to lead. Meanwhile, those without authority must authorize themselves—to step up, take small risks, and act.

In the KLC programs, a bank teller, rabbi, firefighter, social worker, and engineer can sit side by side grappling with their “gaps.” Through practice, they discover that leadership is not heroic—it’s communal. This inclusivity makes the book countercultural: it replaces the myth of the solitary visionary with a faith in collective wisdom.

The Book’s Roadmap: Five Parts of Change

The book unfolds across five major parts, each building toward this new culture of shared leadership:

• Identify the Gap: Learn to see the distance between current reality and aspirations, fueled by both concerns and dreams.
• Barriers to Progress: Recognize how fear of loss, clashing values, quick fixes, and overreliance on authority stall change.
• Start with You: Authorize yourself to lead, begin where you have influence, own your part of the mess, and engage others.
• Use the Heat: Understand how to regulate tension—raising it when necessary to spark attention, and lowering it to sustain collaboration.
• Everyone Can Lead: Practice four concrete behaviors—asking powerful questions, making multiple interpretations, acting experimentally, and making leadership less risky for others.

Ultimately, O’Malley and McBride leave readers with a simple but radical idea: leadership can’t belong to the few anymore. In a world moving too fast for hierarchical decision-making, progress—whether in business, government, or family life—depends on the courage and creativity of the many. When everyone leads, communities adapt faster, organizations thrive longer, and people rediscover hope.

Progress, the authors argue, starts with seeing something you can no longer ignore. Every act of leadership begins when you recognize “The Gap”—the space between current reality and your aspirations. That gap might appear in your team’s lack of trust, your city’s poverty rate, or even your family’s communication breakdown. But seeing it doesn’t come naturally; most people avoid it to stay comfortable.

The Courage to Confront Reality

Facing “The Gap” means acknowledging what’s not working. O’Malley and McBride explain that human nature favors avoidance—we cling to the illusion of agreement, distraction by busyness, and a preference for good news. Yet those who lead choose dissatisfaction over denial.

For instance, a high school principal may sense that low reading scores reflect deeper systemic issues, not just poor curriculum. Admitting that truth risks discomfort and criticism, but it’s where leadership begins. Similarly, a company may celebrate growth metrics even as employee morale plunges—until someone dares to ask, “Have we lost our purpose?”

Concerns and Aspirations: Two Sides of the Gap

The authors define The Gap through two forces: concerns—what we fear, dislike, or regret about the current reality—and aspirations—our boldest hopes for what could be. Concerns ground us in reality; aspirations fuel us with purpose. Without both, leadership fizzles.

For example, Ed describes the Boys & Girls Club’s aspiration to ensure every child has access to safe after-school programs. Their concern? Many kids still lack transportation or awareness. That combination of pain and hope gave the organization its momentum to evolve. Likewise, a small consulting firm’s concern about staff exhaustion led to an aspiration to create a new, sustainable business model. These dual energies—discontent and vision—power leadership action.

Adaptive Challenges Require Collective Seeing

O’Malley and McBride insist that everyone must see The Gap together. When only the CEO, principal, or mayor sees it, adaptive challenges stay unsolved. The task of leadership is helping others perceive reality vividly enough that they care to change it. The authors prescribe one simple yet potent exercise for teams: ask three questions—what concerns you most, what’s your greatest aspiration, and what makes it hard to close The Gap?

These prompts transform meetings from routine updates into moments of collective reckoning. As people speak honestly, hidden problems and shared dreams surface. That process itself—seeing openly and together—is leadership in motion.

Key Idea

Leadership always begins with dissatisfaction but is sustained by aspiration. To lead, you must look at what’s broken without losing sight of what’s possible.

By naming The Gap clearly, you stop pretending the current state is “fine.” You give your team and yourself permission to care again. And from that caring flows possibility—the fuel for adaptive change.