The decline of change management and the rise of change leadership

Today, leadership rather than management is perceived as the key to effective performance and by association change leadership becomes the new change management. This conceptual paper revisits cultural, linguistic, historic and empirical characteristics of this perceived shift answering three academic questions. What were the cultural aspects of this shift from change management to change leadership? What were the perceived deficiencies with change management which resulted in its decline? What has been the historical path of the rise of leadership? Conclusions are drawn that the shift from management to leadership was culturally and socially constructed, rather than empirically informed and that privileging of change leadership over change management requires urgent and further critical questioning. Instead of ‘either/or’ dualisms such as management or leadership and stability or change, in the future we will embrace the complementarities of ‘both/and’ thinking.