Let’s be honest. Many companies, including many smaller companies, do not have the time or resources, even if they might have the inclination, to worry about some of the corporate preoccupations that bigger companies do (and have).  Many of their stakeholders may not expect them to.

Nevertheless, not all of these preoccupations have the same substance. Larger companies, especially very large and multinational companies, have a built in lemming characteristic, which is, of course, to follow each other and each other’s clichés blindly and uncritically in pursuit of the latest corporate function fashion doodle. Smaller companies do this much less, since many of these need to become bigger companies in the future.

For the larger, more self-important and ponderous companies and their agency acolytes, keeping up with their peers in the main deal, so the doodles are followed uncritically, and most of these doodles lead them, or, to put it brutally, lead their senior communications management team, over the cliff to death and discomfiture. Others lead their followers higher, to success and enlightenment.

But which is which? Which will take you higher, and which could throw you over?

This is not the place to go through all those trends which have ultimately been destructive in this way, and those which have been positive, useful and, basically, right. But the ratio of useless doodles to genuine insights is invariably about 99 to 1.

There are many examples of this if we look at business vocabulary: “thought leadership”, “company ambassadors”, “finding the edge”, “leveraging/adding value” etc. So far, so useless.

But a spectacular example of the former in terms of substance is the current business practice of leadership. “Oh”, to paraphrase Bart Simpson’s teacher Edna Krabappel, “leadership, leadership, leadership”.

Leading lemmings is leadership. Barking orders and orchestrating marches is leadership. Herding sheep is leadership. Many political dictators of the past have been great leaders, as business leaders sometimes admit when the mask slips. Political authoritarianism is based on the prevailing business leadership concept. Good leadership is no more than the ability to tell people what to do and successfully convince them to do it. Defining, describing or justifying what “it” is has never been part of the business deal. This is because the management will decide this or deny this as appropriate to the shifting circumstances.

Crucially, not admitting mistakes is also considered to be good business leadership. No wonder so many businesspeople are so right-wing and authoritarian. To be a convert to the prevailing terms of the leadership debate in big companies, quite simply, is to be a camp follower, accepting what Sumantra Ghoshal calls “asshole management”. No wonder Dilbert is the world’s bestselling management book.

No, we need to sweep away almost all leadership theory that springs from actual business practice as well as their assorted band of itinerant manic preachers and start again. And not from the top but from the bottom, which is where genuine leadership always starts. Especially if companies want at last to stop deceiving themselves and move to the higher ground for the sake of their reputation.