New leaders shine light on shadow of denial

At first glance, I was quite sure that I wanted to take on Don Michael's 1991 Futures essay—‘Leadership's shadow: the dilemma of denial’. My initial glimpse suggested that he was advocating that we might ‘hope’ our problems away in the absence of any proven strategy for action. It was with this interpretation that I agreed to respond to an invitation to submit an essay for this colloquium as a reaction to his original article. However, after reading the article more carefully in preparation for writing my response, I was impressed with the foresight Michael demonstrated, given that he offered it for publication in late 1990 which meant he had written it some time earlier.