LEADERSHIP DOES NOT ONLY HAPPEN AT THE TOP

Anyone who works in a newsroom or media organisation knows that leadership rarely sits only with the person at the top. Of course editors-in-chief, managing editors, section editors and senior producers matter. Their choices, their attitude and their language make a difference. But if you look closely at how journalism is actually made, you see something else as well. Direction does not only emerge at the top of the organisation. It also emerges in editorial meetings, in group chats, in the way someone opens a conversation, in how a story idea is raised, in how tension is named or avoided, in how space is made for another perspective, and in how people decide together: do we move forward with this or not?

That is why I find the idea of leadership-as-practice so compelling. It does not begin with the question who is the leader here? but with a different one: how do direction, movement and collective action emerge here?

That may sound theoretical, but in practice it is highly concrete. Perhaps that is also why so many colleagues immediately recognise this way of thinking when you discuss it with them. It feels much closer to their everyday reality than the classic idea of leadership as something that mainly sits within one individual.

Why this matters

Many conversations about leadership still focus on people. On styles. On traits. On visible leadership, vision, decisiveness, authority and charisma. As if good leadership mainly depends on whether someone has the right qualities.

But newsrooms are rarely that simple.

A newsroom is not a factory where one person pulls the levers and everyone else follows. It is a professional environment in which knowledge is distributed, time is scarce, interests sometimes clash, breaking news keeps arriving, and many decisions are made under uncertainty. Media organisations are also places where editorial judgement, speed, emotion, public responsibility, technology, distribution and organisational culture constantly overlap. In that context, leadership often feels less like someone knows the way and more like: how do we find a good way forward together?

That, to me, is the strength of leadership-as-practice.

In essence, this perspective says that leadership is not only something a formal leader does. It is something that emerges in the shared work itself. In interactions. In routines. In conversations. In the way people collectively make sense of what matters, what is urgent, what is careful, and what is journalistically responsible.

For many people, that comes as a relief because it fits their lived experience more closely. It recognises that leadership in practice is often shared, relational, messy and situational. And that it does not always begin with a formal role.

How this plays out in newsrooms

Take a morning editorial meeting. Formally, leadership may sit with the section editor or the duty editor. But anyone who knows those meetings knows that real direction often emerges in several places at once. One reporter spots a pattern in the coverage. Someone from social notices that a story is landing very differently with audiences than expected. A correspondent questions a dominant assumption. A producer flags a practical constraint. An editor points out the tension between speed and care. And sometimes it is precisely one question from someone at the table that sends the newsroom in a different direction.

So who led in that moment?

A more conventional view would focus on the person who ultimately made the decision. A leadership-as-practice perspective looks more broadly. It shows that leadership was present in the whole process through which the newsroom found direction: in noticing, interpreting, weighing, voicing, connecting, setting boundaries and deciding together.

That does not make leadership vaguer. It makes it more precise. You are no longer looking only at formal authority, but at the practice in which authority meets professional expertise, editorial culture and collective judgement.

Why this is important for journalism

For journalistic organisations, this is not just an interesting theoretical idea. It has practical value.

First, because journalism is fundamentally collective work. Even when one byline appears on a story, the practice behind it is often shared. Idea development, reporting, editing, visual choices, legal checks, publication, distribution and audience response are all part of a collective process. If leadership is understood only as something attached to individual roles, we miss too much of what is really happening.

Second, because news organisations today face challenges that cannot simply be solved by one person. Trust in journalism, news avoidance, AI, safety, workload, diversity of perspectives, digital distribution, audience relationships, and collaboration between editorial, product, data and technology teams all require more than the “right style” of leadership. They require the ability to learn together, make meaning together, stay with tension, and develop new ways of working.

And third, because many people in media organisations already sense that leadership exists in more places than formal hierarchies suggest, but do not yet quite have the language for it. This perspective offers that language. It makes visible what many already feel: that direction does not only emerge top-down, but also horizontally, relationally and in the everyday practice of the work itself.

Leadership lives in the everyday

What I find especially strong about this perspective is that it takes the everyday seriously.

Many leadership stories focus on big moments: the crisis, the strategic pivot, the visionary speech, the brave decision. But in newsrooms, culture and direction are usually shaped in much smaller moments. In how someone responds to disagreement. In how a leader handles uncertainty. In whether younger reporters feel able to introduce a different angle. In whether emotions after a difficult assignment are acknowledged. In whether speed always wins over care. In whether analytical, creative and audience-centred perspectives are genuinely allowed to meet.

That is where leadership takes shape.

That is also why this lens is so useful for editorial culture. If you see leadership as something that emerges in practice, you can ask more clearly: which habits, patterns and interactions strengthen good leadership here — and which ones get in the way?

Leadership then becomes not only a question of assessing individuals, but of examining practices.

It also makes power more visible

Another reason this perspective matters for media organisations is that it helps make power more visible.

Newsrooms often like to think of themselves as places of autonomy, open debate and professional freedom. And those values matter deeply. But at the same time, we know that not every voice carries equal weight. Not everyone feels equally safe to speak. Not every form of knowledge is valued in the same way. Some people hold formal power, others informal influence. Some routines appear neutral, while in practice they favour certain perspectives, tempos or personalities.

If you only understand leadership as the behaviour of individual leaders, you miss a large part of that dynamic. But if you look at leadership as practice, you can see more clearly how power works through meetings, task allocation, feedback, timing, tone and decision-making.

That is not a cynical way of looking at organisations. On the contrary, it is a more honest one, precisely because it looks below the surface.

For journalistic leaders, this matters not only because power needs to be shared more fairly, but because the quality of journalism depends on the quality of those practices. On whether people speak up. Whether minority perspectives have room. Whether doubt is seen as weakness or as professional value. Whether people are really listened to.

Why so many colleagues recognise it immediately

When I talk about this with colleagues, I often notice how quickly it resonates. They do not usually say, what an interesting theory. More often they say: yes, exactly, that is how it works for us too. I think that is because this way of looking at leadership is so close to how collaboration actually unfolds in practice.

In journalistic organisations especially, people recognise that leadership often does not sit in grand gestures, but in how someone shifts a process. In how someone gives words to something that is still only half visible. In how someone names a tension without shutting it down. In how an editor creates both safety and sharpness. In how a reporter takes initiative and brings others with them. In how a producer or co-ordinator brings calm and direction into chaos. In how someone from data, audio or audience brings in a perspective that makes the newsroom see things differently.

These may not look like classic leadership moments in management language. But they are leadership moments all the same.

Perhaps that is also why this approach is so fruitful. It does justice to the complexity of professional work without making it unnecessarily complicated. It does not say that formal leaders do not matter. It says that you understand leadership better if you do not stop with them.

What this asks of leadership

If you approach leadership as practice, your idea of good leadership also changes.

Leadership then becomes not only about setting direction, making decisions and safeguarding performance, but also about shaping the conditions in which good leadership can emerge through more people. That asks something different of editors, newsroom leaders and managers than visibility or decisiveness alone.

It asks, for example, that they learn to pay attention to patterns of interaction. Who speaks and who does not. How decisions are made. Which routines help and which block. How teams deal with uncertainty, conflict, urgency and interdependence. How the relationship between editorial, audience, product and organisation is being shaped.

That may be less heroic than some leadership models suggest. But perhaps that is exactly why it is more durable and more credible.

For media organisations, it also means that leadership development should be designed differently. Less as a collection of isolated training sessions about personal style, and more as shared learning in and through the work itself. By discussing real cases. By analysing actual meetings. By building reflection into editorial routines. By talking not only about who shows leadership, but about how practice enables or constrains it.

A language for this moment

I think leadership-as-practice is particularly useful now because media organisations are living through a period in which simple leadership models are no longer enough.

The challenges are too interconnected. The environment is changing too quickly. The tension between public purpose, technological change, audience relationships and organisational pressure is too great for leadership to remain an aggregate of individual qualities.

That does not mean people do not matter. Of course personality, courage, integrity and judgement still matter. But they are not enough. Leadership always takes place in practice: in a context, between people, within structures, routines and relationships. If you do not understand that practice, you do not fully understand the leadership either.

And that is exactly why this is such a strong lens for journalism. It helps us think about leadership not as something separate from the work, the culture or the public mission, but as something embedded in all three. It brings leadership back to where it actually happens: in the shared practice of making journalism.

In closing

Perhaps that is the most important contribution of this perspective: it makes leadership more human, more precise and more honest. More human, because it recognises that leadership often emerges through uncertainty, interaction and shared searching. More precise, because it shows more clearly where direction actually comes from. And more honest, because it does not automatically place all attention on the person with the highest title, but also makes room for the many other ways people shape the whole.

For newsrooms and media organisations, this is not an abstract idea. It is part of the everyday reality of the work. It touches the heart of how journalism is organised, how culture is formed, and how public value takes shape in practice. Leadership does not only happen at the top. It happens in what people make possible together.

That also raises practical questions. Where does direction actually emerge in our organisation? Only in formal decision-making, or also in other moments, conversations and interactions? Which people regularly give direction without that always being recognised as leadership? How do we handle doubt, difference and disagreement in editorial meetings — is there really space for them? Which routines help us make sound journalistic judgements, and which get in the way? And are we developing leadership mainly as an individual skill, or also as something that grows in teams and practices?

If any of this feels familiar, I would be very interested to hear how it shows up in your newsroom or media organisation. Examples, reflections and experiences are very welcome. And if it would be useful to talk further — about leadership, newsroom culture, or how to make this practical in your own organisation — please do get in touch.