Leadership is not a position you hold. It is something you do: a continuous process of inspiring and mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and do things that matter. That is the definition at the heart of Human Centered Leadership, and it explains why some people with leadership titles don’t lead, while others without one lead every day.
Think about the best leader you have ever worked for. Odds are, what made them that was not the title on the door. It was something they did, over and over, with the people around them. This article breaks down what it means to treat leadership as a verb, the three dimensions of Human Centered Leadership, and why the work starts inside the leader.
Key takeaways
- The gap between positional authority and real leadership is one of the most expensive challenges in organizational life.
- Human Centered Leadership defines leadership as a process of inspiring and mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and do things that matter.
- It has three dimensions practiced together: Human (showing up as a full person), Centered (staying grounded under pressure) and Leadership (acting, not holding a title).
- Leaders such as Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull show the model at work: the job is to build a culture where the best ideas can come from anyone.
- The work is inside-out. Leaders cannot create safety, creativity or growth in others while neglecting it in themselves.
The gap between a leadership title and leading
You probably know someone with a leadership title who doesn’t actually lead. You probably also know someone without one who leads every day.
That gap between positional authority and genuine leadership is one of the most expensive challenges in organizational life. Most leadership development programs try to close it by giving people better tools for the authority side. What people actually need is a different understanding of the leadership side.
Here is the distinction: leadership is not what you are called. It is what you do, continuously, in relationship with other people, in service of challenges that matter.
What is Human Centered Leadership? A definition, word by word
We define Human Centered Leadership as the process of inspiring and mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and do things that matter. Every part of that sentence is doing work.
“Process,” not position
Leadership is not granted by a promotion. It is practiced day by day, in every interaction.
“Inspiring and mobilizing,” not directing and controlling
The Human Centered leader’s main job is activating the people around them: their creativity, their commitment, their willingness to bring something real to hard challenges. As Jørgen Vig Knudstorp and Rasmus Hougaard put it in the Harvard Business Review, “Leadership is less about what you do and more about becoming what you are.” The doing flows from the being.
“Tackle tough challenges,” not execute predetermined solutions
The challenges most worth leading into are what Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky call adaptive challenges: complex, ambiguous and resistant to technical fixes. They require real learning and the courage to question what everyone assumes is true.
“Do things that matter,” not merely comply or perform
Human Centered Leadership draws out people’s best by connecting their work to purposes larger than the task. That connection is not a bonus. It is the engine.
The three dimensions of Human Centered Leadership
Human Centered Leadership is not a checklist. It is three orientations a leader cultivates at the same time, not one after another.
Human: show up as a full person
The Human dimension asks leaders to bring their whole selves rather than a polished professional persona: real vulnerability, genuine care and a willingness to be known. Research on authentic leadership, developed significantly by Bruce Avolio and William Gardner, finds that authenticity is among the strongest predictors of follower trust. Trust is what all creative collaboration rests on.
Centered: stay grounded under pressure
The Centered dimension is about stability under pressure. It does not mean suppressing emotion; it means staying grounded while feeling it. Bain & Company’s research on the most inspiring leaders points the same way: they draw from a positive core, stay present, manage stress without passing it downward and bring empathy for themselves and others. Centered leaders become a steady container for their team’s creative work. Leaders who aren’t centered create turbulence instead. We’ve Moved to a Feeling Economy explores this dimension further.
Leadership: an action, not an attribute
The Leadership dimension treats leadership as a verb. In Human Centered Leadership, leadership is emergent and distributed. The leader’s job is not to be the smartest person in the room but to build an environment where everyone in the room can do their best. We call that environment the Creative Alliance, and building it is the central work of the Human Centered leader.
What leadership as a verb looks like in practice
Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, built one of the most creative organizations of our time. His central insight, described in Creativity, Inc., is a Human Centered Leadership insight: the leader’s job is not to have the best ideas but to build a culture where the best ideas can come from anyone, rise to the surface and get the honest feedback they need to become great.
At Pixar, that meant dismantling the hierarchy of talent, creating real psychological safety for candor, and making the peer culture rather than the executive suite the main incubator for creative work.
That is not soft leadership. It is the hardest kind. Gallup’s research on what the best leaders do points to four capabilities: they are relational, rigorous in execution, strategic in thinking and influential in their reach. Human Centered Leadership develops all four through one integrated framework, as a way of being and acting rather than four separate competencies to collect.
Signs you are leading, with or without the title
- People bring you problems early, before they are crises.
- Ideas on your team come from many people, not mostly from you.
- You can stay calm and present when the pressure rises, without passing stress downward.
- People can explain why their work matters, not just what it is.
- Others are growing into leadership around you.
The inside-out work
This is where Human Centered Leadership differs most from conventional leadership development: it starts inside the leader, not outside.
- You cannot model emotional safety while managing your own anxiety through control.
- You cannot invite creative risk from others while protecting yourself from it.
- You cannot develop the human potential of the people you lead while neglecting your own.
Leadership is a verb. The question is not whether you have the title. It is whether, right now, with these people and these challenges, you are doing it.
This piece is part of our Human Centered Leadership hub.
Frequently asked questions
What does “leadership is a verb” mean?
It means leadership is defined by action rather than position. Anyone can practice it by inspiring and mobilizing others toward challenges that matter, whether or not they have formal authority.
What is the definition of Human Centered Leadership?
Human Centered Leadership is the process of inspiring and mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and do things that matter. It was developed by Michael Lane Morris, PhD and Jules Morris, PhD and published in the SAGE Handbook of Human Resource Development (2024).
What are the three dimensions of Human Centered Leadership?
Human (showing up as a full, authentic person), Centered (staying grounded under pressure) and Leadership (treating leadership as distributed action rather than a title). Leaders develop all three at once.
What is an adaptive challenge?
A term from Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky for challenges that are complex and ambiguous, with no known technical fix. They require people to learn, question assumptions and change how they work.
— Lane & Jules
Morris & Morris | BOMBDIGGITY, LLC
Michael Lane Morris, PhD and Jules Morris, PhD are co-authors of “Human Centered Leadership: The Decisive Leadership Advantage,” published in the SAGE Handbook of Human Resource Development (2024). Jules Morris’s doctoral research on creative role identity and leadership (Morris, 2025) directly informs this work.