Most of us learned the principles of leadership through theory generated out of the Industrial Revolution.  Authors such as Frederick W. Taylor whose book The Principles of Scientific Management became a cornerstone of leadership theories and helped to define the characteristics of a leader that many of us hold true today.  Taylor and other leadership thought leaders taught us that people are innately lazy or unfocused in their work and that we as leaders need to implement systems and processes that ensure work flows at the correct level of productivity.  Their focus was on accountability and oversight rather than flexibility and ownership.  As the world around us has evolved and our values have changed, we have yet to evolve past these principles in the vast majority of corporations.