Project Times has published an article about how change management, which often provides extensive benefits to an organization, can be completely derailed by a lack of strong leadership.

When we have run into difficulties and the approach failed to deliver the expected harmonious change, it was always because a group of stakeholders were not sincere and would try to manipulate the others in preserving THEIR status quo. When such a roadblock appears, I really expect that upper management, as the sponsor/client of the changes, will take on its traditional role as the legitimate ultimate organizational authority.

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None of the chief executives involved came forward to apply the required directive approach. They preferred waiting for the conflict to just settle by itself [...]. Of course, the change then stalled and stalled; the status quo desired by the resisting group was maintained. And the organization ended up worse that it was in the first place, because the vast majority that desired the change was deprived of it and will not collaborate next time we come to them to work on improving their organizational project management maturity.

Ineffective leadership is a real problem in project management with very serious consequences. If you are a project manager who needs to hone these skills, you might check out another recent Project Times article on the top 10 leadership qualities for PMs.