This book explores the harmful dynamic between two great organizational archetypes, the Heroic Leader and the Passive Follower, and how it infects even the best of companies. 

Heroic Leaders are convinced their employees can?t handle responsibility so they take on the burden, while Passive Followers, seeing that responsibility is being taken away from them, retreat even further into inaction. 

Why do some people take credit for everything-dooming themselves to lonely crash-and-burn-while others go to extreme measures to hide from the spotlight? Why do "team efforts" often end in acrimony? Renowned consultant and business-school dean Roger Martin explains it's the fear of failure that infects companies and people with the bug he calls the Responsibility Virus.

The author proposes a sensible and straightforward way to cure the cycle of over-and under-responsibility. 

The Responsibility Virus: How Control Freaks, Shrinking Violets--and the Rest of Us--Can Harness the Power of True Partnership
Author: Roger L. Martin 
Publisher: Basic Books; (October 1, 2002)
ISBN: 0465044107