<p>This article responds to Pat Werhane’s “Embedded Leadership and its Discontents.” I summarize her model of “embedded leadership,” which draws on complex adaptive systems theory. She argues that leaders should universally minimize their use of authority, remain flexible, and situate themselves in the “nitty-gritty” of organizational life. I locate her view within a broader family of anti-authoritarian, or adaptive, leadership models. I then clarify what a model of leadership must do and argue that hers is not clearly a model of leadership at all, since it fails to specify any distinctive function for leadership. Leadership, I argue, is necessarily teleological: if no one has the function of moving the organization in the right direction, there is no leader. I examine two case studies—Zappos and Suning—both of which illustrate how such models can hinder the achievement of group goals through the diminishment of central direction and coordination. I suggest that her appeal to Adam Smith’s impartial spectator points to limits in embedded leadership, while emphasizing that leaders—though not themselves necessarily embedded—must remain attentive to the embedded wisdom distributed throughout the organization. I conclude by arguing that reliance on the self-organization of nature as a template for human organization is misguided.</p>