Before the current era where teams can learn how to organize themselves, leadership was relevant. Without these mindsets and skillsets, teams needed leaders for direction, learning and support. Weak leaders would equate to weak teams.
Until teams learn how to organize themselves, they still rely on leaders for performance, loyalty and growth. Peer connections are too weak to carry the team forward. Even bad leaders are believed to be better than none, evidenced by how many organizations would prefer to assign an unprepared leader to a team rather than let the team go leaderless.
As teams grow in their self-organizing capacity, leadership becomes less relevant, even though strong leadership will still be marketed as essential by leadership schools, consultants and scholars. Leaders capable of coaching teams to be self-organizing are quite vital in the transition. Others, not so much.
So if you're a leader who doesn't have this capacity, or passion for self-organizing teams, it's time to move on or back to being a specialist or expert in your field.