[LI] Limits of leadership; dangers of charisma; impossible job

There are limits to an individual’s competency, and in large and complex organizations or countries, the role of executive tests those limits. The single leader paradigm is a fixture in our thinking, but are there cases where it is no longer functional? On the flip side, there is a danger in how the charisma of some leaders works in crowds.

A thought about limits of one-person executive leadership (posted June 2017)

Thinking more these days re how our executive model functions poorly (or disastrously) at higher levels of complexity & larger #’s of people.

(my comment)

Not so much who is leader, but systems that are too much for almost any individual (fallible as we all are) to vision & guide well. Bad decisions or even poor ones (often based on ideology more than reasoning) too often lead to suffering by millions.

This is not a call for AI, but rather thinking about our governance and management systems in an ever more interconnected and complex world. And about our expectations with regard to leadership of countries and even large organizations. Should we be thinking more about the limits of leadership?

The dark side of charisma,” Mike Albo, Ideas.Ted.com, 10 October 2017 (posted October 2017)

Interesting thoughts & research on the interplay of charisma and suppression of critical thinking (how being “awestruck” affects how we process information). Questions about roles, dynamics, & responsibilities in organizations…

The US presidency has become an impossible job. Here are three intriguing ideas to fix it. Jeremi Suri, Ideas.Ted.com, 19 October 2017 (posted 25 October 2017)

Filing this discussion of roles POTUS must somehow juggle under questions re single leader paradigm & complex orgs


Other blogs > LinkedIn > LinkedIn articles & posts, 2017 (Jul–Dec)

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