Leadership: Leaders, Followers, Environments

Temporariness and range of leadership outcomes

The outcomes of leadership situations are more complex and nuanced than generally described in the literature. We mentioned above the presence of differences of opinion about the success or failure of most leadership episodes, regardless of whether leadership events are largely successful or unsuccessful. Supporters of a “regime” will tend to view the episodes one way and detractors another. There are two additional features of leadership events worth retelling.

First, leadership outcomes are always temporary. Things change, people leave, and organizations and nations decline or disappear. Perhaps this historical perspective is too long for you. We know Rome, Greece, and Spain were dominant empires long before the British and the Americans, but why should this bother you? The answer is that understanding that nations have risen and fallen before enables you to appreciate why organizations prosper and decline. British historian Arnold Toynbee, in his extraordinary 12-volume series, A Study of History, argued that throughout history, most civilizations have had a genesis, a life, and a decline or even a death.¹¹ Toynbee suggested the dominant “life” of civilizations is getting shorter and that they seem to collapse from within. That is, civilizations die from suicide and not from murder. Corporations and other organizations have similar life cycles. American Airlines, once the leading global carrier, declared bankruptcy in 2011, following ...