Leadership culture
The idea of what constitutes great business leadership has changed more radically in the past 30 years than in the previous five decades and is in the process of changing again.
A shift from managerial capitalism to investor capitalism, particularly in the US, placed a premium on visionary, entrepreneurial, charismatic leaders, often endowed with imperial powers by hopeful shareholders and boards.
With that shift in the 1980s and 1990s came a wave of popular business literature, equating chief executives to warlike leaders, from Alexander the Great to General George Patton, and a revival of interest in ancient “management” texts such as Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Machiavelli’s The Prince.
But, as Nigel Nicholson of London ...
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