Read : "Davos man and his defects" on http://www.economist.com/news/business/21570684-global-leadership-industry-needs-re-engineering-davos-man-and-his-defects.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. A couple of quotes :
The two most popular words in the business lexicon are probably “global” and “leadership”. Put them together and people in suits start to salivate. That is perhaps why more than 1,000 corporate bosses are flocking to Davos, a Swiss ski resort, this week. There, at the annual bash of the World Economic Forum (WEF), they sip vin des glaciers with some 50 heads of state and 300 cabinet ministers. Whatever the topic, from deficits to deadly diseases, the talk is all of providing “global leadership”.
So there is clearly a need for global leadership. But when the public look at what is on offer, they are not impressed. Many of the bankers and politicians caught dozing by the financial crisis were regulars at Davos. Ordinary folk trust Davos Man no more than they would a lobbyist for the Worldwide Federation of Weasels.
Clever businesspeople have a tendency to be arrogant at the best of the times; telling them that they are masters of the universe can only magnify it. Arrogance breeds mistakes: look at all the empire-building bosses who attempt ambitious mergers despite ample evidence that such mergers usually fail.
If leadership has a secret sauce, it may well be humility. A humble boss understands that there are things he doesn’t know. He listens: not only to the other bigwigs in Davos, but also to the kind of people who don’t get invited, such as his customers.
Enjoy !
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