Who are the leaders in our heads – and how did they get there? | Aeon Essays

Gautam Mukunda speculated that the reason for the inconsistency in the research was there are actually two fundamentally different types of leaders. The first kind rises up through formal channels, getting promoted, playing by the rules, and meeting expectations. These leaders, like Neville Chamberlain, are “filtered.” The second kind doesn’t rise

Disney, John Andrew Rice, and Steve Jobs not only headed Great Groups, they found their own greatness in them. As Howard Gardner points out, Oppenheimer showed no great administrative ability before or after the Manhattan Project. And yet when the world needed him, he was able to rally inner resources that probably surprised even himself. Inevitabl

the traditional heroic decision maker. In the Task Force, we found that, alongside our new approach to management, we had to develop a new paradigm of personal leadership. The role of the senior leader was no longer that of controlling puppet master, but rather that of an empathetic crafter of culture.

Gladstone shone, but Disraeli created an environment in which others could shine. The latter is the more powerful form of leadership, an adventure in which the leader is privileged to find treasure within others and put it to good use.

So many forces in today’s world routinely use emotional conditioning and social engineering for the purpose of control. Most people are very suggestible and are easily subjected to emotional and mental manipulation. It is only necessary to provide a powerful emotional experience in some form of mass suggestion to convince people that something is “