By Alec Hogg
| Have just turned the final page of a pretty remarkable book by Richard Tedlow called The Emergence of Charismatic Business Leadership. It’s one of those masterpieces that will be returned to often – whole chunks demand another read. In brief, Tedlow explains how Charisma and Business Leadership were mutually exclusive until relatively recently. But how media attention on the people behind the numbers has turned their Charisma into an almost cult-like quality. Sometimes this mystical quality was natural and used to good effect, as with Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, and several others whose stories are covered in some detail by the business historian. In other cases, Charisma was artificially created to become a destructive force, per Elizabeth Holmes and Jeff Skilling. The big message for me was how we should be wary of any larger-than-life character. Whether it’s business, politics, or even our social circles, the Charismatic are rarely quite what they seem. This book is a thought-provoking treasure. More for you to read: * Savers Will Benefit From A Return to Sound Money. A signal in the bond market suggests the return to a more stable long-run economy may be upon us. Click here. * The Alternative, Optimistic Story of Population Decline. Why the decline in China’s population might not be such a bad thing after all. Click here. * Challenging secrecy: OUTA taking legal action to access the full record of the NERSA decision to grant Karpowership generation licences. Click here. |
