Thanks for making some sense of my rather incoherent post Dave. I agree with your views on leadership, and how they become insulated from reality by their own set of myths and stories - and thus hubris is probably inevitable. I can think of several examples I've encountered! And, as the saying has it, all political careers end in failure - and leadership is in some sense always a political occupation.

This reminds me of Peter Block's work in which he classifies our key relationships in terms of trust and agreement. Our most valuable associates are those we trust but with whom we disagree ... perhaps because they encourage us to refer back to reality in order to better understand, and learn from, the basis of the disagreement.
It also reminds me of the 'scientific method', a key requirement of which is to be sceptical about what we think we know and to hold what we do 'know' as our current best approximation of what there may be to know.

I see an aspect of sampling bias here, similar to the issue of interpreting evolution as "survival of the suvivers" (as opposed to "... of the fittest"), and it goes like this:
Those who succeed to rise up the ranks are those who succeed to rise up the ranks - given the circumstances. Thus, their particular subjective experience is that, obviously, what they do is successful, and rewarded by the environment. Which, in a way, is just an objective truth: as a description of WHAT is, not WHY it is so.

Looking back, they can see (interpret) their own attitudes, beliefs, actions as reasons for past success and recipies for future success. Let's call that learning? Empiricism?

Yet I still don't see a reason to create a belief system around the issue of "leadership"? If what I read about history is true, there were (and are) times (and places) where "being a leader" was just accepted/interpreted as a particular role (given by god, fate, ...), without making noise. Or you could contemplate it as an emergent property of the social interactions.

Anyway: most of us are infected by the "leader" meme - the idea that such a thing "exists" and is worth mentioning at all. And that it can be good or bad or too little or too much. (Hubris would then be: too much of a good thing - if you want accept the conditions at all).

Imagine: even I received Ken Blanchard's "heart of a leader" as part of a recent "training" (I assume people reading this blog will see the irony - I mentioned it to others who fail to see the contradiction).

I read it, but these pious secular trivialities need an antidote. I think I should re-read ice-cold Niklas Luhman's "social systems".

Just to work against my own hubris?

Re-reading my commment, I think I should add:
I'm German, and we may have very particular issues with "Führer" (leader), which may not resonate with everyone.

POSTED ON BEHALF OF STEVE FREEMAN

There was an article in the HBR a year or two ago on over-optimism in management. They pointed out that there is a golden class of manager who gets selected by the gods (i.e. someone very senior) early on in their career. After that everything just works because all the competent people around them make sure that their projects succeed in an attempt to please the big boss by proxy. The golden manager rockets through the organisation, never realising why everything just works. If they're lucky, their real abilities will never be tested.

You may know of Art Kleiner's most recent (??) book titled "Who Really Matters: The Core Group Theory of Power, Privilege, Success" ... I think it must delve more deeply into the over-optimism and effectivvely the lack of much challenging input from people outide of core groups in organizations.

http://www.well.com/user/art/WRMadvpraisecomments.html

With respect to most of Core Group Theory, my feedback / opinion is similar to that of Arie de Geus:

" It places fashionable subjects like the Balanced Scorecard and the present fad to run organisations by means of elaborate targets in a sharp spotlight where it says that these are the means "to help the organisation perform well enough to make it through the day without overtaxing the attention of the people in control."

An interesting read Dave, as are the associated comments.

I remain frequently astounded at the level of hubris that is exhibited by leaders in my own organization, mostly represented by a "this is how it will be done" type attitude. What's most enlightening (OK, intriguing) is that this frequently comes on the heels of consensus input. It would appear that it is also supported by the leader's close apparatchiks, who, failing to think for themselves, or even dare challenge the leader, fall into the trap of parroting with an annoying level of sincerity, that which is now the 'party line'.

As a people manager myself, I am highly cognisant of my place of influence (the word control rarely makes it's way past my lips) in a complex environment. I read my success as that of a direct reflection of the team that I have "influenced", and deflect all recognition to them - mostly to keep myself humble.

One of the things that does puzzle me that I'm hoping someone can help with is this....during times of intense pressure, turmoil, uncertainty or flux, the values that drive an organization (perhaps call them "peace time values" for want of a better descriptor) seem to evaporate, and the hubris of a leader or group of leaders becomes accentuated. The principles behind the values are lost, leaving employees confused over who or what they should really believe and follow.

Is there a surival instinct at play here? That is, do leaders abandon the values that they attempt to guide an organization by on a daily basis, in favour of their own hubris-driven agenda? I have seen this so many times, and rarely does the "business" object to or admonish the leader, often times upholding their actions as "inspirational". Why does this happen in complex organizations?