The riddle of leadership

There are two contrasting views about great leadership. Business writing has largely adopted the "Great Man Theory", perhaps inspired by Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle, who wrote: "The history of the world is but the biography of great men."

- R GOPALAKRISHNAN

American anthropologist Margaret Mead too had said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world."

On the flip side, Jane Ridley, professor of Modern History at Buckingham University, dismisses the "Great Man Theory" as "romantic claptrap". Leo Tolstoy had felt that "history is made by the sum total of an infinite number of small decisions taken by ordinary people, whose actions are too unremarkable to be documented".

In the "structural forces" perspective, geography, economics, technology, and even chance conspire to create the great leader.

I doubt if there is a single truth, and I am inclined to the view about structural forces. My interest lies in the world of enterprise. George W Merck of American pharma major Merck & Company defined his business purpose altruistically: "Medicine is for people and not profits. If you remember that, profits will follow."

One of his successors, Roy Vagelos, initiated the longest-standing donation programme in history by supplying free Ivermectin, Merck's new drug, for river blindness, to Africans who could not afford to buy the drug.