Is There a Crisis of Leadership?

Simon Ash
5 min readMay 3, 2021
A man shouting and banging a desk
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Is there a difference between great leaders and good leaders?

It only takes a quick scan of the media to see that some of the ‘great’ leaders of the world are deeply flawed. There are countless examples of politicians whose integrity is being questioned or business leaders who have pursued profit at the expense of everything else.

Yet these leaders have risen to prominence in our society. They could be defined as great, even effective in some ways, but are they actually good? And if they are not good, how have they risen so high?

The crisis in leadership

There have been plenty of scandals (such as the banking scandals of the early 2000s) that have uncovered poor leadership and shown that many people in high positions are not serving others effectively.

What has gone wrong? Is it that our individualist culture has undermined positive models of leadership such as servant leadership? Are we too self-serving? If so, this is not just an institutional challenge, or a professional issue, it is a cultural problem.

But, before we go further, what do we actually mean by leadership? Is this just the preserve of the rich and powerful, or for the heads of corporations and states?

How do we define leadership?

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Simon Ash

Ever curious. Lover of adventure. Fascinated by leadership. Inspired to serve others on their journey. https://therightquestions.co