ANTREPRENORIAT. LEADERSHIP. AFACERI, ENGLISH

Leaders’ fall

A few years ago there were not so many examples in the media of how leaders ended their careers. Why they were replaced and where they retired for the rest of their lives were questions open to a lot of research.

It seems that we hear more and more about these stories today – in the age of “transparency” and information sharing.

The one I’m sharing here is a not very amazing and it is a relatively expected story of what the very powerful business leaders do when the world is too busy minding their own business. The story, still unfolding, of Carlos Ghosn chairman of Nissan, chairman and chief executive of Renault and chairman of Mitsubishi Motors. That’s a lot of power, even if distributed through various checks and levels, in one person. There are many issues at work here, but we cannot help but remember Lord Acton’s words: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority.”

Arrogance or as the Financial Times says, hubris, will get everyone in the long run.