"Put not your trust in new leaders, better systems, new organisations or regulatory reorganisation," says the Archbishop of Canterbury. "Human fallibility recognised, God's sovereignty trusted; these are also the only stable foundations for human beings in society," he said. "Setting people or institutions up to heights where they cannot but fail is mere cruelty."
Well, he would say that wouldn’t he? But there is a point in there. The 1980s and 90s was a period obsessed with leadership. Probably hundreds of management books purported to describe the essentials of being a great leader. But leadership implies the led. No one seemed to be asking what they want and despite the rhetoric of both Labour and the Coalition governments, they are in practice wedded to a centralised political system in which there are indeed leaders, but the rest have to follow whether they want to or not.
It isn’t about being a leader. It’s about the exercise of power and control.
