History of Leadership

Another busy day which means yet again, I will link to someone else's work - this seems to be habit forming. This time someone who is trying create an online history of leadership back to 2000 BC but which seems be more of a site about famous people over the ages. Some of these are very interesting to read.

It was interesting reading the biography for Alexander the Great as it reflects a significant change in what would be considered the work of a good leader. Sure Alexander the Great conquered a lot of territory and did have a significant impact on the course of history. His track record on one little detail of leadership that is now considered very important in today's business society was very poor.

That little detail is sustainability. His empire did not survive his death as his generals immediately started to scheme and fight against each other. Peter Green, author of Alexander to Actium refers to the period of fighting between Alexander the Great's generals following his death as his "funeral games". If some of the sources are to be believed, Alexander the Great's succession planning was to leave his empire "to the strongest". Alexander may have attempted to build an empire but what he seems to have achieved is to have engineered a shake up.

On the other hand, the fact that Alexander the Great was capable of keeping what turned out to be such a volatile group of generals together does speak a lot for his leadership. There are certainly some very desirable traits in there.

I suppose the point of this topic is that we need to be careful when assessing desirable leadership traits across different contexts and time periods. Most ancient generals would seem to have been focused on conquest for the purposes of personal empire building (or for plunder). I expect a little more out of my leaders.