Leadership at a Crossroads Still: 10 Urgent Ways It Has Failed in the Last 45 Years

From an anthropologist’s viewpoint, leadership is not just about authority or power; it is a cultural mirror, a profound influence on the societies it guides. When leadership fails, it is not just an individual’s shortcomings, but a reflection of broader cultural shifts, institutional flaws, and evolving human values.

Over the past 45 years, since roughly 1980, we’ve witnessed sweeping transformations in technology, global economics, media, and identity. Yet leadership across sectors has often lagged, becoming reactive, performative, or self-preserving. Visionary and integrative (leadership is needed to keep pace with these changes.

Below are 10 anthropologically rooted observations of how leadership has failed and why these failures matter.

1. Replacing Influence for Substance

Leaders have increasingly relied on charisma, media manipulation, and optics rather than cultivating wisdom, competence, or ethical substance. For instance, political leaders who excel in public speaking and media presence but lack substantial policy knowledge, such as many of 47’s Cabinet Members. From an anthropological lens, this reflects a shift in social capital, from respected elders to attention-commanding figures like 47 himself, disrupting the role of leadership as a moral and knowledge-based anchor.

2. Commodifying Culture for Short-Term Gain