The Complexities of Success: Unraveling the Myth of the Lone Superstar

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The writer is the author of ‘Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future’

When I embarked on my career, discussions revolved around bosses. Nowadays, the focus is all about leaders: extraordinary individuals whose enchanting qualities drive astute decisions resulting in long-lasting success.

The leadership landscape now consists of associations, institutes, centers, colleges, assessment tools, psychographic surveys, and experts, creating what can be referred to as the leadership industrial complex. Numerous leadership books are sold annually, yet the actual practice of leadership doesn’t seem to have improved. Looking at the business and political realms today, one might even conclude the opposite: the more we write and talk about leadership, the less we truly comprehend how to achieve it effectively.

What exactly is happening here? One potential cause of this problem could be a common attribution error, which is further exacerbated by our preoccupation with leadership itself.

Typical accounts of exceptional leadership tend to identify moments of outstanding accomplishment and retrospectively analyze the reasons behind them. By assuming that leadership is a tangible concept, they dissect the characteristics and decisions of those in charge and conclude that these factors were responsible for their triumphs.

But how can they be so sure?

Some Conservatives still hail Boris Johnson’s leadership, arguing that he was the one who secured a landslide victory for their party. However, did he really win that election, or was it Jeremy Corbyn’s loss? Johnson’s success in the Brexit referendum was by a narrow margin, so his record of national electoral leadership is minimal.

Since we cannot conduct a controlled experiment and replay the events of 2019 without Johnson, we will never know for certain whether his specific brand of leadership made the difference or if other factors were at play. Yet, simplistic narratives are always appealing, leading us to fall into the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which means attributing cause-and-effect based on the chronological order of events.

If this is a recurring problem in politics, it is even more prevalent in the business world. When a company flourishes, its CEO often receives all the credit and rewards. They may even have the opportunity to publish flattering books about their achievements. However, the success of a business is a highly complex phenomenon. Did a company thrive solely because of its leader, or was it due to weak, lazy, or absent competitors? Could it be attributed to riding the wave of a booming industry? In the case of successful start-ups, was it the genius of the founder, the CFO’s exceptional network of investors, an outstanding marketing team, a few talented engineers, or simply a stroke of luck resulting from the perfect blend of these factors?

The absurdity of our beliefs surrounding leadership is epitomized by Jim Collins’ renowned book Good to Great, an enduring bestseller. Collins attempts to present his work as scientific, discussing his “lab” where he measures and assesses the qualities of so-called great companies in a quest to uncover the formula for exceptional leadership. However, the identification of these individuals is quite esoteric: Collins defines them as leaders whose companies achieved an average return of 6.9 times the stock market over a 15-year period. So, are bosses who produced returns of 6.8 times considered failures? Or are those who took 17 years deemed slackers?

Attribution errors abound because, whether in business or politics, context is crucial. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. A leader’s track record can appear vastly different depending on when it is evaluated.

When Jack Welch retired at the peak of GE’s share price, he was celebrated as one of the greatest business leaders of all time. However, ten years later, academic Roger Martin noted that under Welch’s leadership, GE’s stock price met its forecast with eerie accuracy on 41 out of 46 occasions, a statistical improbability. Twenty years later, critics now view Welch’s tenure as the beginning of decline.

Due to the elusive nature of attributing success, attempting to do so can be misleading—a notion often attributed to Bill Gates.

When we are enthralled by our own achievements, it becomes easy to assume that our brilliance is solely responsible for the success of a product, a business, or an entire economy. We believe that we did it all! While we may pay lip-service to our colleagues, our unwavering self-belief leaves us prone to repeating the same mistakes, rather than replicating past successes.

Our insatiable desire for heroes and a universal leadership formula fuels a massive industry. However, it does not seem to produce better leaders. In fact, it may even exacerbate the situation. By placing excessive expectations on the notion of leadership, we infantilize ourselves, waiting for someone else to take the lead. It leads many to believe they are extraordinary or infallible due to their successes.

By oversimplifying what is inherently complex and attempting to grasp what is intrinsically fluid, we chase illusions when we should be introspective. We should be asking ourselves: what can I do better today?