The leadership myths we hire for

The world loves to mythologise its leaders.

We tell ourselves they must be visionaries. Inspirers. Architects of culture.

We cast them as Chief Talent Officers - watering every soul in the organisation, shepherding the flock with infinite patience.

That is a comfortable fiction.

Reality is sharper.

Most companies don’t need another sermon about “the future of work.”

They don’t need a leader who treats vision as performance art.

They need someone who can do three things:

make hard choices, commit resources with conviction, and hold their ground when the market tests their nerve.

Because slogans fade.

But decisions echo.

And most companies are not talent monasteries.

They don’t cultivate leadership like monks illuminating manuscripts in the dark.

They adapt more brutally, more pragmatically:

skills are acquired when needed, culture is reset when it falters, people are changed when the system demands it.

That is not cruelty. It is survival. Forests burn so they can grow again.

Inspiration fades. Governance endures.

The workshop is optional. The decision right is not.

So let’s bury the myth of the heroic visionary.

The halo has always been a trick of the light.

What organisations truly need is simpler, sterner, less romantic:

someone who can reset credibility, allocate capital with discipline, and rebuild the rooms where decisions are made.

Not the visionary.

The custodian.

Not the prophet.

The steward.

Not the genius.

The one who does not flinch.

Because leadership is not the promise of glory.

It is the burden of consequence -

and the clarity to carry it.