Against the Führerprinzip: for collective leadership. (2016)

“Highlights the ineffectiveness and dangerousness of powerful individual leaders.”

Prof. Archie Brown, University of Oxford.
A chapter from the special edition of Daedalus (the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences) ‘On political leadership’, published summer 2016.

“The Führerprinzip (‘leader principle’) has not been confined to Nazi Germany. The cult of the strong leader thrives in many authoritarian regimes and has its echoes even in contemporary democracies.

“The belief that the more power a president or prime minister wields the more we should be impressed by that politician is a dangerous fallacy. In authoritarian regimes, a more collective leadership is a lesser evil than personal dictatorship. In countries moving from authoritarian rule to democracy, collegial, inclusive, and collective leadership is more conducive to successful transition than great concentration of power in the hands of one individual at the top of the hierarchy.

“Democracies also benefit from a government led by a team in which there is no obsequiousness or hesitation in contradicting the top leader. Wise decisions are less likely to be forthcoming when one person can predetermine the outcome of a meeting or foreclose the discussion by pulling rank.

“…since no leader in a democracy was ever elected because he or she was believed to have a monopoly of wisdom, it defies both common sense and democratic values for other members of the leadership team to subordinate their independent judgment to the perceived preferences of the person at the top.”

Access the full text here: Against the Führerprinzip

More on the other articles in the special Daedalus issue is available here