Do Leaders Make a Difference?
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2011
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Do Leaders make a Difference?
We talk much of personal leadership being the key to change in, say, politics or business. But how much can such figures really influence events? Do we overattribute power to individuals such as a prime minister or a media mogul? Have we lost sight of the overall importance of collective action and attitudes, or the trends and events that no individual can resist? Michael Blastland investigates.
Producer: Chris Bowlby Editor: Innes Bowen
Contributors:
Nick Chater Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School
Professor Pat Thane Historian at King's College London
Chris Dillow Writer on economics and psychology
Angela Knight Chief Executive of the British Bankers' Association
Tristram Hunt Historian and Labour MP
Jerker Denrell Professor of strategy and decision making at Oxford University's Saïd Business School
Lord Baker Former Conservative Home Secretary
Andrew Roberts Historical and biographical writer.
Transcript
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| 0:41.5 | When things go well or badly in, say, politics or the economy, |
| 0:44.8 | were always keen to point to personal responsibility, |
| 0:48.0 | but how much are individuals really responsible? |
| 0:51.0 | Michael Blasland asks, do leaders make a difference? |
| 0:55.0 | I blame my parents. They did it. If it hadn't been for their way with porridge, I'd be running the country by now. |
| 1:01.0 | I was scarred, you see, could have been a contender, though |
| 1:05.3 | that math teacher didn't help either. In fact, I have a little list of all the people, but let's stop there. |
| 1:12.1 | Why always people? Why individuals who did it? Why not luck or circumstance? |
| 1:20.0 | If that sounds absurd, if for you individuals make history and without an actor there can be no act, well others disagree fiercely. |
| 1:29.0 | There's too much blame or praise, they say, a kind of bias against the luck and circumstance that are more |
| 1:35.8 | often the root of things. |
| 1:38.1 | As an explanation of big events, this is dangerous territory. |
| 1:41.8 | Was no one to blame for the financial crisis, for example? |
... |
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