My thoughts on leadership have changed along the time. I think I went from a pure idea (what I call a "conceptual leadership") to a more pragmatic vision, a de facto leadership. What did not change was the idea that leaders are most needed in a time of crisis. Like the one we live nowadays.
In fact, not like the one we live, as we are living many different crisis (do we have a plural for crisis? there is one in Portuguese...). Probably, one way to see the need of leadership and the confusion at the time of applying it is the present case of Detroit Downsizing you can see in this video, or read in this article.
I was reading about that in an American magazine whilst crossing USA last March. There are so many questions about why they are doing that or even how, as I am no expert in these questions. But for me the main question is: what is the kind of leadership needed to reach a conclusion and solution like that?
It cannot be a political leadership - there is so much on stake! Neither can be a business leadership or architectonic leadership (just imagine that!) - it has to be a very broad kind of leadership as it has to take in account finances, politics, people, business, education, etc.
There is no simple solution, not a single answer for that. I am not sure if I applaud the decision of Detroit's mayor or if his people will do that. Probably, only History will tell us if that was a good idea or not, it the leadership in that case was correctly applied or not.
Can we wait for History? We should. But we can't. South America is blossoming (believe me!) in terms of Economy and the same for Asia, even parts of Africa. Is it possible that one day the anglo-franco part of North America and Europe will have to migrate towards better places? Well, they had to do it in the past.
If a better leadership does not emerge, it is possible the same happens again. It is time for a leadership with a depth, with a different sense of reality and a broad approach of the world, before the only we can do is downsize our cities.
