Middle Managers, Hysterics and Psychopaths are the most typical modern 'Leaders'

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Leadership is a rare trait - but it can confidently be identified; not least because we are 'programmed' to recognise and respond to leadership.

But, most appointed modern leaders are not leaders; indeed very few indeed are leaders - most are mediocre middle managers over-promoted by committees comprising the same type - and most of the rest are hysterics or psychopaths.

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The 'safe choice' nowadays - in a bureaucracy-dominated world - is for mediocre middle managers in committees to over-promote a mediocre middle manager into a leadership position.

This accounts for the majority of the national leaders in the West, including leaders of most major religious denominations, and social systems such as law, education, the police.

These are people who cannot be strategic (but adopt their strategies from others - even paying to have a strategy artificially manufactured by the phony posturings of management consultants, if no other source suggests itself); who cannot decide without a procedure to follow; who cannot take responsibility on themselves.

These are fake leaders who fundamentally can only be led; and who therefore engineer their jobs on the principle of 'teams' and 'teamwork', and 'team-building'; so that they are always following advice and seeking endorsement.

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We now live in a  world of mutually-interacting middle managers; of followers leading followers, the directionless leading the directionless; of arbitrary meta-procedures generating arbitrary micro-procedures validated by arbitrary committees of arbitrary 'experts'.

It is a world of management-speak, slogans, mission statements, targets, audits - all of which fail to disguise a total lack of leadership based upon an unchangeable psychological inadequacy.

Because, if you are not a leader, then you cannot lead.

For instance, nothing can be done to make the current Prime Minister or the Archbishop of Canterbury into real leaders - they are not leaders but middle managers; they never can be leaders and never will be leaders. Hype and spin do not affect the facts.

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We can see this in sport - including my favourite sport of cricket - because sport is one of the few areas of modern life where real leadership still exists; and where real leaders sometimes get appointed to leadership positions.

England have had two real leaders as national cricket coach recently: Duncan Fletcher and Andy Flower (both from Rhodesia, interestingly). In between they had Peter Moores who was an over-promoted middle manager, who was sacked after about a year. Then Moores was re-appointed after Flowers, and Moores has just been sacked after a year, on the excuse of poor results.

In reality, Moores was sacked for the second time because the incoming Andrew Strauss was a successful test cricket captain, and a real leader; and Strauss knows for certain and from personal experience (being 'led' by him) that Moores is just an over-promoted middle manager and cannot ever lead.

Since nothing can be done about what Moores is, he must be got-rid-of regardless of short-term results or insufficient time in the job; simply because he should never have been appointed in the first, or second, place.

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Moores cannot help not being a leader, and I always felt sorry for him as someone so obviously out of his depth. Nonetheless Moores was wrong to take-on the job, and double-plus-alpha wrong to do it a second time, when he knew for sure that he as incapable of doing leading.

The sin of the over-promoted middle manager is not in failing to be a leader - that cannot be helped; but in failing to be honest about the fact that his is not a leader, and seeking and accepting a leadership position nonetheless.

It is for this, and for the consequent damage they inevitably do to their organisations, that I blame the current crop of mediocre middle management non-leaders such as Archbishop Justin Welby or his predecessor Rowan Williams; David Cameron or his predecessor Gordon Brown.

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But not all modern leaders are middle managers.

When the leaders are 'diversity hires' they are often hysterics (female or male) of the 'it's all about me' variety. For hysterics the job, any job, becomes a schoolgirl psychodrama, a popularity contest about how the leader thinks other people are treating the leader: are they respecting, are they being mean?

This is sometimes called narcissism but that is the wrong name - it is a form of hysteria or histrionics. As the name implies; the leader is an actor, and he perceives the organisation as a performance in which he plays the leading role.

The hysterical leader is not in the job for money, or power, or perks - but for the status. He wants to be admired, loved, he wants adulation - therefore the hysteric tends to surround himself with mediocrities. The hysteric may therefore be loyal to subordinates. So long as they flatter and worship him uncritically; then he will be happy with their performance.

Of course, hysterics inflict terrible damage when made leaders, because they do not care anything about the organisation they lead - the organisation is merely a means to the end of their own glorification.

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And some modern leaders are psychopaths - these are the leaders who exploit the organisation for personal gain: for money, power, sexual favours, for the pleasure of tormenting others, to settle old scores... for whatever they most want. Many gang leaders are psychopaths; and psychopaths quite often get into leadership positions in modern society because mediocre middle managers are often impressed by the psychopath's total self-belief and 'dynamism'.

Once in a leadership position, psychopaths engage in fraud and corruption, terrorism and blackmail, flattery and bribery, rule-breaking and making, jury-rigging and gerrymandering... they will do pretty-,much anything which seems expedient in achieving short term goals, and if they believe they can get away with it.

Anger is seldom far from the surface. The psychopath wants to be surrounded by strong allies, not mediocrities - but he will always turn against them (sooner or later). The psychopath is always 'paranoid' and believes he is being persecuted, plotted- and schemed-against (because nothing is ever his fault, and conspiracies explain his failures).

A psychopath may be gifted at telling people what they want to hear - but the psychopath is ruthless, heartless, impulsive, aggressive - his morality is merely a convenient (and therefore labile) rationalisation for his own gratification.

A psychopath in a leadership position is probably even more destructive than an hysteric; because the psychopath will deliberately destroy the organisation he leads, partially or completely, if or when he beliefs this will benefit him in some way that he values.

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Therefore, when choosing leaders for an organisation or institution or nation which actually requires leadership; it is important to choose a leader.

A leader might in practise do a good or bad job of leading, but a non-leader will always do a bad job because he can only do a bad job.
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Why do long-term great leaders inevitably lose their grip, then need replacing ASAP?

My understanding is that we can perhaps see (currently) an example of the only great national leader of this world era having lost-grip; such that removal and replacement (which will, inevitably, be with someone less great, because greatness is so very rare) is apparently both necessary and indeed inevitable. 

I have observed the same in sport; which is one of the last remaining aspects of Western life in which good, and sometimes great, leadership can be observed. My sport is cricket, especially the England team; and I have seen two outstanding England coaches - Duncan Fletcher and Andy Flower (both, interestingly, born in Rhodesia). 

Both took England to the rare pinnacle of winning the Ashes, and Flower managed this more than once, including in Australia. 

But both "went off" at the end of their tenure; making strange and bad errors of player selection and strategy - strange, because "everybody" could see what needed to be done except for the once-great leader.  

The same kind of thing nearly always happens to great leaders, sooner or later - unless they die or are compelled to retire (e.g. by illness or external removal) before this phase is reached. 

(Leaders of all kinds, including the greatest, very seldom or never seem to recognize their own decline and resign at the optimal time - probably because a personality inclined to such doubts would prevent good leadership in the first place.)  

And the removal of the once-great leader who has "lost it" is usually delayed to a damaging extent - exactly because of their prior greatness, and awareness that any replacement will be lesser in stature. 

This is presumably one reason why the "reign" of a great leader is so often followed by a slump of decline. 

This happens, not just from the lesser quality of men who follow; but also from the damage done to those-led, during this inept and misguided "terminal phase" of leadership.    

Why then do great leaders "always" decline? 

Well, there are of course many specific negative reasons - of which the change in personal character and ability inevitable with advancing age is surely one. 

(This is, after all, fundamentally and unavoidably an entropic world; and eternal life and creation can be found only post-mortally, in Heaven.) 

But I suspect that these are all secondary to the fact that any ability is a positive achievement, and the highest levels of human attainment always require multiple positive attributes to be present at the highest level and in a mutually-sustaining balance. 

Such high level of abilities and their harmonious alignment is extremely rare, and of course vulnerable. 

In other words, we ought to be grateful and delighted when great leadership emerges; but we ought not to be surprised that it cannot be sustained for long periods - and we should expect that sooner or later there will be a significant decline.  

Another example is creative writing, for example novels or dramas; in which there are many instances of an author who produce just one great work, and whose subsequent works never match their earlier pinnacle.

(What is rare, is an great author who produces many great works. So that, among English language dramatists of the past 500 years there is only Shakespeare and Shaw who reside solidly in this category.)  

The proper attitude is to be pleased that everything aligned optimally for long enough that the one great work was produced - but not to feel it necessary to "explain" why further great works did not emerge. 

Great artists are not factory assembly lines, which - once optimised - can churn out more-of-the-same quality of item, unless broken; and the same applies to great leaders.

Instead; with great leaders we may observe that for a while, there is a remarkable confluence of abilities with opportunities - and great leadership eventuates while such conditions prevail. 

But it is the confluence, the synergistic alignment, of all necessities at once which is remarkable - not the fact that such supreme coincidence of qualities cannot last forever; nor indeed (usually) for very long.  

The causes of gratuitous wars

It is fascinating (as well as alarming) to see the British political system, bureaucracy and mass media; combining forces to justify and escalate full war on behalf of a remote and disconnected not-ally - including explicit and repeated demands for re-armament, a war economy, and mass military conscription (something not seen here for some 70 years). 

The same is happening over most of Europe. 

And this has been building-up for nearly two decades; by lies upon lies gradually building-up the image of a necessary cartoon super-villain that "must" be fought - or else we shall all be doomed...

(Or rather, even more doomed than we already are by the nakedly evil plans of our national rulers.) 

There have been many gratuitous wars throughout history. One of the most famous is that described in Shakespeare's Henry V; which is depicted as having been due to an insulting gift of tennis balls! 

Much more likely, the war was proximately due to the multi-generational yearning of England's usurping Norman Kings to rule in their native France - a country they have always (and still do) prefer to what they regard as the uncouth English. 

The tennis ball incident was just an excuse to "justify" something Henry wanted to do - like happened again in WWI and WWII, with their pseudo-altruistic (but not actually done) excuses of saving Belgium, and Poland. 

Plus that the Normans were addicted to war as the supreme form of sport (and they were usually very good at it). 

That kind of motivation doesn't really persist in the West, now; yet the current leadership class of the UK and Europe are very keen to engage their nations in all-out gratuitous war. 

There are similarities between past European wars and this current one; but also there are enormous differences. 

One difference is that current national and regional leaders altogether lack the personal prowess, courage and decisiveness of an heroic character like Henry V. They are, indeed, both pathetic and despicable individuals - and collectively. 

The leadership class has for decades been marinated in a cultural soup of pacifism and suicidal altruism. 

Also the mass populations of the West nowadays are (to put it mildly!) not longer trained for war (no compulsory longbow practice! The military have low status, and do not appear in public in uniforms.) - and have been thoroughly demoralized by atheism, materialism and cultural destruction. 

The Western masses are by now docile, distracted, self-destructive - utterly repelled by the idea of war insofar as they even think about it (which is very little).   

Yet, as so often; the "justification" for such a war is gratuitous, profoundly unnecessary, without any possibility of average-overall national benefit; therefore the "need" for war must be built on long-term, systematic deception and untruthfulness - and lying misrepresentation of the actual purposes. 

What interests me is the different motivations that seem to be operating at different levels of The System. 

At the lower and middle levels (the managerial and intellectual classes); the push for war seems to be just another manifestation of their system of incentives - such people behave in ways that they believe will provide them with the greatest prosperity, security, and status among their kind.

When The System is set-up such that supporting war is advantageous to such persons, they will support war - in the usual way that they "support" any other System-priority such as sustainability, antiracism, "equality"; that is to say; they approve and develop and inhabit bureaucratic structures and processes; which are supposedly directed towards that end.   

At a higher level - say, that of national leadership of large institutions, organizations, corporations - there is need for individuals who will actively construct false narratives, suppress truths, engage in multiple immoral and illegal activities; so at this level the motivations need to be cruder, more personally corrupting, more consciously sinful. 

These middle-leadership-level people need (at some level of awareness) to give their allegiance, or at least their obedience, to the strategies of evil purpose. 

This is why we can observe their personal corruption; their strange emotions and reactions, their snake eyes or zombie eyes - all evidencing that they have-been through some kind of shock-and-awe, brain-washing, blackmailing, or spirit-breaking - that guarantees their allegiance. 

For such people; engineering gratuitous war is just "politics as usual". Plus, war has a direct personal appeal of providing for greater opportunities for power-grabbing, abuses with impunity, enacting revenges and torments, self-enrichment and self-gratification - and suchlike abuses, which are always made easier by war. 

Beyond this level of societal control and war-mongering, I am not aware of the identities of human personnel involved; and the spiritual powers (demons) become dominant. 

And because these are unembodied spirits, their motivations are different from those of humans. 

These spirits with direct affiliation to the side of evil are primarily engaged in a spiritual war. 

The realities of spiritual warfare are strategically focused on the damnation of Men in accordance with the motivation of their leader (i.e. Satan); but also are tactically motivated (more individually, in the shorter term) by a kind of vampirism of spiritual energy - an enjoyment in feeding-off the evils of the human condition, and from the destruction of souls.  

At this highest and more strategic level; the purpose of war is very different from that of national leaders. 

For instance; the strategists ideal is a war that is unwinnable, interminable, and constantly escalating into greater extremes of mutual destruction, resentment, lying - and despair. 

Such a war would be intended grow to include as many as possible of the national leadership class who engineered it; as well as the managerial/ intellectual class who justified it to the masses. 

Indeed these bureaucrats of war (i.e. the national institutional leaders etc.) provide greater spiritual energies to vampirize exactly because they have given their souls to evil; than would the unwilling, unenthusiastic, driven-masses who would experience the greatest sufferings and casualties.  

 

How should Australia's Ashes cheats be regarded?

 Remorse? - Too late...

In the current Ashes, Australia are fielding the three convicted cheats - ex-captain Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.

These were regarded as the three major people most responsible for a scheme illegally to sandpaper one side of the cricket ball - which is a way to make the ball swing (i.e. swerve) as it goes through the air. Bancroft was caught on camera doing this (with yellow sandpaper), although trying to hide what he was doing; and the thing eventually came-out. The scheme had been discussed in a team meeting, and the was agreed by Smith, the captain; and Warner taught Bancroft 'how to do it'.


During the course of uncovering - the cheating was morally compounded by initial, bare-faced, dishonest denials of any wrong-doing. And then (crocodile-) tearful (pseudo-) remorse only after it was clear that the evidence of cheating was absolutely solid. Eventually, the players served various periods of bans, and are now back in action as before.

If you think this episode is insignificant; I should make clear that Steve Smith is the best batter in the world at present, and is solidly en route to becoming the second best batter in the entire history of cricket (after another Australian, perhaps the most famous Australian ever - probably the most outstanding team-sports player ever: Sir Donald Bradman). Warner is the best opening batsman in the world at present, Bancroft is more of a rookie at the top level.


It is important to remember that this was not a spur of the moment action, but a group planned scheme; and when caught doing it, the response was not to 'come clean', nor even to say nothing, but to lie.

Another fact has been neglected - Warner taught Bancroft to do something that had clearly been done before, presumably by Warner; and the kind of thing that the whole team would have known about. It is a strong inference that this was just the latest episode in a longer-term program of systematic cheating by the team. 


Cricket (as a sport) seems unable to understand this episode, and unable to formulate the correct response.

At one extreme, the partisan Ashes crowd in Birmingham are roundly booing all the cheats at every opportunity.

 Some of the Birmingham crowd hold up yellow sandpaper sheets to mock the cheating players

Quite reasonably, most people regard booing as unsportsmanlike, and tending to spoil enjoyment.  It seems right that great achievement (such as Smith's literally great performance on the first day of the match) should be acknowledged with polite applause, not boos; even if not with enthusiasm.

At the other extreme, the commentators and journalists are... ambivalent. Presumably because the cricket professionals want to see the best players actually playing (which is fair enough); the cricket professionals seem to have adopted an attitude is that the lads 'made a mistake', but now have 'served their time' - and we should now forget about the whole sordid episode (which attitude is wrong).

Consequently, there are calls for Smith to be allowed to become Australia's captain again (at present he has a permanent prohibition against becoming captain). And Durham County Cricket club (my local First Class team) employed Bancroft as their overseas player and captain as soon as his ban was finished.


What the cricket professions seem unable to recognise is that the fact of someone have been engaged in a carefully planned scheme of cheating tells you something important about that person's nature, as a person.

It tells you that that person is A Cheat.

The denials of wrongdoing, until the evidence became undeniable, tells you that that person is A Liar.


To know that a person is both A Cheat and A Liar is to know something very important about that person. Because it is a matter of personality, of character.

Many people are cheats and liars, under pressure, on the spur of the moment; but only a subset of cheats are cold-blooded. Some cheats try and get away with stuff; but when the cheating comes to light they apologise (even if they may not admit their culpability) - but others (like these) will brazenly, calculatedly lie.

Of course these are young men, and young men may change as they mature. That is true. But these events are still fresh, and in the absence of anything that looks like repentance (quite the reverse) we must assume that these are basically the same people now as they were when they cheated.

Certainly, there can be no presumption that these are now changed men, simply because they have been punished!

So although it seems fair to allow the players to resume their careers, and this will benefit the sport; that does not mean they resume with 'a clean slate'; because now we know things about these young men that we should not ignore. 

Taking this into consideration, it is surely wrong to give any position of responsibility or leadership to someone known to be a liar and a cheat.


This episode is typical of a general problem in our society, which comes from a very deep error. That error is to regard life in legalistic terms; and therefore to ignore what used to be common sense about human character and behaviour. In law, a person is punished, and then it stops and the law has (officially) no further concern - but in life that may be very unwise. In law a person's guilt of a specific crime begins with a presumption of innocence - but in life we need to take into account what we know of a person. 

People used to know without having it spelled out that past behaviour predicts future behaviour; or that (often) behaviour derives from character. Nowadays, quite the opposite; there seems to been some vague idea that punishment has a moral effects of purifying character. (As if ex cons were moral exemplars.)

Some things that a person does, tell us that here is a person who does that kind of thing. A just punishment is a punishment - it is not primarily or necessarily a deterrent, and it certainly is not a way of reforming someone. Indeed, to have been punished for a crime is a strong predictor of that person repeating the crime - simply because he has proved that he is the kind of person who will commit that kind of crime.


Those who have been (justly) punished (as here) are (in general) worse people than those who have not done things that needed to be punished.

This is, surely, what getting to know somebody is all about. We have got to know important things about these Australian players, and perhaps also the team they played-for. And this is not something that should be forgotten or ignored - even though the players may continue to succeed at the highest level.

It is not uncommon for someone to be highly talented, even a genius, and also at the same time a liar and a cheat. Surely that isn't too difficult to understand?