Leadership in the Time of Plague

Abstract

The main point of this article is comparison of two types of leadership: heroic, individualistic, formal, and dispersed, networked, spontaneous. The first is presented in the famous novel by Antoine de Saint Exupery The night flight the second is depicted in Plague by Albert Camus. Formal leadership is experiencing nowadays visible deficit of power. Even the top political leaders of the world, CEOs of global corporations and media moguls are not as powerful as the used to be and not as powerful as they seem. Many of them openly admit that they are simply not able to fulfill their promises and to follow their agendas. This is particularly visible in the times of plague. When degenerated “heroic” traditional power gradually evaporate new networks replace it spontaneously. People who do not seek rewards take over burden of responsibilities in the critical fight against plague. To what extent they will be able to replace the leftovers of traditional leadership?