The Evolution of Leadership
How leadership has evolved and what it teaches us about leading change today.
Recently, I have been looking at how political and business leadership have changed over the last fifty years. Every now and then, it is a good idea to get behind the news headlines. Leadership styles in politics and business tend to blend into each other. I have been trying to understand shifts in decision-making, power dynamics, and societal impact, and to see whether today’s leaders, when faced with similar challenges, stand on the shoulders of those who came before, or whether leadership is really something that evolves in fits and starts, capable of both progress and regression depending more on the environment it confronts rather than the personalities involved.
My thinking was that if history tends to rhyme with itself, then it is perhaps helpful to look back to an earlier period that in many ways mirrors our own, to see how leaders navigated some of the most complex political, economic, and corporate challenges of their time and what those insights could mean for today.
A lot has obviously evolved over the last fifty years; however, the mid-1970s were such a pivotal time that seem to have marked a turning point in the leadership style of political and business leaders. The oil crisis, rising inflation, and the first waves of modern globalisation tested leaders’ ability to navigate complexity.
However, while they all faced the same macro environment, this period reveals contrasting styles of leadership that continue to shape the political and business world today. Back then, President Gerald Ford approached the White House with a pragmatic, situational style; In the U.K., Prime Minister Harold Wilson tended to rely on a more democratic consensus approach at 10 Downing Street; while in France, President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing brought a visionary approach to the Élysée Palace with modernisation efforts, social reforms, and closer European integration.
In the corporate world, the titans of the era faced their own array of complex threats. CEO’s such as Reginald H. Jones at General Electric had a pragmatic, cooperative approach in dealing with sprawling operations and rising regulatory scrutiny, while the transformative visionary Walter B. Wriston at Citicorp confronted modernity by helping to build the technological and global financial networks, ATMs, electronic transfers, and cross-border currency systems that would transform banking. At Royal Dutch Shell, the leadership team fostered a culture of foresight that pioneered scenario planning, helping the company anticipate energy shocks and geopolitical uncertainty.
This got me thinking in broader terms about how different styles of leadership have evolved over much longer time frames and across various geographies. While there are also other influences on successful leadership styles in other parts of the world that emphasise harmony or community over individualism, one thing seemed clear: leadership style tends to move with history, changing form as societies evolve, economies expand, and institutions rise or fall.
It is not just about the “great man” who changed the game. It’s also about the system they operated in. Thus, yesterday’s leader could be situational or pragmatic, while today’s could be purposeful, visionary, or empathetic, depending on the roles, contexts, and constraints. Each era seems to redefine what it means to lead, sometimes through power, sometimes through persuasion, and sometimes through service to those they serve.
When you think about it, the story of leadership is, in many ways, the story of human history itself, and a big part of understanding the shifts in leadership style is the interconnected forces that shape decision-making and its outcomes.
Recognising these patterns and styles can help today’s leaders decide when to act decisively, when to inspire, when to collaborate, and when to adapt. By aligning leadership style with the environment and challenges at hand, leaders increase their ability to navigate complex systems and create lasting impact. A lesson as relevant today as it was fifty years ago.
Leadership: From Power to Purpose
Leadership throughout history seems to have always evolved with context, from command and control to connection, collaboration, and empowerment. It is a function of its times. In the earliest empires, authority rested on hierarchy and order. Pharaohs, emperors, and monarchs ruled through what the German sociologist Max Weber had called “traditional authority”, the idea that legitimacy was grounded in custom rather than consent. Yet custom alone was not enough because even autocrats needed to inspire belief. As the 19th-century French Emperor Napoleon had put it, “A leader is a dealer in hope”. Leadership depended not only on control, but also on the capacity to inspire others; to do that well, they also needed charisma, which Weber had called “charismatic authority”.
As societies became more literate and connected than in the time of the Pharaohs or ancient monarchs, power began to decentralise. From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, literacy rates rose, print culture expanded, and the circulation of knowledge fostered increased public debate. The democratic revolutions of the 18th century in the United States and France had given rise to participatory leadership, grounded in consultation and shared responsibility. Thinkers such as Rousseau and Jefferson contributed to the philosophical foundations of participative and consultative leadership, a political expression of Enlightenment humanism. Jefferson’s belief that “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government”, exemplified the view that governance should serve human welfare.
“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government” - Thomas Jefferson
Leadership thus became less about command and more about coordination, which was guided by inclusion. In the early twentieth century, the management theorist Mary Parker Follett extended this ideal into organisational life, reframing power as “power with, not power over”. Her thinking offered an alternative to “the boss knows best”, marking a shift from power as coercion towards power to co-create.
Later, the industrial age introduced a new archetype: the visionary. Leaders such as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison looked beyond management to imagination, and their business leadership improved the quality of daily life for so many with their inventions and manufacturing know-how. As Warren Bennis, a pioneer of contemporary leadership studies, wrote, “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality”. Alongside this emerged transactional leadership, the management of processes and systems that sustained scale. Peter Drucker, the management expert, articulated the distinction between management and leadership: “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things”. Together, these approaches powered the corporate age.
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality” - Warren Bennis
By the late 20th century, the political scientist James MacGregor Burns, an authority on leadership studies, defined transformational leadership as the ability to “raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality”. Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs, and Jacinda Ardern are probably among the best examples that come to mind of leaders who embodied this blend of purpose, empathy, and clarity.
Around this time, a coaching and servant leadership style further deepened this ethos. The Silicon Valley coach, Bill Campbell, famously summarised leadership as arising from people: “Your title makes you a manager. Your people make you a leader”, while the leadership consultant Robert Greenleaf’s servant-leader “serves first”. This is the type of similar moral sentiment that the former US President John F. Kennedy had earlier expressed in his inaugural address: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.
Modern leadership tends to be less about hierarchy than systems thinking and nuance. It adapts to complexity through flexibility and feedback. Situational theory from Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard emphasises adjusting style to context, with direction when needed and delegation when possible. Today’s highly successful leaders have tended to blend vision, empathy, and adaptability. Satya Nadella rebuilt Microsoft’s culture over the last decade around learning and purpose. He led a profound cultural and strategic transformation by fostering a growth mindset, breaking down silos, and emphasising customer empathy in the face of digital disruption. By pivoting towards the cloud, AI, and open-source collaboration, he demonstrated how digital transformation requires a leadership style that not only drives technological change but also cultivates a culture of trust, collaboration, and continuous learning. In the political field, the former US President, Barack Obama, has also focused on the importance of empathy in fostering change and transformation in society. As Peter Senge once observed, “Leadership is the capacity of a human community to shape its future”.