Leadership ordered but not received: Elites fail in times of crisis

“Whoever orders leadership gets it”: Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the now legendary promise of campaigner Olaf Scholz has haunted not only the Federal Chancellor, but many political and economic leaders around the world.

First the pandemic, now the war. In addition, there is an energy crisis, historically high inflation rates and the almost forgotten but still looming climate catastrophe. One has to go back to the darkest of times of the 20th century to find an era when elites were similarly challenged and overwhelmed.

Leadership ordered, but not delivered: The harsh verdict that many are now making about Scholz hits the leadership elites in numerous countries. At least that is the result of the global “Elite Quality Index”, which the University of St. Gallen (HSG) has now compiled for the third time for 151 countries based on 120 quality criteria. The decisive criterion here is whether the elites give more back to society than they receive through their status.

On the one hand, the result confirms the long-term trend in elite research: “Small is beautiful.” Small countries such as Singapore, Switzerland, but also Israel and the Netherlands occupy the top spots.

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In the supposed great powers such as the USA, Russia and China, on the other hand, the elites turn out to be value destroyers rather than value creators for their respective societies. “Elite means power,” says elite researcher Michael Hartmann from TU Darmstadt. The happy combination that the powerful are also the top performers is apparently less and less common.

Unfortunately, this also applies to the German leaders, who were able to move up four places in the international elite ranking, but, according to Tomas Casas, are far from exploiting the country’s potential. “The German elite is afraid of heights,” says the HSG researcher, “as soon as it comes to thinking on a larger scale, ideas and a strategy are often lacking.” That applies to political decision-makers as well as to business leaders.

Much more important, however, is another trend that makes Germany’s weaknesses even more obvious: The global business model, on which the value creation and thus also the legitimacy of most elites is based, may have been permanently damaged by the ongoing crises. Boundless free trade, change through trade, efficiency through the international division of labor – all of this no longer works in times of pandemic and war.

Search for a new model for the world economy

So when the global elite from business and politics meet in Davos in a few weeks for the World Economic Forum (WEF), there will be many perplexed faces. Instead of igniting the next stage of globalization, there should be much more talk about decoupling, reshoring and national autonomy. Crisis meetings instead of deal making, withdrawal instead of departure will determine the agenda in Davos.

There has never been a similar turning point in the 51-year history of the World Economic Forum. In view of the new hot and cold wars, the vision of WEF founder Klaus Schwab to increase the prosperity of all through ever stronger global cooperation seems to have fallen out of time. The idea of ​​globalization, which was primarily shaped by the West, has lost massively in attractiveness since the financial crisis of 2008. Even the global threat of climate change will not bring a world at war with itself back together.

“Leaders lack a new narrative, a vision of what the global economy should look like in the future,” Casas complains. Politically, this leadership vacuum is dynamite, since the legitimacy of the elites is based on the fact that they create added value for their societies. If this management task is ordered but not delivered, there is a risk of serious upheaval.

Things have just gone well in France. However, it is seething in many countries, and populist seducers like Donald Trump are just waiting to replace democracies’ weakness in leadership with authoritarian strength. Yet authoritarian elites in China and Russia fare far worse than Western leaders on the Elite Index.

More: What Macron’s re-election means for Europe

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