Why do we celebrate incompetent leaders?

Management historian Martin Gutmann challenges us to rethink what great leadership looks like. While we tend to celebrate those with a proclivity for action and brash words, great leaders are often precisely those who don't need to generate excessive noise or activity. To make this point, Gutmann draws on contemporary research and historical examples, including the famed but disaster-prone Ernest Shackleton. Martin Gutmann is a speaker, author, and researcher interested in how the past can shed new light on contemporary issues. He is a professor at the Lucerne School of Business, Switzerland. His most recent book is The Unseen Leader: Martin has a Ph.D. in history from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, USA, an eMBA from IE Business School, Spain, and higher education teacher’s training from Harvard University, USA and ETH Zurich, Switzerland. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at