[johnecheck]

If the king/ceo is great, autocracy works well.

When a fool inevitably takes the throne, disaster ensues.

I can't say for sure that a different system of government would have saved Kodak. But when one man's choices result in disaster for a massive organization, I don't blame the man. I blame the structure that laid the power to make such a mistake on his shoulders.

[fragmede]

that seems weird. Why hold up one person as being great while not also holding up one person as not? If my leader led me into battle and we were victorious, we'd put it on them. if they lead us to ruin, why should I blame the organizational structure that led to them getting power as the culprit instead of blaming them directly?

[johnecheck]

I'm not saying you'd be wrong to blame the bad leader - just that blaming them doesn't achieve much.

The CEO takes the blame, the board picks a new one (Unless the CEO has special shares that make them impossible to dismiss), and we go on hoping that the king isn't an idiot this time.

My reading of history is that some people are fools - we can blame them for their incompetence or we can set out to build foolproof systems. (Obviously, nothing will be truly foolproof. But we can build systems that are robust against a minority of the population being fools/defectors.)