| "I think most of us are happy to believe that most companies simply have bad leadership" I don't believe this for a second. I don't know if this makes me the minority or not though! It trivializes forces influencing large public companies. Yes - there can be good and bad leadership - and bad leadership is just bad. But good leadership can be totally helpless in a public company. Not recognizing this is a huge gap. The other forces that incluence a company: - Board - Shareholders (via board) - Banks. Lots of companies have loans. The banks generally have the companies by the balls and can dictate many things when things go south - either due to leaderhip or just prevailing market winds As an example of shareholder/board direct and rapid influence: an activist purchases shares. Installs board member. Causes rapid change in one or more aspects of business structure or strategy to support _their_ portfolio strategy (of course aligned with interests of other shareholders). etc. |
And is shorthanding “everyone without direct experience of the influential power of market forces” into “most of us.”
I think it’s fair to say that the fact that more or most people _don’t_ understand that and _do_ think it’s “all just leadership” explains much of the sentiment about capitalism generally.