Towards better definitions of leadership and governance

Having watched the Kevin Rudd government response to the GFC (a lot of the credit there goes, I understand to Swan), and read about Abraham Lincoln's response to the US Civil War, FDR's response to the Great Depression and World War (part) Two, John Curtin's response to World War (part) Two, seen and experienced similar responses by people I know who aren't famous to life changing events, and now watching Dan Andrews responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, I consider a key part of any definition of good leadership has to be:

Willingness to give up one's personal goals/ambitions for the sake of the broader wellbeing in response to a crisis.

I have been making some notes about a retirement project: a book on governance (to possibly be titled "Tweaking Governance"), and one of the aspects I have been thinking of is the mistake some people make of thinking lessons can be drawn from the military for good leadership of businesses.

Rubbish.

The military is about:

(a) logistics, which has administrative - not leadership - points that may be worth considering if they relate to the circumstances of the business concerned (and the military, for what it is worth, cannot afford to operate on - and has never done so - the "just in time" rubbish that has now been so thorough;y discredited by the pandemic);

(b) preparing people to kill - possibly not within sight, in the case of, for instance, artillery/bomber/naval crews; and

(c) establishing an authoritarian hierarchy for the purpose of ensuring members of the military will die when ordered to. 

Businesses do not operate in a war situation - ultra-competitive, unnecessarily so, destructively so in terms of the community's overall well being, and some heads of business organisations (I won't call them leaders) WRONGLY think that the authoritarian approaches of the military can be applied to business.

They can't: all military organisation/leadership can do in the non-military world is impose an authoritarianism that is inherently designed to crush the individuality and creativity of works - who, in the non-military world, can resign if they feel oppressed or stifled (that is subject to a few caveats about finances and discrimination around opportunities for employment).

This is made worse by my experience of most military people being bigots in one and often more ways. That sort of thinking and emotions just creates risks for businesses.

Another misapplication is sometimes people trying to draw on the "heroine's journey" myth to create the illussion of a nobler. greater purpose for business.

Again, rubbish.

Most businesses are about profit - end of story. Some also include a humanitarian aspect, but that can be overwhelmed by the profit motive - as we are currently seeing in privately run aged care homes.