For students of leadership and even more urgent question arises. Supposing we could find species wide commonalities among hierarchies of wants and needs, could we also find common stages and levels of moral development and reasoning emerging out of those wants and needs? If so, we could assume, and foundations for leadership. If we define leadership as not merely a property or activity leaders but has relationship between leaders and a multitude of followers of many types, if we see

An unconscious conspiracy in contemporary society prevents leaders — no matter what their original vision — from taking charge within any organization, an entrenched bureaucracy with a commitment to the status quo undermines the unwary leader. To make matters worse, certain social forces — increasing tension between individual rights and the common good, for example — discourage the emergence of leaders. The narcissistic children of the Me Decade seem unwilling to embrace any  new vision but their own — a

Movements don’t emerge because everyone suddenly decides to face the same direction at once. They rely on social patterns that begin as the habits of friendship, grow through the habits of communities (power of weak ties) and are sustained by new habits that change participants’ sense of self.

– Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit…

“If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever.”

— G.K. Chesterton to Alexander Woollcott