It is of course an illusion created because all the talent around a director is taken for granted. Put Steve Jobs or Elon Musk is Somalia and come back in 10 ye

It is of course an illusion created because all the talent around a director is taken for granted. Put Steve Jobs or Elon Musk is Somalia and come back in 10 years and see what they had accomplished. Probably not very much at all. Elon Musk himself realized early that he could not achieve his dreams in South Africa and left. The danger of focusing too much on the leading person, is one easily forgets that if one doesn't create a society full of talented engineers, scientists, teachers, with good infrastructure etc, then these people will not be able to do their magic. It is easy to think that without Eddison there would have been no lightbulb, but really when you look at it, it becomes clear that if he had not lived somebody else would have done it. But they wouldn't have done it any random place. With high chance it would have been the US as well due to the presence of the right sort of mix of talent, drive, money and opportunity. If you fail to create this environment then "great" leaders are useless. Napoleon was a brilliant military strategist, but if he not lived France probably would have gotten another brilliant military strategist taking over Europe? Why because the French revolution created a system that allowed talent to flourish. Talented generals moved up the ranks fast rather than those with the proper names and family.