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Why Leadership Matters, but It Is Not Sufficient 89

commitment creep presents a threat that strategy outcomes will turn out
to be quite different from what had been planned, and they will emerge
outside top management’s vision or control. A CEO may, to his or her
surprise, find past operational-seeming actions have locked the compa-
ny in a particular strategy that is difficult or costly to reverse and
change. A European steel company found itself heavily dependent on
one of the key raw materials for making stainless steel while the com-
modity prices for that material were rising aggressively. While this
affected all steelmakers equally, the very high cost slowed down the core
business significantly as stainless steel became relatively expensive com-
pared to other available materials. The organization had become unin-
tentionally and unknowingly committed to a less-than-optimal strategy.
While there are always surprises—not all turns of fate can ever be
accounted for—a resilient company will systematically evaluate the
potential outcomes of its strategic and routine decisions combined, and
like the steel company, turn a threat into an opportunity by using the
eventuality to make the company much more imaginative and stronger
for the future.

THE BURDEN OF LEADERSHIP

Leadership is a political act, and it must earn, for its effectiveness, follow-
ers’ willingness. Resilience cannot be commanded. The leader must make
the case for investing in resilience, and thus build the political will. This can
be difficult when there are other, urgent issues on a daily basis such as pay-
ing the bills or shipping the goods out. The cost of reform may be large and
immediate, while the benefits let us wait for them.
It is often not clear that the people paying the cost for resilience are the
ones that benefit from it the most. The most vulnerable people may be the
most exposed yet the least able to pay. Bangladesh, one of the world’s poor-
est countries and home to 154 million people, is likely to disappear due
to global warming, as a tragic case in point. The New York Times has
reported (September 8, 2009) that Kenya has been subject to the worst
drought in decades, as rains have again failed and “lush land dries up.”