Efficiency is the refuge of those who cannot lead. We have been sold a narrative that grueling work hours and decades-long persistence are the primary ingredients of national success. When high-profile figures like Mark Carney—a man who has spent his life navigating the sterile corridors of central banking—laud a political leader's "work ethic," they aren't praising results. They are praising a process. They are romanticizing the grind to distract from the outcome.
The obsession with how many hours a leader sleeps or how many years they have dedicated to a single vision is a hallmark of stagnant thinking. In the private sector, if a CEO told shareholders they had a twenty-five-year plan, they would be laughed out of the boardroom. The world moves too fast for quarter-century blueprints. Yet, in the geopolitical arena, we treat this kind of rigidity as "visionary." It isn't visionary. It is a sunk-cost fallacy on a continental scale.
The Performance of Productivity
We need to stop conflating motion with progress. The "unique" work ethic touted by insiders is often just high-octane performative labor. I have spent years in the rooms where these deals happen. I have watched executives and ministers brag about four-hour sleep cycles while making decisions that cost billions because their cognitive function was equivalent to being legally drunk.
When Carney praises a 25-year dedication, he is validating a top-down, command-and-control structure that belongs in the 20th century. True innovation doesn't come from a singular figurehead grinding away at a desk. It comes from decentralized systems that can pivot in weeks, not decades. The worship of the "Great Man" and his "Great Work Ethic" is a smoke screen for systemic inefficiency.
The Problem With Long-Termism
The "25-year" narrative sounds stable. It sounds safe. In reality, it is a recipe for institutional blindness. Consider the math of global shifts.
- Technology cycles: We see a total upheaval every 3 to 5 years.
- Capital flows: Global markets rebalance in response to crises that no one predicts.
- Geopolitics: Alliances shift with the wind.
A leader tethered to a vision conceived in 1999 is trying to run a modern economy using a physical map in a world of real-time GPS. Carney, as a former Governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, knows this. He understands that central banks must be "data-dependent." Why, then, do we celebrate political leaders for being "vow-dependent"?
Persistence is often just a polite word for an inability to admit you were wrong.
The Central Banker Trap
Why does a figure like Mark Carney go out of his way to signal-boost this specific brand of leadership? Because central bankers crave predictability above all else. They hate volatility. They love a leader who is a known quantity, someone who will stay the course even when the course is heading toward a cliff.
Carney’s praise is a signal to global markets that the "status quo" is secure. But for the disruptor, the entrepreneur, and the citizen, the status quo is the enemy. When an insider tells you a leader is "unique" because of their dedication, they are telling you that this leader is reliable for the global elite. They aren't telling you the leader is effective for the populace.
The Productivity Paradox
Let’s look at the actual mechanics of "dedication."
In any complex system, the more you focus on the individual at the top, the more the middle layers of management wither. This is the Bottleneck Effect. If every major decision requires the blessing of a "dedicated" leader who works 20 hours a day, the speed of the entire nation is capped by that one person’s biological limits.
- Decision Fatigue: $D = \frac{C}{n}$, where $D$ is the quality of the decision, $C$ is the cognitive capacity, and $n$ is the number of decisions made in a day.
- Result: As $n$ increases—which it must for a "workaholic" leader—the quality of $D$ approaches zero.
We should be demanding leaders who work less. We need leaders who build systems so robust they don't require a "unique" individual to keep them from collapsing. We need architects, not laborers.
Dismantling the Consensus
The "People Also Ask" crowd wants to know: What makes a leader successful? The lazy answer is "hard work." The real answer is "ruthless prioritization and the ability to kill your darlings." A leader who hasn't changed their mind on a major policy in a decade hasn't been "dedicated"; they have been asleep at the wheel of history.
If you want to evaluate a leader, ignore the testimonials from their peers in the "Global Elite" circuit. Ignore the anecdotes about their late-night study sessions. Instead, ask three questions:
- How many people below them are empowered to make billion-dollar mistakes?
- How quickly can the organization (or country) change direction when the data changes?
- Would the system survive if the leader took a six-month sabbatical?
If the answer to the third question is "no," you don't have a strong leader. You have a fragile system disguised by a charismatic cult of personality.
The Price of Consistency
Consistency is a virtue for a Swiss watch, not a person leading a billion people through a digital revolution. The world does not need more "dedicated" bureaucrats or "unique" workaholics. It needs leaders who are willing to be inconsistent when the facts demand it.
Carney’s endorsement is a relic of an era where we thought we could manage the world into prosperity through sheer force of will. We can't. The "work ethic" narrative is a comfort blanket for people who are afraid of the chaos of true progress.
Stop looking for the hardest worker in the room. Start looking for the person who is trying to make their own job obsolete.
The most dangerous thing in the world is a man with a 25-year plan and the "work ethic" to see it through, regardless of the wreckage it leaves in its wake. Efficiency is not the goal. Survival and adaptation are the goals. If your leadership model requires a "unique" individual to function, your model is already broken.
Build systems, not statues.
