ABSTRACT
So those who see Complex Adaptive Leadership and polyarchy as a revolutionary idea designed to overthrow completely the assumptions of oligarchy, will be sadly disappointed. One can take the view that this is a Darwinian type of evolution, and only those leaders who understand polyarchy will survive – the survival of the fittest.4 One could also see it as a Hegelian dialectic with polyarchy as the natural synthesis of anarchy (‘thesis’) and its opposite oligarchy (‘antithesis’). Worth noting here is that one of the fundamentals of Tao is to be able to understand the dynamic of opposites and paradox. One could even see polyarchy in terms of dialectic materialism (although Engels and Marx are hardly the vogue any more). Whatever metaphorical or theoretical viewpoint one may choose, polyarchy is fast emerging and represents a deeper and hitherto hidden shift of change in the world. Leadership in a polyarchy is more complex than in an oligarchy.
