ABSTRACT
The pope and the United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) demonstrate executive leadership and entrepreneurial power by deploying “ideas and information to produce significant structural change”. Popes and UNSGs laid out strategic plans and visions, yet their implementing strategies differed widely. In representing transnational institutions, the pope and the UNSG claim to speak for the world’s population. The pope and the UNSG are nuances in the split between conservative and liberal ideals in world politics. In many regards, both positions, the papacy and the UNSG, represent an anachronism. A parallel look at the pope and the UNSG facilitates such an understanding of agency and leadership. The individuals that represent them are elected in dubious ways, influenced by variables hard to grasp, and both are heirs of political developments that shaped the establishment of positions and institutions that have long since changed.
