Do leaders change history—or does history make its leaders?
Penguin Random House India presents Profits, Prophets, Coaches and Kings: (When) Do Leaders Make a Difference?, a thought-provoking exploration of leadership by Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel.
We are used to telling stories of success and failure through the people at the top. A visionary CEO transforms a business. A president changes a nation’s future. A coach takes a struggling team to victory. But how much of an outcome can be attributed to one person—and how much depends on the conditions in which they lead?
In Profits, Prophets, Coaches and Kings, Diamond investigates this question across four spheres: politics and history, business, sport and religion. Bringing together examples of leaders both famous and less familiar, he asks when individual talent, determination and judgment can make a decisive difference—and when circumstances place limits on what even the most capable leader can achieve.
Among the figures he examines are Seretse Khama, the first president of independent Botswana; Rachel Carson, whose writing helped bring environmental concerns to public attention; and John Wooden, the celebrated UCLA basketball coach. Through their stories, Diamond considers how factors such as resources, geography, culture, technology and timing interact with an individual’s choices and abilities.
The questions he raises extend far beyond the history books. Should a CEO be rewarded when a company performs well? Can replacing a coach transform a team’s fortunes? And how do we judge a leader’s impact when so many other forces are at work?
At a time when leaders are often celebrated as visionaries or blamed for failures, Diamond offers a more searching way to think about power and influence. His book invites readers to look closely at both the people who lead and the conditions that allow them to make their mark.
Drawing on the analytical breadth that has defined his work, Diamond offers a nuanced examination of leadership and its limits. Profits, Prophets, Coaches and Kings ultimately ask readers to look beyond the individual and consider the larger forces that determine who lead, why they succeed, and when they can genuinely change the world.
About the Author
Jared Diamond is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the seminal million-copy-bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, which was named one of Time magazine’s best non-fiction books of all time, Collapse, a No. 1 international bestseller, and The World Until Yesterday, among other books. A professor of geography at UCLA and noted polymath, Diamond’s work has been influential in the fields of anthropology, biology, ornithology, ecology and history, among others.
