So I am sitting here in the freezing cold of one of the press rooms at the G20 Summit. I could go outside, of course, and I certainly won’t be freezing any longer.

In any case enough of the weather report. On my trip down here – Toronto – San Francisco – Los Cabos, I kept mulling over in my mind Dan Drezner’s assertion of the role of leadership and change. It is not surprising that I would, I guess, given my somewhat wonkish existence and in particular given that I and my colleagues fly all over the world chasing various global summitry settings waiting for the conclusion of these assemblages.

Well Dan has repeted several times – most recently in his June 6th post “These aren’t the leaders your’re looking for …“that leadership can only be infuential at the margin, or as he stated:

… leadership matters on the margins – but power and purpose matter one whole hell of a lot more.

Well I am not quite sure what to make of it. (Of course I could go talk to him – but that would be no fun.) I suppose what Dan is suggesting that large strategic national policy is like a great ship of state moving on a pre-determined course where leadership has the capacity to only correct in minor ways the principal policy trajectory of the nation. In particular in the current circumstances of many of the G20 countries today, the arrangement of interests and political coaltions dramatically constrain today’s leadership.

So while leadership is not irrelevant, this apears not in any sense to reflect the ‘great man’ theory of leadership. Now I suppose the counter to this defined trajectory of national policy is the notion of the Titanic and the iceberg. Clearly the Titanic’s direction was set but an alert pilot or captain could have made a last minute correction that could have avoided the tragedy that continues to fascinate so many observers. And in that failed moment – at least for the Titanic – that small course correction – as frantic as it might have been at the wheel house – would have produced great change in the outcome.

So operating at the margin may be more consequential than I think Dan is implying. Leadership may in fact produce significant and major change even in the face of power and purpose. There is of course no guarantee that such action will occur. But don’t discount leadership even in the constrained circumstances that such leadership finds itself today in most G20 countries. Let’s watch the G20 gathering to see whether the leaders grasp and act on the fact of the approaching iceberg.