Analysis of the Financial Crisis through Leadership Perspective

Abstract: Purpose of this Master thesis is to analyze, understand and evaluate current financial crisis from the leadership perspective. In order to achieve this aim we made literature analysis, conducted interviews, analyzed failure case of Lehman Brothers and case of NYSE Euronext Lisbon. Furthermore, we created a questionnaire which was sent to the biggest companies in Europe. According to our investigation, we found out that the most suitable methodological view for our research is a combination of analytical and system views. Analysis of our findings shows that financial crisis was highly caused of the failure of leadership in the financial sector. We found out that leaders have to be aware of these main problems: nowadays word is extremely interconnected and one variable can affect the whole system, huge short-term returns cannot marginalize long-term foresight, risk has to be measured and estimated, leaders has to pay a lot of attention to their strategies, plan, rethink and if it is necessary reshape them. Moreover, leaders now face more and more challenges: they have to react at the moment, to deal with world full of paradoxes and to take actions in order to increase level of confidence which creates more and more instability and chaos in the society.