The essay hits on the right notion but I think needs to be expanded further. Bottom line is that the most important quality of a leader is that people will follow them. While the individual is a significant factor in this, context/circumstance are also important. Often the ideal combination of leadership "merit" might not reside in a person who is of particularly great "merit" outside of a particular leadership role (though it is pretty rare in someone who is absolutely useless outside of the role).
Also note that it is people _will_ follow them; it's about the future and therefore speculative. No amount of examination can confidently predict who will speculatively be best able to lead.
A "meritocracy" therefore is founded on the notion that the intellectual talent and past accomplishments can confidently predict leadership ability for a context that we can't entirely predict... Yeah, when you got that nailed down, let me know. ;-)
At best a "meritocracy" functions by making an educated guess, based on past evidence, who is best able to fulfill a role, regardless of whether that person's currently role is being fulfilled with any degree of merit. In short: it is undeniably imperfect, though one case make a case it does at least as good a job of selecting candidates as any other mechanism... with the possible exception of a democracy (it's kind of hard to beat working off who the electronic says they'll follow). But more than that, it has a problem: people like meritocracies because they feel like whomever is in charge has "earned" the right to be there by virtue of having the best record of _past_ accomplishment... despite the fact that a well functioning meritocracy would select based on the expected record of _future_ accomplishment, not on the record of _past_ accomplishment.
This subtle difference eventually leads to disappointment, disillusionment, and cynicism, which is undermines the integrity of the leadership of an organization, if not the organization as a whole. In short: even assuming you overcame the issues of observability raised by the article, a utopian meritocracy might not be the utopia imagined by its subjects, which can lead to an unstable society...
Also note that it is people _will_ follow them; it's about the future and therefore speculative. No amount of examination can confidently predict who will speculatively be best able to lead.
A "meritocracy" therefore is founded on the notion that the intellectual talent and past accomplishments can confidently predict leadership ability for a context that we can't entirely predict... Yeah, when you got that nailed down, let me know. ;-)
At best a "meritocracy" functions by making an educated guess, based on past evidence, who is best able to fulfill a role, regardless of whether that person's currently role is being fulfilled with any degree of merit. In short: it is undeniably imperfect, though one case make a case it does at least as good a job of selecting candidates as any other mechanism... with the possible exception of a democracy (it's kind of hard to beat working off who the electronic says they'll follow). But more than that, it has a problem: people like meritocracies because they feel like whomever is in charge has "earned" the right to be there by virtue of having the best record of _past_ accomplishment... despite the fact that a well functioning meritocracy would select based on the expected record of _future_ accomplishment, not on the record of _past_ accomplishment.
This subtle difference eventually leads to disappointment, disillusionment, and cynicism, which is undermines the integrity of the leadership of an organization, if not the organization as a whole. In short: even assuming you overcame the issues of observability raised by the article, a utopian meritocracy might not be the utopia imagined by its subjects, which can lead to an unstable society...