The aristocratic model is applicable where strong leadership is crucial to the success of the organization and where the requisite skills for leadership can be readily defined and identified. However, it runs into problems when the standards of skill, wisdom, and virtue are unclear. Who, after all, is to judge the judges, and on what criteria? Popular election does not appear to screen for skill, virtue, or wisdom. More important, how, in an aristocratic system, can we ensure that the chosen leaders receive the consent of the governed?

The problems of democracy are no less clear, no less damning. Is it really possible to maintain equality of influence and power over government? Does not power tend to concentrate in the hands of a minority with great wealth, political skill, or determination? If everyone is to have an equal say, how can decisions be made with sufficient knowledge? How can a popular government act with vigor, speed, and decisiveness, particularly in crisis? How can a democracy handle the twin problems of the tyranny of the majority and the obstructionism of the minority?

One solution is to adjust our view of what democracy entails. In early Greek society, particularly in Athens, democracy mean the equivalent of a permanent town meeting – all decisions of consequence were made in public assembly. As many professional service firms have rediscovered, this view of democracy tends to result in much wasting of time, slowness of response, and extreme conservatism in action. The consensus decision making that such processes imply is only feasible, Rousseau argued, among small, highly homogeneous bodies of people. Even in Athens, disruptive citizens could be banished from the town meeting) As they grow, all societies become more diverse, and consensus democracy increasingly infeasible. Accordingly, the world has changed its view of democracy, allowing elected representatives accountable to the populace to act according to their conscience and their greater knowledge of the facts surrounding a specific situation. Between elections, the government is free to act without repeated referenda, it is judged on its long-term performance.

Excerpted from ‘Managing the Professional Service Firm’ by David Maister, pages 289 to 290