Erica makes some good points about these leaders. Another is made by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Fooled By Randomness, where he points out that we attribute their success to character qualities, but their failure is explained as a failure to stick to these character qualities. The reality is that many are just lucky, the stories of all who behaved the same, but were unlucky, are ignored in the worship of these lucky fools by less lucky fools. His more recent book, The Black Swan gives a great description of the problems with the banking system. It was written in 2006, when the banks were still doing well.

We have trouble differentiating between lucky, but dangerous people and competent, skilled people.

Their employees are not people, they are tools. The smarter ones will surround themselves with tools who will insulate them by making the correct social gestures that they have no comprehension of. You’ll also find that these folks have a consistent pattern of great success before great falls, but they’ll be right back up on top before a normal person would even get of the shock of it.

They’re really only possible to work for if you recognize that you as a person have no meaning to them, but you can draft in their upward wake if you make yourself a useful tool, and maintain enough distance to avoid getting dragged down when they crash.