Legacies are what we leave behind after we leave the scene, usually though not necessarily after we die. Some legacies are intangible, such as how we are remembered. Others are tangible, palpable, observable, material. Some legacies are evident while we’re still alive, for example, those of Henry Ford, Jonas Salk, and Margaret Thatcher. Others are not apparent, or at least not appreciated, until long after we’ve passed. During his lifetime the American writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau was almost unknown, obliged to self-publish most of his essays and poems.

Hardly a month now goes by without some powerful person, virtually invariably male, being nailed for an excessive, or at least inappropriate, display of sexual lust. In the United States certainly, what in the past could be kept covert, now routinely becomes overt. What has changed in recent decades is not, however, the human animal but the jungle within which the animal dwells.

The lust for legitimacy is about acceptance above all. About leaders who have an intense desire for, a ceaseless drive for, and a ferocious commitment to gaining acceptance for a group – typically though not necessarily the group to which they belong. This group can be identified in different ways, by, for example, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or ideology.

Among the most pointed of political aphorisms is Lord Acton’s, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The line lingers because it’s wonderfully well-phrased – and because it rings totally true. Even if absolute power is not something that we’ve personally experienced, we know from the most rudimentary reading of history that some people are power-hungry in the extreme. To the point where nothing less than absolute power, which corrupts as indefinitely as absolutely, will suffice.

To say that someone lusts for sex paints a vivid picture. We know quite precisely what that someone wants, craves, hungers for with passion and without cessation. One could say the same about power and money. To lust for either one or the other is to lust for something specific – in the case of money it’s even measurable, quantifiable, though as we use the word “lust,” enough is never enough, no matter how much.

Success is more fungible, more malleable a concept.

Leadership is an obsession – a national obsession, arguably even a global one. But while in response to this obsession has been the burgeoning, now half-century old, multibillion-dollar leadership industry, it has not been especially effective. The leadership industry has failed to live up to its original, high-minded intention, and it continues to resist changing in ways that are other than cosmetic.

The lust for money is no more, and no less, than the insatiable desire for more money. Some people want to accrue enormous sums of money for a larger purpose such as, for example, improving schools, enhancing the arts, or sending a spaceship to Mars. Other people want to accumulate money, and then more money, absent any larger intent. Either way, however high the pile of money, it is never high enough.

It turned out we were on to something. Lust matters. It might seem curious, but when we start writing a book such as this one, both of us know generally where we’re going and what we want to say, but not specifically, not exactly. In this case we knew generally that despite its being completely ignored in the twenty-first century leadership literature, lust has been of significance in the past and was certain therefore to be of significance in the present.

This concluding chapter considers criteria for the social benefits society should demand from the explosion of ever-newer technologies. The term “technology for society” references technology that, whether or not it amazes and revolutionizes society, and whether or not it is provided by the private or public sector – will serve most worthy desires for safety, health, well-being, companionship, community, peace, and justice.

The technology revolution is a mix of marvels and aggravations. Cell phones have saved lives and made it possible for poor farmers and others in Third World countries to connect with wider markets, negotiate better prices, and so on. At the same time, Pew estimates that 67 percent of US cell owners check for messages, alerts, or calls even when the phone is not ringing, and 44 percent have slept with their phone next to their beds to ensure they did not miss anything.