The Modern Barabbas

Leadership does not collapse in a single moment. It decays through hesitation, comfort, and the refusal to stand in front of the truth. The story of Ponce Pilate endures because he did not choose evil. He chose nothing. Confronted with a crowd demanding a decision, he stepped aside and allowed them to free Barabbas, a convicted thief, while condemning the figure they called their saviour. He recognised the right path, understood the consequences, and withdrew anyway. He performed neutrality while the worst forces advanced.

This is the defining pattern of modern organisational decline. It hides behind empathy, empowerment, and inclusive language, but the outcome is always the same: the wrong forces gain power while the right ones are left exposed.

Abdication Masquerading as Virtue

Avoidance has become a leadership style. Leaders remain visible without being present. They speak in abstractions, encourage teams to “own decisions”, and offer support that demands nothing in return. The room feels calm, but only because nothing difficult is being confronted.

This creates a subtle form of dysfunction. Standards erode quietly. People stop expecting decisive guidance. The organisation begins to behave like a drifting crowd. Leaders tell themselves that they are empowering their teams, but the truth is simpler: they do not want to face the discomfort of decision.

The most dangerous part is how rational it feels. Leaders believe they are avoiding conflict for the benefit of others. In reality, they are avoiding it for themselves.

The Distortion of Servant Leadership

Servant leadership originally demanded strength. A leader served the mission, protected the system, and created conditions that enabled clarity, autonomy, and excellence. It involved judgement, boundaries, and the courage to confront what others denied.

Today, the idea has been inverted. Discomfort is treated as harm. Challenge is viewed as aggression. Emotional friction is seen as incompatible with service. Leaders begin to believe that kindness means silence and that empowerment means absence.

This philosophical twist has consequences. Teams are not supported. They are left alone. Decisions are not shared. They are abandoned. Responsibility does not move to the edges because it evaporates entirely. The language of service becomes a veil for abandonment.

The result is not compassion, but institutional fragility.

How Organisations Free Their Barabbas

When leadership retreats, the wrong forces rise naturally. A crowd does not elevate the wise, the disciplined, or the skilled. It elevates whatever is most visible, most dramatic, or most emotionally satisfying.

Theatre replaces substance because theatre is recognisable. Ceremonies, rituals, burn-down charts, and reactive projects fill the void left by clarity. Hero figures gain power because their chaos looks like energy. Their recklessness feels like momentum. People begin to value noise over truth.

In this climate, competence becomes invisible, and integrity becomes inconvenient. Those who build quietly are overshadowed by those who perform loudly.

This is how Barabbas wins: not through intention, but through absence of direction (Pilate chose nothing).

There is another, quieter force that accelerates this decline: corruption through friendship. Personal loyalties begin to outweigh judgement. Leaders protect those they like, not those who serve the mission. Ethical clarity dissolves beneath the comfort of familiar faces, and decisions stray from truth towards favour. Once friendship becomes a shield against accountability, the organisation no longer fails by mistake. It fails by design.

What Organisations Sacrifice

As the wrong forces gain influence, the right ones are slowly exiled. Not by attack, but by atmosphere. Craft becomes suspicious because it slows things down. Architecture becomes burdensome because it resists shortcuts. Truth-tellers become uncomfortable because they destabilise the illusion of progress.

These individuals experience a gradual organisational suffocation. Their contributions receive polite acknowledgement and no action. Their honesty is reframed as negativity. Their insistence on clarity becomes a problem to be managed.

Over time, they leave. And with them go memory, discipline, integrity, and the organisation’s ability to think. What remains is a shell that moves, reacts, and celebrates itself, but no longer knows how to build anything of substance.

If you ever want to understand a company’s future, look at how it treats the people who defend the truth.

Two Collapses Built on Hand-Washing

The Pilate pattern is not metaphorical. It has brought down both institutions and unicorns.

Nokia: A Giant That Looked Away

Nokia knew Symbian was obsolete. Leadership understood that the world had shifted. Engineers warned repeatedly that the future required reinvention.

Leadership hesitated. They feared conflict with powerful internal groups. They hoped harmony would buy time. They waited for clarity that had already arrived.

By the time they acted, the window had closed. A world leader collapsed because its leaders prioritised internal comfort over external truth.

Zenefits: A Rocket Ship Consumed by Its Own Hype

Zenefits expanded faster than its internal discipline. Compliance was breaking apart. Hero culture had replaced structure. Shortcuts became routine.

Leadership saw everything. Instead of confronting the problem, they romanticised the chaos as innovation. They surrendered to momentum and abdicated their duty.

The result was not a failure of speed, but a failure of courage.

Why Leaders Retreat

Leaders rarely set out to abandon their responsibilities. They are slowly pulled into it. Conflict exhausts them. Popularity gratifies them. Emotional comfort seduces them. Each instance of avoidance feels minor and temporary.

Then it becomes a pattern. Then a habit. Then a worldview. They convince themselves that neutrality maintains balance, that delay buys clarity, and that avoiding tension protects the team.

By the time they realise the cost, the culture has already reorganised itself around their absence.

If you ever want a mirror, ask yourself: Where have I chosen comfort over truth? Where have I hoped the system would correct itself instead of stepping in?

The Cost of Stepping Aside

When leaders look away, the organisation stops thinking. It reacts. It panders. It becomes emotionally volatile and strategically blind. Truth becomes dangerous. Competence becomes threatening. The organisation drifts into a state where theatre feels like progress and progress feels like risk.

This is the point where the most capable people leave, and the most performative remain. The system becomes a crowd, then a chorus, then an echo chamber.

Once Barabbas becomes an organisational norm, decline is not an event. It is a trajectory.

If leaders wash their hands long enough, Barabbas becomes the culture. At that point, collapse is not a possibility. It is a schedule.