Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy says of leadership that:

[T]he one thing you must know is that you have been exalted into a position, you see, of privilege, because of an historical chain of events, which dignifies you beyond your own merits. . . . [Y]ou know that you are not up to the occasion. You are less than the quality history bestows on you. . . . Ceremonies warn all men that they are less than the office that has fallen upon [them]. . . .

He goes on to caution that success is necessarily connected to and builds upon (even if it transforms or transcends) that which comes before.