As it relates to your questions... there are a few things to clarify out of the 6 part essay.
Corporations (and in my mind governments as well) are pathological by nature; they don't scale well and have tons of problems past a certain size. Between in and out groups and Dunbar's Number I think this is a fairly well supported stance.
The "life cycle of the firm" from part 1 essentially talks about how Sociopaths (essentially risk takers and morally ambiguous) force the company to function despite itself. Most are "losers" aka do the bare minimum while the "Clueless" are so hopelessly devoted to the company that they "drink the koolaid" so to speak.
"Clueless" people become too devoted to the point where bad ideas/bureaucracy become too ingrained to fight and thus it is best to cannibalize the company and start fresh (clueless are also called "organization men" from the older cited text).
The main driving maxim here is extract as much value as is easily possible then kill it with fire and start over with anything of value from the previous. I'd say this happens on large scales with Governments as well it just takes longer and typically requires an "enemy" (whether civil war or another nation) to catalyze that change.
The part about "leaders" comes in later on during part 6 with "subtractive synthesis". Clueless people are typically hopelessly devoted to idols and thus seek out people to emulate. "Losers" seek a different kind of comfort by looking to either social groups/status or hobbies etc etc. "Leaders" to these people are ones who can make life simpler by offering solutions to their problems; even better if those solutions already align with their preconceived beliefs/notions/ideals. There are some interesting ideas on how groups form as well - somewhere in part 4 or 5.
Basically it boils down to groups survive solely based on ambiguity. You have the leader/alpha of the group and the obvious "worst" candidate at bottom. Everyone else only has a vague idea of worth.. such as "Well Steve is smarter than Bob and Ally but I don't know how he compares to Joe, Susan, Jon, or Sean...". Another interesting idea is that by default any group you want to join is automatically "below you" in a sense. No group of people who are clearly superior to you have reason to let you in unless they want a new "worst". In the same vein you don't want to join anything obviously "below" you and, since most seek comfort, you will find somewhere to simply be "ambiguous" at. The only people who have real leverage/mobility are leaders looking to move up and "worst" people looking to become leaders for lower groups.