Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Leadership
Snapshots
of Great
Leadership
Jon P. Howell
Professor Emeritus, New Mexico State University
College of Business
To my sweetheart, Julie.
Contents
Series Foreword .............................................................................................. xi
Preface ..........................................................................................................xiii
Acknowledgments ..........................................................................................xv
References and Source Material for this Book .......................................... xvii
About the Author ......................................................................................... xix
Part I
vii
viii
Contents
Contents
ix
Table
1.1 Matrix of Great Leadership and Leadership Theories ...................... 26
Series Foreword
Leadership is a very popular topic, with hundreds of research articles and dozens
of scholarly books published each year. Much of this scholarship, however, is
focused narrowly on business leadership. Our intent with this new book series,
Leadership: Research and Practice, is to expand the boundaries and include
scholarly work from the wide range of disciplines and professions that study and
practice leadership. In addition to business leadership, you will see authored and
edited books from political science, the humanities, psychology, sociology, the
arts, and importantly, the professions. We will publish scholarly collections, but
also practical guidebooks that are soundly based in research.
We are very pleased to present one of the first books of the series, Jon P.
Howells Snapshots of Great Leadership. There is a long history of presenting stories
of leaders and their great challenges as a way of illustrating leadership theories
and concepts, and it remains a favorite approach in teaching about leadership.
In fact, this is the way that the study of leadership began many centuries ago,
with stories of the exploits and qualities of mythic leaders from Greece and the
Orient. Jon Howell continues this tradition, and updates it, with this exceptional
collection of stories of great leaders, some well known, others less so. These cases
of leaders and leadership are indeed brief snapshots, but each is clearly embedded
within leadership theory, so this book is readable, practical, and scholarly.
While Snapshots contains stories of great historical leaders (e.g., Churchill,
Gandhi, Lincoln), there are more contemporary leaders included such as Mary
Kay Ash and Mark Zuckerberg, and some who are relatively unknown. In
addition to the great leaders who championed positive social change and led
nations to greatness, there are snapshots of bad leaders and leadership (e.g.,
Hitler, Idi Amin). This suggests that we can learn a great deal from the good
and successful leaders, but also learn what we, as followers of leaders, and leaders
ourselves, must avoid.
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xii
Series Foreword
Preface
The idea for this book has a long history. I have taught leadership in university
classes and conducted research on leadership for over 30 years and I have managed
private business organizations for over 40 years. I used several different leadership
textbooks in my teaching, including a book I coauthored with Dan Costley titled
Understanding Behaviors for Eff ective Leadership (2nd ed., 2006, Pearson Prentice
Hall). Most leadership textbooks focus on leadership theories and the research
that supports them while our text addressed leadership behavior patternswhat
leaders really do to influence followers toward effective performance. In our book
and in several other texts, brief descriptions of real leaders in action were included
to demonstrate how the leaders enacted the leader behaviors and theories. When
using these textbooks in class, I noticed that most students remembered the real
leader action descriptions more vividly and accurately than the leadership theories
or behavior patterns. Students repeatedly mentioned the real leader examples in
class discussions and when answering essay questions on examinations.
I finally realized that the majority of students were learning about leadership
in a different manner than most leadership professors taught. Professors usually
describe different leadership theories or behavior patterns and the research
supporting them, occasionally followed by real life examples of leaders who
exemplify the theories or behaviors. But most students learning about leadership
seemed to begin with the stories of real leaders in action. These stories grabbed
their attention and sparked their interest in learning about leadership behaviors
or theories that help explain the real leaders success. This realization, after many
years of teaching leadership, resulted in this book with its focus on stories of great
leadership.
This book may be most useful as a supplement to be used with other leadership
textbooks in a college or university level leadership class. The main core of this
book is contained in Chapters 226 that provide descriptions (Snapshots) of
individuals who demonstrated great leadership. The Snapshots describe how the
leaders influenced their followers to achieve amazing featssuch as building
an international organization to successfully serve the poorest of the poor, or
xiii
xiv
Preface
Acknowledgments
Numerous individuals provided invaluable assistance in completing this book.
First and foremost, my wife Julie was irreplaceable as an editor and advisor
throughout the project. My colleague Peter Dorfman provided advice regarding
my choice of leaders to be included. My editor at Taylor and Francis, Anne Duff y,
was supportive throughout the project. And numerous experts gave valuable
time and effort to reviewing earlier versions of the manuscript and providing
important feedback for the book. These reviewers are listed below:
Ronald E. Riggio, Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and
Organizational Psychology, Claremont McKenna College
Sharon Clinebell, Assistant Dean, University of Northern Colorado
James Weber, College of Business, St. Cloud State University
Georgia J. Sorensen, James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership,
University of Maryland
Don Jung, Yonsei University, Korea
Jagdeep Chhokar, formerly Indian Institute of Management
Leanne Atwater, University of Houston
xv
xvii
xix
Part I
Theoretical Basis
of Leadership
Chapter 1
Theories of Leadership
This is a book of stories. Most of the stories describe great leaders who accomplished amazing feats such as creating, preserving, or changing a nation or industry, or saving a group of people from exploitation or annihilation. A few of these
stories describe bad leaders who brought destruction or death to scores of people.
In retrospect, the disastrous effects of these bad leaders are no less astounding
than the incredible accomplishments of the great leaders. Although the goals of
these individuals were often quite different, the leadership processes they used
were frequently similar. In relating stories of these leaders, I have described who
they were, what they accomplished, and how they did it. I have referred to existing leadership theories to help explain their leadership tactics and behavior as
well as their effects on others. The use of these leadership theories will hopefully
make the leaders impressive effects more understandable and will clarify how the
theories relate to leadership in action.
Scholars have developed theories of leadership to help understand and explain
how leaders affect the organizations and people they lead. Organizations are simply groups of people working together in a cooperative and coordinated effort to
achieve some goals. Based on research, leadership theories generally focus on specific leader characteristics and/or behavior patterns that are important in shaping
societies and organizations over time. Different scholars have focused on separate
leader characteristics and behaviors, resulting in numerous distinct leadership
theories being proposed and researched. The most popular theories are described
in well-accepted leadership textbooks, and these theories are briefly summarized
in this chapter. For students of leadership, this chapter may repeat information
they previously studied. For the reader without this background, this chapter
may provide a framework to help the reader understand how the great and bad
leaders described in this book shaped and changed the societies and organizations they led.
A definition of leadership seems appropriate at this point to give readers an
idea of what is described in this book. Leadership is an influence process, usually
(but not always) carried out by one person. The leader influences a group, who
view the influence as legitimate, toward the achievement of some goal or goals.
The leader may utilize many different strategies to influence followers efforts
toward goal achievement. She might describe a desirable vision of the future
that includes a mission with inspirational goals to be achieved, she might offer
rewards to followers when they achieve the goals, or she might encourage followers to participate with her in setting desirable goals and strategies as a means of
gaining followers ownership of the goals and their commitment to achieve them.
These are all examples of leaders influencing followers to achieve goals, which is
the essence of leadership. Snapshots of Great Leadership describes how different
leaders used these and other strategies to lead their followers in achieving outstanding results.
Trait Theories
Through much of the 20th century, most people believed that great leaders were
born, not made. We now know that leadership is complex and not simply the
result of one or more personal characteristics of an individual. Over 100 years of
research on personal characteristics of leaders (often called leadership traits) failed
to demonstrate that any single trait or set of traits make a person a great leader.
Leadership traits are characteristics of an individual that do not change from situation to situation, such as intelligence, assertiveness, or physical attractiveness.
Literally hundreds of studies were carried out on scores of different traits and
many traits were identified that may help an individual become an effective leader
in specific situations. However, the key traits for one situation may be different for
another situation. The following set of categories summarizes the mass of trait
research and encompasses the most important leadership traits found in research.
Determination and drive encompass traits such as initiative, energy, assertiveness, perseverance, masculinity, and occasionally dominance. Individuals
with these traits work long hours, pursue goals with a high degree of energy and
perseverance, are often ambitious and competitive, and may dominate others.
Cognitive capacity includes intelligence, analytical and verbal ability, behavioral
flexibility, and good judgment. Individuals with strong cognitive capacity are
Theories of Leadership
respect, and cooperation needed from others for effective group or organizational
performance.
Theories of Leadership
developers maintain that Team Leadership, which describes leaders who are high
on both concern for people and concern for production, is the most effective
style. Despite its popularity with consultants, research shows no single leadership
style is best for all situations. Grid developers recently acknowledged this and
describe some leaders as shifting styles over time, but maintain that most leaders
have a single dominant style. The Grid developers do not describe different situations as requiring different leadership styles.