Introduction to Leadership

By Steve Hallam

Thousands of books are available on the topic of leadership. What makes this
material different? Why was it written and why should you read it?

Many books and articles falsely claim to unveil some simple secret to successful
leadership. They imply you really don’t need a college education in business to
become a successful business leader or a degree in law or political science to be a
successful political leader and so on. All you need is to know and practice are some
persuasive techniques or listen more closely, or charm others with your speaking
style or character. Win their trust and win them over is the general theme of
hundreds of popular books. Unfortunately, the research doesn’t support such
approaches. Of course it is better to have high integrity, be persuasive in your
writing and speaking, and, in general, be a likeable man or woman. However,
thousands of research studies have failed to prove any one or any combination of
such factors has a significant effect on one’s success as a leader.

Other writers promise to reveal the secrets of famous historical figures such as
Lincoln, Churchill, Ghanthi, and others. They imply one can learn to be a great
leader by studying great leaders in history. Of course, it is good to study history. It
is especially important to study the mistakes of others so we will be less likely to
repeat them. However, history is full of examples of people in authority who were
scholars of history but failed miserably when they got the chance to lead. Events of
the present are seldom exactly like events of the past, and leadership is very related
to current circumstances and the prevailing culture. So studying the lives of past
leaders, good and bad, is valuable but insufficient for those aspiring to be successful
leaders.

Writers are especially fond of identifying the traits of successful leaders. Leaders
must be honest, self-confident, achievement oriented, sociable, tactful, etc. It
sounds like we should focus our search for leaders on those who have been
successful boy or girl scouts. While it is obvious the above listed traits are valuable
for any person, the research indicates a very weak correlation between any one or
combination of such traits and successful leadership.

Why are the results of thousands of controlled experiments so counter-intuitive?

Surely someone who scores high on a measure such as need for achievement sounds
like someone more likely to become a successful leader. At least part of the
research challenge involves our definition of successful leadership. Often writers
assume someone who gains a position of high authority, e.g., elected President of
the United States, is, by definition, a successful leader. They confuse getting a
position of high authority with success as a leader. But all it takes are examples like
Hitler, Stalin, and Mussilini to rip a hole in that theory.

The old saying “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” is far too
often true. Gaining power and using it properly to implement beneficial change are
two very different things. Millions of people can be fooled by emotional attachment
to certain people. Kings and queens still reign today who seem to attract intense
loyalty even though their only claim to their position is being born the first son or
daughter of a king or queen. Putin won election in Russia not because the voters
knew him as a good boy scout but rather because Russians consider him tough
enough to crack down on corrupt business owners, the Mafia, and other criminals
who seemed to flourish in the aftermath of freedom following the fall of communism.
There remain in power today people who regularly kill people to strike fear in others
and demonstrate their authority. So it is not true that old style command approach
leadership is dead.

What does constitute successful leadership? We are using beneficial change as a

major indication. Some people gain positions of authority only to maintain the status
quo. Such an approach would be acceptable if and only if the organization was
already doing its best to better the conditions of all its stakeholders, a condition
seldom, if ever, achieved.

One colleague recently asked, “Now that you’ve convinced me that everything I ever
believed about leadership is false, what’s left? What can we teach others about
leadership?” First, we have to accept the fact that teaching falsehoods is worse than
not teaching at all. Many writers should be ashamed of their blatant attempts to get
rich preaching a gospel they know is false. Many have Ph.D. level educations from
renowned universities, and we must therefore assume they know basic research
methodology. So shame on them. They are leading people astray, and they know
it. There are no easy answers to the question of what makes a great leader.

Another way of looking at acquiring knowledge about leadership is to examine the

way a sculptor carves. Starting with a huge block of granite, the sculptor chips away
the parts that are not the desired statue. We owe our readers that much. We
should chip away the myths and outright falsehoods that exist about leadership, then
see what’s left. We are searching for truth by casting out lies.

One truth is that the process of gaining a position of high authority and achieving
success as a leader are not the same thing. We have all witnessed this numerous
times in our own lives and in those around us. We’ve all seen someone hunger for
some position and after winning it, be unable to accomplish anything from that
position. It is as though the end goal was simply to win the election or curry favor
with the boss. Once in the driver’s seat, they don’t know where to go or how to start
the engine. How can that be used to conclude the driver is a success? Yet we’ve all
seen people who seem to simply be satisfied sitting in the new driver’s seat soaking
in the ambiance of the soft leather seat, admiring the power of the engine, and
dazzled by the array of controls within reach. When asked where they are going and
how they plan to get there, they haven’t a clue.

Summary
Thousands of researchers have studied traits such as self-confidence, honesty, and
drive and all the results are disappointing. All provide some slight contribution to the
goal of successful leadership, but all fall short of clearly differentiating successful
from unsuccessful leadership. This is especially true when one separates the success
of obtaining a position of authority from the success of leading after that position is
obtained. We are basing this website on the assumption that successful leadership is
more than winning an election or being promoted to a higher rank or getting the new
job offer. This website is written to show how people in all types of positions can
more successfully implement beneficial change.
Journals About Leadership:
Journal of Business Ethics

Business Ethics Quarterly

Business and Professional Ethics Journal

Harvard Business Review

Leadership Quarterly

Books on Leadership:
Leadership, by James Mac Gregor Burns, NewYork:Harper and Row, 1978

Leadership Without Easy Answers, Heifetz, Ronald,

Cambridge: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 1994

Leadership for the Twenty-first Century, Joseph C. Rost, New York: Praeger, 1991

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D.

Instant Influence: How to Get What You Want in Any Business Situation, by Robert
B. Cialdini, Ph.D.

Presidential Leadership as Persuasion, by Craig Allen Smith and Kathy B. Smith

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Books on Historical Leaders:

Adolf Hitler, by Dennis Wepman. Paperback (Dec. 1989)

Alexander Hamilton, by Steven O'Brien, Arthur M. Schlesinger (Dec. 1989)

Benjamin Franklin, by Chris Looby, et al. (Dec. 1990)

David Lloyd George, by Deidre Shearman (Dec. 1988)

Elizabeth I, by Catherine Bush (April 1987)

Genghis Khan, by Judy Humphrey, Arthur M. Schlesinger (June 1988)

Giuseppe Garibaldi, by Herman J. Viola, Susan P. Viola (June 1988)

Historic World Leaders, by Anne Commire (Feb. 1994)

Historic World Leaders: Africa, Middle East, Asia, Pacific, by Ann Commire, et al.
(June 1994)

Julius Caesar, by Roger Bruns, Arthur Meier Schlesinger (Jan. 1988)

King Arthur, By Paul C. Doherty (Jan. 1987)

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Useful Links:
http://accel-team.com/
http://www.pfdf.org
http://www.cio.com/forums/leadership/index.html
http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9809/green.html
http://pinnacleleadership.com/
http://pertinent.com/pertinfo/business/persuasion
http://www.influenceatwork.com
http://www.dynamicleadership.com/main.html
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadcon.html

Community Leadership:
http://www.serviceleader.org/manage/index.html
http://www.house.gov/house/orgs_pub_hse_ldr_www.html