A History of Leadership

Morgen Witzel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351666497
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

The evolution of leadership into a widely accepted concept occurred without any shared understanding and acceptance of its meaning and relevance in contemporary society. Why do some people become leaders? What is the source and legitimacy of leadership power? This book journeys into the heart of the relationship between leaders and followers, the social space and the arena where both contest and collaboration take place and leadership itself is played out.

In the book, Morgen Witzel moves beyond traditional traits and skills framing, offering a fresh, historical analysis that involves many different actors with different motives and needs. By analysing the evolution of power relationships, the book analyses the interactions around how power is used and control is bargained for to illuminate the centrepiece of leadership.

A wide-ranging history of a slippery subject, this book provides students, scholars and reflective practitioners with an empirical, historical base on which to test their own ideas and experiences.

1
INTRODUCTION

Why a history of leadership? It is a reasonable question, given that we have yet to get to grips with the problems and challenges of leadership in our own age; why waste time worrying about what happened in the past? The answer is that by studying the past, we can hope to gain some new perspectives on our own time and place. Given that we do still struggle to understand how leadership works, or even to define it, any perspective or lens that can help us gain new knowledge and insights should be pressed into service. Applied history is using the past to study the present, and that is what this book attempts to do.

A History of Leadership does not have all the answers. It does not attempt to define leadership itself, although it does offer some different views on how leadership works. It is not a book about leadership theory; I have made passing reference to some elements of leadership theory, particularly older theories such as the Great Man, but on the whole I have approached the subject as a historian, not a scholar of leadership. I have tried to capture some of what leaders actually did in the past, how leadership was really practiced and, occasionally, how people thought it should be practiced; there are references to Max Weber, Machiavelli, Han Fei and so on – and the natures of their relationships with their followers.

The approach is historioethnographical; I have studied hundreds of leaders across a wide range of fields – including business, government, the military, sport, music, religious institutions and others – reported what they did and how they practiced leadership, and tried to make sense of the results. Where I have resorted to theory, it is usually to make references to theorists in fields such as psychology, sociology, politics, religion and so on to help make sense of some of the dynamics I have observed.

This book is also not a biographical dictionary of leaders. I have not gone into the career of any leader in detail; the endnotes provide sources for those who wish to know more about particular cases. I have also tried to bring in a broad range of leaders, including some obscure ones, who illustrate particular points. Winston Churchill, Napoleon, Gandhi and others are mentioned, but I do not go into great detail about them. Some readers will be disappointed that their favourite historical leaders are given scant or no attention. My apologies in advance, but that is not the purpose of this book. This is a work about leadership, not leaders.

I have said that I used a historian’s perspective, but I have also shied away from theories of history. I have been particularly keen to avoid any teleological notion or the stadial approach of the Enlightenment. I do not know if leadership is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ now than it was in the past, and I do not think that is the question that needs answering. One historical theory I am prepared to admit in limited form is socio-cultural evolution; society and culture do change, and this does affect leadership, but I again want to avoid any sense of evolution leading us towards perfectibilism. The evolution of leadership is a journey, but we have no idea what its destination is. Looking at the world around us today, it is hard to state with confidence that leadership today is making the world ‘better’ or that we are ‘better able’ to lead now than we were in past times. Leadership has changed; whether it has changed for better or for worse is not a judgement I am prepared to make.

Leadership is also an omnipresent phenomenon. Forms of leadership ranging from highly concentrated to highly distributed can be observed across every society in recorded history, and most of those societies have had something to say about it. There is a danger when looking at the vast history of this subject that one might be tempted to focus on just one society or one period in time, salami-slicing off the piece of the past that interests us and then assuming all leadership is just like that. I have tried to avoid this by following Fernand Braudel’s example; I have looked at the longue durée, gone back in time as far as possible and covered as many cultures as possible.¹ Inevitably the coverage is uneven; Europe and North America still get a disproportionate amount of attention, and so does the more recent past. This has much to do with my own linguistic abilities as anything else; my historical attention is limited by the records and accounts I can read. However, I have sought to demonstrate that many of the problems and challenges of leadership, how leaders emerge and how they interact with their followers are common across all societies, at all times.

The structure of the book is thematic rather than chronological. This will, I acknowledge, annoy some readers; so will the fact that leaders like Napoleon, John Lewis and Emmeline Pankhurst keep popping up in different chapters that cover different themes. That is intentional. Leadership is complex, and so are leaders. They exhibit different behaviours and have multiple sources of power and authority. Their relationships with their followers are equally complex because followers are not homogenous and have different needs and demands of their own.

Part I of the book sets out the key themes that run through it. Chapter 2 looks at power, particularly at power relationships between leaders and followers, and examines the sources of leadership authority that have existed in the past, ranging from conferred authority deriving from relationships to a supernatural force or deity – in some extreme cases, leaders have even declared themselves to be gods – to the power that derives from followers and is granted (sometimes unwillingly) by them to the leader. The nature of their authority gives legitimacy to leaders and determines whether followers will accept them.

Chapter 3 looks at the exercise of power, defining the concept of the social space, the interaction between leaders and followers. This is where leadership is exercised and made real. Two processes go on within the social space: contest, where leaders and followers strive to exert power over the other and defend their own power, and collaboration, where leaders and followers work together to achieve the purpose of the organisation. As the book makes clear, both these processes happen simultaneously, and both are part of the essence of leadership; without them, nothing gets done. The chapter also looks at the purpose of leadership, focusing on what followers want from leaders and why they are willing to surrender some of their own power and accept leaders in the first place. Chapter 4 carries on by discussing what makes leaders acceptable, what behaviours and characteristics help them establish themselves in the eyes of followers and what happens when followers turn against their leaders.

Part II, ‘Servants of God’, looks at otherworldly sources of authority, ranging from explicitly claimed divine connections to a more general sense of spirituality which can emanate from within the self. In these cases, the leader’s authority derives in part from connection with a higher plane, or at least something beyond mundane. Faith and spirituality have historically played a large role in helping people understand the world and their place and role in society; in much of the world, they still do. For leaders, this connection can establish their authority more clearly, as long as their claim is seen to be authentic. Claims either of a divine connection or even of divinity itself are not sufficient; followers must accept these claims and believe in them. A leader is a god only if his or her followers agree that they are.

Part III, ‘Servants of power’, is a deeper examination of power and contest, beginning with absolutism and totalitarianism as philosophies that attempted to concentrate more power in the hands of the leader. The book examines how the power relationships works and why followers agree to hand over power. A key element is the creation of an enemy – the ‘Other’ – who threatens the organisation or the state. The leader then poses as the one person who can save the day by defeating the Other. Out of fear, followers agree to give the leader power. However, the book also examines why so many absolutist leaders, in every form of endeavour, end up as failures. There are limits, it seems, to the tolerance of followers; they still demand a share of power, and if they are denied it, they may rebel.

Part IV, ‘Servants of the people’, looks more closely at the role played by followers in leadership. After discussing the nature of followership, the book goes on to look in more detail at how leaders are chosen and why. A chapter on accidental leaders, people who did not seek positions of power but were compelled, often reluctantly, to accept them, discusses why particular people are seen by followers as being good leaders, even if they do not see it in themselves. We also look at the concept of leadership as service and how far the concept can be extended.

Part V, ‘Servants of darkness’, looks at leaders and followers who use their power for corrupt purposes and malignant ends. Chapters discuss organisations such as terrorist groups, criminal gangs and doomsday cults. What makes people join such organisations? How are leaders chosen, and what do followers expect from them? Why do people choose to follow and give power to leaders who may give orders that are harmful to others or even to themselves? Why, ultimately, does someone obey an order to commit suicide?

These final chapters may make for uncomfortable reading, but they are important. There is a tendency in leadership literature to assume that leadership is a positive force, something that does good in society. One could make a philosophical case that this is what leadership should do, but the historical facts clearly state that it does not, or, at least, not always. Leadership and leaders have done incalculable harm and are still doing such today. If we are serious about the study of leadership, we should not shy away from that.

What, ultimately, is the purpose of the book? Its aim is to bring a fresh perspective to a heavily discussed and highly important subject, with a view to understanding a little more about what leadership has been and is today. At the heart of the book is the relationship between leaders and followers: the social space, the arena where the contest collaboration takes place and leadership itself is played out. We too often see leadership as something inherent in leaders. The traits and skills of the leader are important, but the process of leadership is something different; it involves many different actors with different motives and needs. Each of them has power; how they use their power and how they bargain for control is the centrepiece of leadership.

Note

1 Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, trans. Siân Reynolds, London: HarperCollins, 1982; J.H. Hexter, ‘Fernand Braudel and the Monde Braudelien’, Journal of Modern History 44 (1972): 480–539.

PART I
Leadership through the ages

2
POWER, AUTHORITY AND LEADERSHIP

As noted in the introduction, it is extremely difficult to capture the evolution of leadership in a linear and chronological fashion, thanks to the wide variety of ways that leadership has been described and practised. No society, as far as I am aware, has ever adhered completely to a single model of leadership. Multiple, competing views of what leadership is – and what it should be – exist and have always existed. Early China, for example, abounded in theories of leadership, from the hardcore authoritarianism of the Legalists, to the paternalistic, relational model posited by the Confucians, to the light-touch laissez-faire approach proposed by the Daoists, with many more schools of thought in between. Although a neo-Confucian model of leadership did come to dominate in China, the influence of the other approaches persisted then and persist today.¹

The same is true in other parts of the world. No matter the dominant view of leadership, there were always competing schools of thought rooted in differing religious beliefs, cultural values and societal and personal expectations. However, despite this kaleidoscope of views, I feel it would be helpful to attempt to sketch out some of the ways in which leadership can be seen to have changed over time, if only to create a background for the discussions in the rest of this book. This sketch will focus on the longue durée, looking at deep-rooted generic changes, with a few examples to illustrate. Once again, though, we must avoid any attempt at teleology or perfectibilism. Our purpose here is not to attempt to discover some perfect form of leadership but to observe what has happened in the past to try to draw lessons from it.

Two trends in particular can be identified. First, in most societies, as power distance decreases – generally, it has decreased over time – leadership becomes somewhat less authoritarian and less ceremonial. This does not mean that authoritarianism and ceremony disappear, not by any means; but they are no longer the absolute bedrock on which leadership rests. Leaders in low-power distance societies who continue to try to rely on authority and ceremony are likely to struggle to make impact.

Second, and closely related to the first trend, the sources of the leader’s authority have also changed over time. The notion that leadership is conferred on the leader by an external divine force or that certain individuals have a right to lead others is on the wane (although old habits are proving reluctant to die). Increasingly, leadership now emanates from the relationship between leaders and followers. This, too, is a consequence of changes in power distance, and it is to this concept that we should now turn our attention.

Power distance

Power distance refers to the unequal distribution of power within a society. The concept, first fully articulated by Geert Hofstede, suggests that different societies have different power structures depending on how power is concentrated or dispersed.² Although the ideas behind power distance had been discussed before, Hofstede’s contribution was to create a method of measuring and quantifying power distance as part of a larger attempt to measure differences between cultures. According to Hofstede, in societies with a high power-distance score, power is strongly concentrated in the hands of a few. These societies tend to be very hierarchical and formal. People kn...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• 1 Introduction
• PART I Leadership through the ages
• PART II SERVANTS OF GOD
• PART III SERVANTS OF POWER
• PART IV SERVANTS OF THE PEOPLE
• PART V SERVANTS OF DARKNESS
• Bibliography
• Index