Part III – Historical Views of Leadership
• Modern attempts to understand leadership often ignore the considerable insights provided by great figures of the past.
• Bernard M. Bass demonstrates that leadership was a recognized phenomenon from the emergence of civilization.
• Sampling of thinking about leadership from different perspectives as well as from various time periods and cultures will be given.
• All voices used, highlight the key issues identified by Spitzberg: the importance of the leader, the recruitment of leaders, the process of leadership, and the relationship between leaders and followers.
• J. Thomas Wren incorporates many different philosophers’ views in order to demonstrate that leaders differed greatly in the
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• Greeks admired and wanted heroic leaders that had 1. justice and judgment (Agamemnon), 2. wisdom and counsel (Nestor), 3. shrewdness and cunning (Odysseus), and 4. valor and activism (Achilles).
• Machiavelli believed that ‘there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to lead in the introduction of a new order of things.’ o He believes that leaders needed steadiness, firmness, and concern for the maintenance of authority, power, and order in government.
• Hegel’s (1830) Philosophy of Mind argues that by first serving as a follower, a leader subsequently can best understand his followers, which people still believe today.
10 – The Hero As King – Thomas Carlyle
• Kingship is a form of heroism.
• A King is the commander over Men – subordinates must loyally surrender themselves to their King.
• A King commands over its people to furnish them with constant practical teaching, and to tell them what they are to do.
• Carlyle believes that putting the Ablest Man in each country in a supreme place and loyally respect him will lead to a perfect government.
• People will believe that what the Ablest Man tells them to do will be the wisest and the fittest. o However, most people cannot do this. They cannot entrust everything to one person, they need evidence and structure.
11 – Rulers and Generals
Wheatley (2007) describes the old story of leadership as “a story of dominion and control, and all-encompassing materialism.” It can be explained by analogizing it to a machine; a lifeless object that does not have the capability to think, feel, or make decisions. It, the machine, functions quite like the old story of leadership by where there are
There has been vast amounts of research done on the topic of leadership, and yet despite this it continues to be ‘‘riddled with paradoxes, inconsistencies, and contradictions’’
The lord, in return, would provide the king with soldiers or taxes. In a monarchy, a king or queen is Head of State or held the most power than any other division. A king (or lord) ruled large areas of land. To protect his land from invasion, the king gave parts of it to local lords, who were called vassals.
position, he is more apt than the king to know the will of the people and to
The Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu put it best when he said, “A leader is best when people barley know he exists, When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, They will say: We did it ourselves.” Often when a person thinks of a leader they think of such great leaders as George Washington, George Patton, and Thomas Jackson. The word “leader” itself will invoke images of die-hard men with the charisma to command anyone and overcome anything. Yet despite this common image there was no theory of leadership that covered this common belief in a “super” leader.
Chapter 1: The Nature of Leadership 1. What is the best explanation for so many different definitions of leadership? a. scholarly nitpicking about trivial issues b. disagreement about what should be included in the definition c. little opportunity for rigorous scientific analysis d. leadership is a very old topic with centuries of definitions Answer: b. 2.
The traditional view of a king was to rule a kingdom and sort out the injustice that the people wanted justice for. Not only did a king control the laws, politics and economics of their kingdom, the king was seen as strong enough to help lead their country into battles and come back with a victory.
Being a leader requires obtaining certain characteristics that guide others to life in harmony within a state. In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” Epictetus’ Enchiridion, and “Plutarch’s Lives:Volume 1,” there is a common theme of what defines an influential leader. While diligence is the core of a strong leader, maintaining prudence initiates the efficiency necessary to build a state’s stability.
What is leadership, and how do we attain the best and most effective leaders? These are questions that are as old as civilization itself. Bass (1974) wrote that, “from its infancy, the study of history has been the study of leaders” (as cited in Wren, 1995, p. 50). Since the study of history in the West is commonly held to begin with Herodotus of ancient Athens, it is not surprising that we should examine the historical views of leadership through the eyes of two titans of Greek thought: Plato and Aristotle.
His analysis of leadership at its most primal roots is insightful, but unnecessary since human societies and leadership roles are much more complex.
Leadership is, and always has been, a vital aspect of social and economic constructs. It is essential to the survival of societies, industries, organizations, and virtually any group of individuals that come together for a common purpose. However, leadership is difficult to define in a single, definitive sense. As such, theories of leadership, what constitutes a great leader, and how leaders are made have evolved constantly throughout history, and still continue to change today in hopes of improving upon our understanding of leadership, its importance, and how it can be most effective in modern organizational cultures.
The king has everything, but he must keep his respect and all his things. The king needed loyal people to work the land and he also needed an army to protect the land. The king expected his lord to supply him with a great army, in return from the king giving the lord land (Biel 9). The king had an official/sheriff put together a small army of knights that helped fulfill the king’s wishes throughout the kingdom. The sheriffs also collected a type of income tax for the King which helped the king fiance the armies that protected his kingdom (Biel 18). The King was the highest rank and he provided land for his vassals. The king divided his whole kingdom into 50-60 fiefs and his role was to give out land (Biel 9). The kingdoms were divided into duchies, earldoms, or countries, for the king’s vassals. Their land was then divided into smaller fiefs again and again until the lowest rank got land (Biel 10). The king was the highest rank and he had everything, but he also had to keep his people’s loyalty and everything he
In chapter 1-3 we have learned a lot about leadership and different roles of leadership. In Chapter one we are taught about the definitions and the significance of leadership. In chapter two we learn about global and cultural context. Global and cultural context let us know about the roles culture can play in leadership and how a leader can develop a cultural mindset. In Chapter three we learn about the early theories of the foundations of modern leadership. There are three eras of leadership, which consist of the trait era, the behavior era, and the contingency era, which is the era that we are in now.
The role of a king is to be Kingly. In doing such he must be influential and have personal integrity, be calm and balanced, be able to protect and maintain order, be hard working and energetic, bless and acknowledging the efforts of other people, to teach and deliver his wisdom, to show no fear in the face of adversity, and to be well spoken and deliver speeches.
The role of a king, apart from his other responsibilities include – being calm and centered, being decisive and having personal integrity, being hard working and energetic, able to protect and maintain order, blessing others and acknowledging the efforts of other people, to search out and to reveal things, to teach those things and deliver his wisdom to his people, and to be well spoken and deliver speeches.