Leadership in history: the moral viewpoint

Despite its title, this book is not really a collection of stories about leaders who changed the world "" it attempts to be much more than that.

The author's hugely ambitious project is nothing less than to uncover the human role in change, taking all of history as his canvas.

How much do leaders contribute to change? What are the forces that make leaders? How do leaders and followers influence each other?

These are some of the issues that this book addresses, issues that, because of their complexity, cannot have easy answers. It's no wonder then that the author's conclusions are partial and tentative.

Here's a flavour of what the author believes constitutes leadership: "The clues to the mystery of leadership lie in a potent equation: embattled values grounded in real wants, invigorated by conflict, empower leaders and activated followers to fashion deep and comprehensive change in the lives of the people. The acid test of this empowerment is whether the change is lasting or whether it is temporary or even reversible. Deep and durable change, guided and measured by values, is the ultimate purpose of transforming leadership, and constitutes both its physical impact and its moral justification." As you can see, it's very far from the standard management literature on leadership.

How much do leaders influence history? At one extreme are the 'Great Man' theorists, who believe that history is nothing but the creation of the deeds of great leaders.

Thomas Carlyle was the foremost exponent of this school, with his assertion that, "The history of the world is but the biography of great men."

There are many examples of such men throughout this book, ranging from Queen Elizabeth to de Gaulle to FDR to Mao.

At the other extreme, says the author, are those determinists who believe that individuals have a very limited influence on the course of history, Karl Marx being a prime example.

Recall the preface to the Critique of Political Economy: "It is not the consciousness of men that determine their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness."

As Marx said in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past."

Burns tries to steer a middle path through these extremes, concluding that leadership is the "X factor in historic causation".

Burns makes a distinction between what he calls 'transactional leadership' and 'transforming leadership'. The former is leadership of the common or garden variety, to be found in the horse-trading and influence-peddling of run-of-the-mill politicians.

The 'transforming' leaders are more interesting, with the best of them seizing history by the collar to make fundamental changes in people's lives.

The great revolutionary leaders would, of course, be examples, but Burns also mentions people like FDR who pushed through the New Deal in the US, Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the American Revolution, and Gandhi.

The author believes that the 'wants' of the masses results in a clamour for change, and activists or potential leaders try to take advantage of that desire for change to take over power. Leadership, therefore, is often rooted in conflict, and leadership is a creative response to challenges.

But 'transforming' leaders go beyond these commonplaces to "define public values that embrace the supreme and enduring principles of a people."

Burns' conception of leadership is, therefore, a moral one, a premise that comes across clearly in his insistence Hitler, despite calling himself 'Fuhrer', was no leader.

Burns says that when people talk of leadership they automatically imply good leadership. But were Attila and Genghis Khan not leaders of their men? Where would you place Mao or Stalin?

Burns' moral approach to leadership stems from his basic premise that leaders arise out of the desire of the masses of the people "" the followers "" to better their lot.

In terms of this logic, Christ and Buddha and Mohammed were leaders because they fulfilled the spiritual needs of their people.

But the problem is that if leaders merely fulfilled needs of the people, why is it that billions of people live lives of poverty, while a few wallow in luxury?

Burns recognises the issue, and his rather Utopian response is to formulate a scheme to create leaders who would tackle poverty in the world.

What Burns doesn't really cover in his discussion of leadership is the primacy of power and the points made by political analysts such as Pareto, with his theory of 'circulating elites' or Michels, with his 'Iron Law of Oligarchy', which talks of how there will always be elites in every organisation, and of how leaders and elites desire leadership and its status and rewards more than any commitment to goals.

Indeed, it could very often be the case that individuals would wind up pushing the course of history in directions completely opposite to what the needs of their people indicate. Hitler and Stalin would be examples.

In short, Burns' belief in a moral leadership is unconvincing, but that doesn't detract from the wealth of ideas discussed in this book, and from Burns' scholarship in attempting to shape these concepts to arrive at a broad understanding of the mystery of leadership.

Leaders Who Changed the World

James MacGregor Burns
Published by Viking
Pages:319
Price: Rs 495