Where We Came From

By Mike DeGrosky

Readers know that I am very interested by the evolution of leadership thinking. For example, leadership theories have evolved from ancient attitudes to what we now call leadership.

Leadership presents a paradox. It has been greatly transformed in numerous ways, yet we're still debating timeless issues and proposing approaches rooted in 5,000-year-old philosophies. One must understand ancient philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, Sun Tzu, Seneca, Lao Tzu and others, especially those philosophies that have endured — or at least been recycled — to understand where many contemporary leadership theories had their roots.

The ancients examined the effective leaders of their time — typically kings, emperors and generals — and drew inferences about the nature of leadership from them. Prior to 1900, leadership theories were great-man theories, the study of successful leaders who scholars viewed as born to lead. However, I am very interested in the fine distinctions within that view of leadership. Even great-man theorists changed their views about what constituted leadership; for example, authority, perceptiveness, justice, morality, inspiration, judgment, wisdom, shrewdness, cunning, and benevolence all have been expected of great men. Recently, I was surprised when a colleague cited the Bible as an example of great-man theory. I had never considered that for two millennia Christians have examined the life of Christ and strived to emulate it — and that's an effective example of how leadership thinking looked through the 19th century.

Ancient Chinese philosophers advocated non-coercive ethical leadership, empowerment, facilitation of group process, and what is known today as servant leadership. It is striking that they did this several thousand years before any of those became the hallmarks of either industrial or post-industrial leadership theories. Plato campaigned for what we would today call dispersed leadership. Machiavelli advocated what some modern scholars regard as the dark side of transformational and charismatic leadership theories.

Today, we widely regard leadership as a relationship between leader and follower and understand that leadership occurs within a context. Beyond this fundamental change, I see four important leadership transformations:

1. Scholarly thinking transitioned from headship to the concept of leaders and leadership. This change in thinking apparently began as early as the 14th century but took hold in the 18th century.

2. Mass communication arrived. Previously, philosophers influenced relatively few people and only in certain nation-states. The downside to mass communication is that, today, anybody can advance their crackpot leadership theory or worship a CEO with a book, Web site, or mass-market training session.

3. Leadership thinking shifted from the historical study of certain leaders to leadership as a concept. This is exemplified by the advent of trait theories around 1900.

4. The focus of leadership thinking shifted from the nature and philosophy of leadership to the practice of leadership. This happened around 1950, when several major research studies questioned the basic premise of the trait theories, giving rise to the behavioral period of research. However, one could argue that this shift began long before this.

A lot has changed, but much has not. We still use and advance great-man approaches to leadership and maybe we always will. It's good that so many biographers are profiling presidents and other historical figures, entire generations and movements like mad. On the negative end of the spectrum, in book stores, the business and leadership shelves are chocked full of books idolizing corporate CEOs, some who are idolizing themselves, and others idolizing people who will be on their way to jail before the book is off the bestseller list.

The problem is that no central definition or theory of leadership has emerged in the modern era. One can argue that numerous major theories still have relevance and that none have been fully substantiated or discredited prior to new theories emerging. Our knowledge of leadership as unfocused, inconclusive and unhelpful to practitioners. As a result, the industry of leadership dominates the study of leadership, and leadership hucksters espouse pop theories and training approaches that have gotten well ahead of what the existing body of knowledge supports. Others are reviving dormant theories that researchers have fundamentally discredited.

As I've said before, I favor the post-industrial thinking of Joseph Rost, including his call for definition. Rost focuses on definition within a context — the critical need to agree on what does and does not constitute leadership. However, we also must remember that leadership is a social construct, and the specifics and practices change as society and it's values change. Ancient Egyptians observed this phenomenon in its leaders; modern Americans are still observing the same phenomena. It is the essential nature of that phenomenon that we seek to understand.

Three items of critical importance remain:

1. While I am critical of the state of leadership research, we have made substantial progress. One thing that scholars working in the field of leadership studies agree upon is that leaders and leadership are not synonymous. Leaders are people; leadership is a process.

2. Leadership, being generally accepted as a process in this field, is not a position. Unfortunately, the word “leadership” is commonly used this way.

3. I already have described the body of knowledge as unfocused, inconclusive, and unhelpful to practitioners. However, despite that situation, we shouldn't treat the existing body of knowledge as simply a pile of competing leadership theories and certainly not a buffet from which we can pick and choose. We are interested in an evolving, increasing understanding of a phenomenon we have chosen to call leadership.

Mike DeGrosky is chief executive officer of the Guidance Group, a consulting organization specializing in the human and organizational aspects of the fire service. He also serves as an adjunct instructor in leadership studies at Fort Hays State University. His interests include leadership, strategy, and bringing the concepts of learning organizations and high-reliability organizing alive in fire organizations. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. focused on organizational leadership. He can be reached at info@guidancegroup.org.