The Genesis of Ethical Leadership: What makes a great leader?

Chapter 1 - Introduction

What is great leadership? Think about it – how do you know when you see an example of great leadership? What appears to be a seemingly innocuous question is not so obvious when you really think about it. The difficulty in being able to identify great leadership stems from the conjunction of great and leadership (and to some extent the conjunction of great and leader), which implies that a great person in a leadership position is a great leader. A leader might be perceived as great because they have achieved a significant feat, or even attained a prominent position, but it does not follow that just because they became such that they also exercised great leadership, indeed they may not have even exercised good leadership. The illogicality here is evident yet we seem to accept that a leader that has achieved a great feat is also a great leader when this might not be true. The problem remains that we need to understand what is really meant by good and great leadership.

Great, or even good, leadership should result from the manner in which a leader exercises leadership. In saying this it must be recognised that the leadership, and not the leader’s attributes that needs to be considered in making this assessment. The failure to separate the two elements leads to the illogical conclusion that if a person is great in terms of eminence or achievement, and they are in a position of leadership, then ipso facto they exercise great leadership.

It is natural for a leader to want to be seen as a good leader, and possibly even as a great leader. In order to be a good leader one must do good. This is the essence of ethical leadership - being a good person is not enough, although as Plato would say, a necessary precondition. You might be a good or virtuous person, but being a good leader requires the demonstration of leadership that conforms to the principles of ethics and also demonstrates leadership – no easy task.

We can all point to what we regard examples of good leadership, who have become renown as great leaders of their era. People such as Martin Luther King, John F Kennedy, Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher might come to mind. We can also point to abominable examples of leadership such as Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, Josef Stalin or Augusto Pinochet. But before reaching the conclusion that one leader is great and another abominable it is necessary to look at their track record and understand why we tend to strip some leaders of the epithet great when they were, at one point, regarded by their followers as great leaders. Without doubt, the most controversial of the aforementioned leaders is Hitler. Prior to the commencement of World War II the German people revered him. He was recognised as a saviour, someone that had led them out of their post WWI humiliation. What he and his party achieved for the country was exceptional in the 1930’s and his leadership was at that time labelled great by his countrymen with an almost cult-like reverence. Similarly, JFK was regarded in glowing terms by most of his countrymen during the early sixties, and to this day his leadership and achievements are seen as extraordinary in a tumultuous time. But can we compare Hitler to JFK in terms of great leadership? The problem with doing so is not so much one of comparison of the two individuals from an ethical perspective but the legacy of their leadership. Understanding what constitutes good or ethical leadership is necessary if we are to have a basis for comparison.

Until now, the success of these and similar great leaders has been attributed to the notion of them possessing inherent abilities.

¹ This perspective has been the situation for over half a century, with the trait theory of leadership maintaining the belief that leaders possess the right stuff for them to become leaders, and indeed great leaders. Take for example the quality of intelligence. This is still widely regarded as an antecedent for leadership. We seem to insist that our leaders should be intelligent and possess certain mental and physical abilities yet we pay less attention to their beliefs and values, in fact in some areas we do not even know these attributes. Even though we may recognise aspects of our leaders backgrounds as supporting their inherent qualities or behaviours, even accounting for their success or greatness, other influences such as the ideologies, culture and philosophies to which they have been exposed receive scant attention. This is peculiar when it has been proposed that all leadership is ideologically driven or motivated by a certain philosophical perspective.²

Do great men possess the inherent capabilities for leadership? Unsurprisingly, research has identified that the emergence and effectiveness of leadership cannot be solely attributed to the possession of certain traits. Traits might be a precondition for the emergence of leaders but they are not solely responsible, and they are certainly not the sole source of a leader’s effectiveness. Researchers have therefore turned to investigate a range of other factors to understand how leaders emerge and succeed, leading them to conclude that certain behaviours and abilities are equally important as traits. Some of these behaviours can be learned but, by and large, most of them still seem to be innate in some people.

The Great Man theory of leadership

Despite its somewhat politically incorrect name the Great Man theory took root in the early nineteenth century as a way of explaining why some leaders achieved greatness. Open any leadership textbook and you will find the theory given prominence as the father of all leadership theories. Given the amount of literature that has been devoted to this one theory one would be excused for thinking that it is the source of our modern understanding of leadership. In a nutshell the Great Man theory proposed that the qualities of certain men (great men) were innate. The theory derived its name from the study of leaders at the time who were, predominantly if not exclusively, men. One such proponent of the notion that certain men possessed the qualities for greatness was Thomas Carlyle, a nineteenth century Scottish philosopher. Carlyle was fascinated by the French revolution that had only occurred just before his birth. Perhaps the Scottish struggle for independence from the English inflamed his interest. Nonetheless, he went on to write about the French revolution and began to formulate his ideas around it. One of these ideas was the notion that certain cataclysmic events in human history are the work of great men. His most obvious denouncement on this idea is to be found in his most famous work - On heroes, Hero worship and the heroic in History in the statement: the history of the world is but the biography of great men. His book analysed several great leaders such as Napoleon Bonaparte, Oliver Cromwell and even the prophet Mohammed to conclude that these men all possessed the qualities for their greatness and were the agents for change in human destiny.

Where does a leader’s approach come from?

Leadership is, at core, a relationship³ between a leader and followers – a social influence process.⁴ A leader is able to influence followers towards some end. How they influence followers has been the subject of extensive academic enquiry and emerges in the form of numerous leadership theories. In this regard, leadership theory has predominantly been descriptive – we know how the influence process works and why it is effective, but we do not know how it comes about. How, for example, does a person’s ability to influence others develop and why is it effective in some situations but not in others? What we need to know is how the leadership abilities and behaviours develop, and whether they can be learned. Chapter 2 will expand on this aspect of leadership approach development.

Leadership research has determined that leaders possess certain traits and behaviours but neither of these are any guarantee for success as a leader. They may be preconditions for leadership emergence and they may contribute to a leaders success but they are by no means the sole determinant. The traits of intelligence and persistence are two widely touted leadership qualities. Yet there are numerous people with these traits that do not become leaders, and there are some leaders that do not succeed even though they possess these attributes. The genetic (nature) argument in relation to leadership is largely inconclusive and, contradictorily even tends to suggest environmental influences (nurture) as being more determinative.

The environment argument has proposed a range of influences as contributing to leadership behaviours. Factors identified within the family and outside it may indicate certain behavioural tendencies but these do not suggest what type of leadership approach will manifest – they are only a possible precondition for leadership emergence and effectiveness.

This leads us to look elsewhere for how a leader’s approach develops. If genetics has failed to provide us any reliable means of predicting leadership emergence or effectiveness then it would seem futile to continue down that path. This leaves environmental factors as the only option capable of providing some indication of the type of leadership approach that may emerge. If we accept that leadership is at core a social influence relationship then it follows that we should look to what factors impact upon the formation of our understanding of that relationship. Undoubtedly, personality attributed play a role in leadership emergence and success but it does not fully account for the type of leadership approach that the person displays.

In order to understand what environmental factors influence the development of a persons leadership approach then we need to know how the underlying beliefs, attitudes and values of a leader towards others form. We will explore the role of philosophical influences and how some of these philosophical influences have acted on people throughout history in Chapter 3.

The soldier statesmen

The key to understanding how leaders exercise leadership is revealed through an understanding of how their leadership approach develops. Why does one leader seem initially to be our great hope for change only to become irrelevant, or worse, a monster? What separates the competent leader from the outstanding leader? Why are some leaders regarded as great and leaving a positive legacy?

To answer these questions we need to delve into the backgrounds of certain great leaders to find out. We could choose any leaders for this analysis but the four selected leaders are from a category that are generically known as soldier statesmen.⁵ These leaders have been selected not simply because of their universal recognition as great leaders but because they have successfully led in two different domains – military and political. To be successful in two separate spheres indicates a high degree of leadership career autonomy, that is, they are not leaders in their field simply because of the skills that they have developed in that field. It is not a simple matter to be a leader in one sphere and succeed in another. There are not many people that achieve the high point in one career and do the same in a completely different one. For example, many business leaders succeed as leaders of their organisations in part because of their specific suitability to a particular industry.⁶ Doing the same thing and doing it well for a long time gives a person credibility and judgement that is often sought out for leadership roles. But the very same person may not be suitable in a different profession or even a different industry. We often see successful people move from the business sector into politics but the truly a great leader in one sphere is not necessarily perceived as great in another. The soldier statesmen, on the other hand, demonstrate that they have successfully led in two separate domains, and in the case of the selected leaders they have done so notably. Discounting that they may have had an aptitude for both the military and political environments, the likelihood is that their leadership has a universal quality.

The soldier statesmen selected are somewhat comparative contemporaries from two different eras – one pair from the eighteenth century: George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte and the other pair from the twentieth century: Dwight D Eisenhower and Charles de Gaulle.

The similarities and differences between these leaders are intriguing. Washington was effectively the first leader of the US republic while Napoleon was the same for France; both fought against the British and were influenced by similar ideologies that were instrumental in the development of their Constitutions.⁷ Similarly, Eisenhower became President of the United States of America (USA) after WWII while de Gaulle became President of France’s Fifth Republic; both fought on the same side against a common adversary and emerged out of bureaucracy with very different influences directing their destiny, both presiding over similar regime change and social turbulence. Of course, all four leaders were successful military leaders but in distinctly different circumstances. All became the leader of their nation, through force or acquiescence: some left a positive legacy while others did not. How did they approach leadership, and why did they succeed in both the military and political context? Chapters 4 through 7 will address these questions to identify the influences that determined their leadership approach.

It is also worth noting that most of the leaders pre twentieth century have not taken courses in leadership before they become leaders: this would suggest that environmental conditioning must play a role in the types of behaviours and abilities that they develop. Through an understanding of how the soldier statesmen’s leadership approach forms we can then address the question of what constitutes good, and therefore, ethical leadership. Chapter 8 will look at the leadership approaches of each of the soldier statesmen and consider what gives rise to the claim of their leadership being considered ethical. We will see that great leadership results from the manner in which leadership is exercised. What distinguishes the competent from the incompetent leader is not what distinguishes the competent from the good or the great. We will revisit the conundrum of good and great leadership in this final chapter but also evaluate why the selected leaders succeeded and why their reputations have endured.

Chapter 2 - Leadership approach development

Despite the vast amount of literature on leadership there has been very little research into how a person’s leadership approach develops. As we have seen in the previous chapter leaders are not necessarily born, as there are many attributes of leadership and we certainly are not born as ethical leaders. The conundrum surrounding how one becomes a leader falls into three camps. The first (nature) is that some people simply assume that leadership is genetic - how we lead is a function of our personality and character derived from our parents (and perhaps some other predecessors). The other camp (nurture) assumes that it is the result of environmental conditioning – how we are raised and the type of environment we are raised in. And of course there is the hybrid of these two constituting the third. Nonetheless the debate between genetics and environment has raged for over a century and has become known as the nature-nurture controversy.

The nature argument (that is, the perception that leaders are born) emerged with the early Greek philosophers.⁸ The perception of being born with particular characteristics that either predestined you for greatness or mediocrity persisted well into the late nineteenth century.⁹ The Great Man theory emerged out of this notion that particular traits predestined a person for greatness and that only a few extraordinary people were endowed with more of these elements than other mere mortals.¹⁰ This view was promoted in the nineteenth century by philosophers such as Thomas Carlyle who not only saw human nature as inherent but immutable, that is, humans were largely predictable and stereotypical. However, other philosophers of the time rejected this perspective. John Stuart Mill, proposed in his 1848 work Principles of Political Economy, that such thinking impeded social reform.¹¹ After all, if human nature was so fixed then this would simply ensure the status quo forever. Such a concept suited the paternalistic and aristocratic society of the time. To Mill such a state was ridiculous and he rallied against the rampant discrimination endemic in English society - in particular against women’s right to vote.

While philosophers were divided on the nature argument it was an age when science was in the ascendant. The scientific community weighed into the debate and it would achieve significant notoriety under Charles Galton. Galton was something of a polymath. His diverse scientific background exposed him to a wide range of disciplines – biology, criminology, psychology, statistics, to name a few. His focus, though, narrowed in his later career on the role of hereditary traits in humans: piqued by the work of his uncle, Charles Darwin, who had proposed several years earlier that human beings genetically mutated from an ancient ancestor. Galton subsequently wrote Hereditary Genius: an inquiry into its laws and consequences, in 1869, proposing that a whole raft of human characteristics were inherited: intelligence, persistence and even civic worth! It was an instant hit among the well to do. Of course prominent men sprung from prominent men – it was only natural. The upper class ruled because they were naturally superior and the lower class were downcast because (even though no one said it) they were naturally inferior – and neither the twain should meet. So successful was Galton’s theory that he became know as the father of Eugenics – the practice of improving the human race through genetic selection. Half a century later the Nazis even tried to adopt it.¹²

Following Galton’s work, the scene was set for genetics to be at the forefront of scientific research into human behaviour for the next century. So certain were the researchers that genetics was the source of human behaviour that it became almost heretical to advocate otherwise. Yet heretics always have a nasty habit of popping up, and in the late 1940s a researcher by the name of Nicholas Pastore decided to review 24 studies undertaken since Galton’s initial research. He found little conclusive evidence for genetics being solely responsible for human development and in fact identified that the Galtonian hereditarians were contradicted by the environmentalists. Eminent sociologist Herbert Spencer concurred, proposing that it was absurd to think that a Newton, Milton or Beethoven could emerge in a family or society not conducive to such a person’s development.¹³ That made people think – imagine if Beethoven was born in Africa! Could he have composed the Eroica symphony without the inspiration of Napoleon or … a piano. It seemed only logical that environmental factors must play a role in a persons development and that great men could not only be the result of genetic attributes. Interestingly, the scientists analysed by Pastore were equally split on the importance of nature versus nurture. The only determinative factor on whether one subscribed to either theory was founded on one’s socio-political orientation – hereditarians being predominantly conservative (nature) and environmentalists being progressive (nurture).¹⁴

Research conducted into the influence of environmental factors on human development gained some traction in the early twentieth century but was overshadowed by the focus on genetics. Of distinct interest to some of the researchers was whether Galton’s hereditary greatness claims were true. This naturally sparked interest in whether the people that achieved greatness possessed certain traits that predestined them for their achievements. A number of researchers quite predictably went down the trait path trying to identify personal qualities. As most of the great men analysed were leaders, in some respect, the research adopted an element of identifying the traits of leadership. The research into environmental factors proceeded in parallel but failed to attract as much attention.

Research into the environmental basis of leadership has identified several factors that were found to be predominantly associated with influences from the family (or extended family) and society. The familial factors identified birth order,¹⁵ family size¹⁶ and parenting as playing a role in how leaders emerge while¹⁷ the societal factors identified career/life opportunities¹⁸, degree of marginalisation, heterogeneity,¹⁹ and educational standards.²⁰

In relation to birth order, research identified that first- and last-born siblings have a higher preponderance for leadership.²¹ Birth order, as a non-genetic determinant in predicting the emergence of future leaders, is based on the differences in personality between first-, middle- and last-born siblings.²² Family size has also been identified as a factor in relation to the emergence of personality traits relevant to leadership (being based on the development of intelligence and persistence – two recognised leadership traits).²³ Single-child families have been found to be of above average intelligence and average persistence, while average families of between two and five children have been found to be higher in intelligence but below average in persistence, and children from large families of six or more have been found to be lowest in intelligence but highest in persistence.²⁴ In addition to these traits it has been observed that the optimal family size (three–four siblings) tends to produce group goal oriented individuals who are more co-operative than individual prize motivated individuals who tend to be more persistent.²⁵ Parenting then comes into the equation, with nurturing, positive parents more likely to produce children with socially acceptable abilities.²⁶ In relation to the influence of the respective parents, research has shown that a strong mother is more likely to produce leadership-oriented