The Cult of the Leader E-Book

Christopher Bones

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 340

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

A critical look at the way that business leadership has gone so badly wrong.

Modern business is obsessed with leaders. We talk about leadership all the time, but its real meaning is becoming more and more obscure. Recent corporate crises have shown that all too often, our leaders are missing in action when we need them most. In this groundbreaking and provocative new book, Chris Bones shows how we need to:

• Restore trust and confidence
• Be more realistic about what leaders can and can't do
• Redefine talent
• Revalue experience
• Reconsider remuneration

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Gods that Failed

Part One: The Diagnosis

Chapter One: Practically Perfect in Every Way

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LEADER

REPLICATING LEADERSHIP SUCCESS

GURUS AND VOODOO

MANAGEMENT OR LEADERSHIP?

WHAT LEADERS DO WRONG

WHY WE NEED LEADERSHIP

Chapter Two: Because We’re Worth It

Chapter Three: Why Didn’t We See It Coming?

CAPITAL MARKETS

POLITICS AND CIVIL SOCIETY

DEREGULATION AND DEBT

STEWARDSHIP, PARTNERSHIP AND LIABILITY

Chapter Four: The Public Gets What the Public Wants

REPUTATION

TRUST AND CONFIDENCE

VALUE AND VALUES

Part Two: The Solutions

Chapter Five: The Manifesto for a More Authentic Business

Chapter Six: Diamonds on the Soles of Your Shoes

DEFINE AND COMMUNICATE A CLEAR CORE PURPOSE

RECRUIT FOR ATTITUDE NOT SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

STOP LOOKING FOR GREENER GRASS

HAVE A DEVELOPMENT AS WELL AS AN EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT

GET RID OF COMPETENCY ASSESSMENTS

THROW OUT OVER-ENGINEERED HR SYSTEMS

INVEST IN LINE MANAGERS

Chapter Seven: Moving From Warm Gestures to Cold Showers

SALARY

VARIABLE CASH PAYMENTS

SHARE SCHEMES

RETIREMENT SCHEMES

BENEFITS

OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHANGE

CHANGE THE ROLE AND VISIBILITY OF SALARY

USE VARIABLE REWARDS TO REFLECT PERFORMANCE

ABOLISH SHARE OPTIONS

REMOVE UNNECESSARY BENEFITS AND IMPOSE MUCH STRICTER EXPENSE REGIMES

CAP EARNINGS POTENTIAL BY INTRODUCING A RELATIVITY PRINCIPLE

CHANGE THE REWARD STRUCTURES FOR FUND MANAGERS

RECONSIDER THE LINK BETWEEN MOTIVATION AND MONEY

THE LAKE WOBEGON EFFECT

Chapter Eight: Less is More

CHANGING APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP

BUILD A LEADERSHIP EXPECTATION FOR THE BOARD

BE EXPLICIT ABOUT VALUES AND WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY ARE IGNORED

REINFORCE COLLECTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY THROUGH PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES

STOP DEVELOPING LEADERS AND START DEVELOPING ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP

INVEST IN INDIVIDUAL PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS

WHY LESS IS MORE

Conclusion: The Importance of Being Earnest

Index

This edition first published 2011

© 2011 Christopher Bones

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ISBN 978-1-119-99111-3 (epdf)

ISBN 978-1-119-97804-6 (epub)

ISBN 978-1-119-97805-3 (mobi)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

For Hamish and Sophie

Acknowledgements

There are many people who have contributed to the development of the ideas in this book and whose thinking has shaped and directed my own when I began to reflect on the state of leadership in modern organizations. In particular I would like to thank my colleagues at Henley Business School, and especially Professor Malcolm Higgs, Professor Stephen Lee, Dr Kevin Money, the Director of the John Madejski Centre for Reputation and Phil Radcliff who so successfully leads the Henley Leadership Programme. This book sprang from an original article for ‘The Economist.com’ which created a worldwide debate about modern leaders and I would like to thank Conrad Heine, the Management Editor of The Economist for giving me that opportunity to share my views. Considerable credit for the finished product goes to Ellen Hallsworth at John Wiley & Sons who has been a diligent, thoughtful and supportive editor, always ready to give feedback and advice, understanding of all the aspects of being a business school Dean that got in the way of completion, but never letting up on her determination to ensure the book appeared. Finally I have to thank my wife, Gail, who endured the travails of writing, editing and all the associated frustrations by being an editor, proof reader and as always a great support.

Chris Bones

January 2011

Introduction: The Gods that Failed

If ever we needed great leadership in the world, then this must be the time that it should come forward and so far the 21st century hasn’t really delivered. The global financial crisis, the failure of the world’s governments to agree a plan to mitigate our changing climate, the stalemate in the Middle East peace process, the stalling of the ‘Darfur’ round and the continuing failure to reverse the rise of religious and political fundamentalism have all been ascribed in the media, in books and by polemicists of all persuasions to a common factor: a failure of leadership.

Good leaders would not let these things happen. The weak ones in key positions have, by their actions or inactivity (take your pick), been the authors not just of their own misery but, more importantly, of the conglomeration of crises that we now face. This is to be expected: in adversity we all look for someone to blame and rarely do we look to ourselves. We look to those who we believe have led us into the problem we now face.

The failure of leadership, and the doling out of blame in the aftermath, has had far-reaching consequences. Trust and confidence has bottomed out, not only in the current leaders of business, government, public services, but also in these systems and structures themselves; the systems and structures which have underpinned the way we live for the past fifty or sixty years. In the West, these systems and structures were based on three tenets. The first was that economic growth, measured through increases in gross domestic product was a good thing per se. The second, that consumption of scarce resources to satisfy the end consumer was the single most important outcome for all producers of economic activity be they firms or governments. Thirdly and more recently, that wealth could be better created through short-term changes in asset values rather than through the creation of goods and services that could be sold for a value greater than the cost of their delivery.

The result has been that, in the 21st century the wealthy have so much disposable income that they are able to consume to no real purpose apart from the purpose of consumption itself. The following diagrams (Figure I.1 and Figure I.2) demonstrate the extent to which the wealthiest have benefited in Great Britain1 over the ten years 1998–2008:2

Figure I.1 The average percentage change in real net household income in Great Britain 1997/8–2007/8

(reproduced by permission of The Poverty Site)

Figure I.2 The difference in income growth between households in Great Britain 1997/8–2007/8

(reproduced by permission of The Poverty Site)

The behaviour and spending patterns of the wealthiest have in themselves become an aspiration for those far less wealthy. Such aspiration was spurred on by political leaders from Reagan and Thatcher to Bush and Blair, who created visions of a property-owning democracy where everyone could own their own home. In this brave new world, the fact of such ownership could make money in itself that could then be spent on furthering their ambitions to ape the lives of celebrities through even more consumption. To fuel these aspirations, business teamed up with the banks to exploit the deregulation of financial services in much of Europe and North America. Easy credit fuelled the emergence of something called ‘a lifestyle’.

Originally said to be a sociological term coined by Alfred Adler in the 1920s,3 it is now in common parlance and will in my view become the term that defines the generation for whom consumption became a way of life. Where shopping became a pastime rather than a chore and where those with more money than sense were able to spend on themselves just because they were worth it. This is the L’Oreal generation.

Their leaders were the epitomes of ‘lifestyle’. They looked the part, wore the clothes, lived in the houses, drove the cars, invested in the second homes, flashed the credit cards – and plenty of them. They ate in the restaurants, espoused the politics of change, had the cosmetic enhancements and lived their lives of instant gratification. These were the modern pantheon of gods. The gods of capital (exemplified by Sir Fred Goodwin, Kenneth D. Lewis, Lloyd Blankfien amongst others) and the gods of economics (just think of Alan Greenspan, Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman as representing those who drove the pre 2008 orthodoxy). The gods of business (three who spring to mind are Kenneth Lay, WorldCom CEO, Stan O’Neil of Merrill Lynch and Carly Fiorina of HP); the gods of style (we shouldn’t forget Martha Stewart or Carole Caplin, or perhaps we should); and the gods of sport (what now for Tiger Woods, Joey Barton and Ben Johnson?). The gods of communication (the rivalries and global ambitions of Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner and Conrad Black dominated for a decade) and the gods of the politics (Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Silvio Berlusconi all brought celebrity to politics and took politics to new levels of public contempt) . This generation’s fascination with celebrity, and their wish to emulate the latest trend in every aspect of life, made these people international household names, whose every move was watched, reported on and copied. They intermingled (the reports on Tony Blair’s and Gordon Brown’s guest lists for Chequers,4 the UK Prime Minister’s country retreat, and the reporting on Tony Blair’s annual vacations5 show the intermingling of the political class with film stars, rock icons, billionaires, sports stars and the like) and created a coterie of self-reinforcing role models who met and glittered on a carousel of country houses, yachts, palaces, palazzos, ranches and the occasional dacha.

In one way or another, these are the gods who have failed. The revenge of the L’Oreal generation has already seen some of them into retirement, into obscurity and in a few cases into jail. Most of those who remain will eventually suffer as all false gods do. For the paradise hasn’t just been postponed, it will never materialize. The L’Oreal generation has just found out that it will have to work longer, save harder, pay more to the state in taxation and suffer more natural disasters than any generation in living memory. They’re going to blame someone.

Some will argue that out of such a melting pot of disaster and change will come forward a new type of leader, someone capable of being different and doing different things. This was the basis of the Obama campaign in 2009 and it is already possible to see opposition leaders in other countries adopting this proposition as a potential vote-winning strategy. At the same time the old way of doing things is already rearing its head again, in banking, in politics, in business and in public services. It doesn’t seem like leaders have learned very much from what has happened.

Perhaps all they need to do is to read the books and find the answer: there are more than enough of them. More than 1.9 million business books are now offered by Amazon, including more than 267,000 in the ‘business management’ category. In 2009 11,000 business books were published in the United States alone. To give you some sense of scale apparently if they were placed one on top of another, the stack would stand as tall as a nine-story building.6 One way or another, a significant part of the canon deals with one topic: how we can become great leaders. Solutions are proffered from every angle. Academic research looks to correlate success against identified and defined behavioural characteristics. Consultants exhort us to adopt practices based on the experiences of successful leaders; and there are the lessons we can extract from fiction written up by self-styled leadership gurus.

Regardless of the credibility or otherwise of the source for such recipes for success, these books all claim to provide an answer to leadership perfection. They stem from a tradition which believes that empirical study can demonstrate what it takes to succeed. All that is required is for individuals to adopt new ways of being and doing for us to change.

This book is written from a different perspective: it argues that no-one can become the perfect leader because no such thing exists. Indeed, I go further, to say that the cult that now surrounds leadership and leader development is positively dangerous, not just for business but for society as a whole.

All leaders are flawed because all human beings are flawed. Saints are rare (and equally capable of human failure7). Indeed, in the Christian tradition, we are all born with sin and are capable of it. Regardless of how good we strive to be, we will commit sufficient sin to warrant confession and to plead for forgiveness at least once a week. In the more contemplative traditions human flaws are accepted as given and whilst the most religious are those who have striven hardest to eradicate their human failings, the vast majority recognize and accept that they are imperfect. The shared ambition, however, in these philosophies is the search for well-being in a spiritual as well as material sense.8

The lessening of the importance of the thinking behind religious traditions in education in the West has removed this reinforcement of imperfection from many lives. Leaders are subject to breathless adoration from ‘puff pieces’ in the mass media. They are surrounded by armies of image consultants and spin doctors. Cultures of compliance at the top of organizations are driven by the access to untold wealth that can be endowed upon people from very ordinary backgrounds if they stay ‘in’ with the boss for long enough. All this has created conditions in many modern organizations more akin to a feudal court than a collective of equals within which freely held views and opinions can be shared without fear.

This modern leader is egoistic, blind to their own faults, surrounded by people created in their own image and committed to actions driven more by the need to enhance their self-image than by anything else. We moved from ranking companies and their performance to personalizing such comparative exercises by focusing on their CEOs, as though the CEO was the defining differentiator without which the organization would not have achieved their success. The UK’s ‘Most Admired Companies’ awards describe themselves as ‘The UK’s Business Oscars’9 and lionize the CEOs whose organizations are placed in the top spots. The gods of business: Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca, Bernard Arnault, Niall FitzGerald, Donald Trump, Lord Sugar of Clapton, Jack Ma, Sir John Harvey-Jones, Sir Gerry Robinson, Sir Richard Branson, Lord Browne and more are lionized, attended to with reverence, and placed on pedestals from which they pronounce on the issues of the day. Many have become best-selling authors, chat show guests, and even hosts of their own prime-time television shows. Some even made it, albeit briefly, into government. With all this adoration can you blame them for believing in their own immortality? Can you blame others for working hard to join them in the ranks of the deified?

Once at this level these people (and despite what is said there are women in this group as well as men) see themselves as Titans. Just as with the ancients, heaven help anyone who inadvertently gets in the way when Titans clash: just ask the shareholders of the Royal Bank of Scotland about the acquisition of ABN-AMRO. This takeover battle swiftly became a test of strength. For RBS when faced with Barclays’ alternative (and most would argue strategically more sensible) bid. The company’s determination to be the winner did possibly even more than their poor banking practice (which would seem no worse in the face of it than that of Barclays), to ensure the eventual nationalization of nearly 85% of the bank.10

Some of our greatest moral philosophers have explored leadership and their words resonate powerfully in the detritus of the near-collapse of the financial system. The focus on the role of the leader in society has been at the heart of the development of much of modern political and social thought. It was Aristotle in his Treatise on Government who captured the essence of the proposition of the ‘altruistic’ or ‘virtuous’ leader:

But since we say that the virtue of the citizen and ruler is the same as that of the good man and that the same person must first be a subject and then a ruler, the legislator has to see that they become good men and by what means this may be accomplished …11

For the want of good men (and women) at the top of the world’s financial services industry, its regulators and its political leadership the world nearly destroyed the very system that had until recently delivered the progress, social and economic, that has supported over sixty years of comparative peace and prosperity for mankind.

Yet despite this, the globalization of the world’s economic systems will continue. In the bigger sweep of history, connecting across boundaries will continue to drive forward a development that, whilst held back or reversed from time to time, seems to be as instinctive to mankind as market-oriented behaviour. As we connect more, as we face the challenges of a more global economic system and of the global challenges presented by a changing climate and an increasingly populous planet, so the problems that need resolution will become increasingly complex and even more global. The need for leaders who can build support to act for the greater good therefore increases rather than diminishes.

In business, just as much as in any other part of society, good men and women are needed to lead their organizations through the challenges they face. Yet today business leaders are as ill-regarded as politicians. At the heart of this ill-regard is a belief that they are overrated, over-powerful and over-paid.

In 2008 Gallup published their annual ‘Voice of the People’ survey for the World Economic Forum.12 Carried out during the early stages of the global credit crunch its findings showed a world increasingly worried about the future. The survey, covering sixty countries in the developed and developing world, revealed an increasing level of concern. These concerns covered predictions of a less safe and less prosperous planet alongside rising concern over increasing wars and conflicts, doubts about the global ‘war’ on terrorism and about the need to protect the environment. It also reflected a continuing trend of mounting distrust in leaders in all walks of life.

Globally, 43% of citizens said that political leaders are dishonest; 37% said they have too much power; 33% said they are unethical; 27% said they are not competent. Whilst Africans ‘were the most critical of their politicians’ with 81% calling political leaders dishonest, in countries perceived as more stable and openly democratic politicians still fared very badly. More than half of Americans and over two thirds of Austrians and Germans and even 50% of the Swiss felt their leaders were dishonest.

Business leaders, however, fared only marginally better: 34% believed business leaders are dishonest (vs. 43% for politicians); 34% said business leaders have too much power and 30% said they are unethical. 2009 will not have made a positive impact on these perceptions and the continuing refusal of those in senior roles, especially in the financial services sector, to accept these perceptions as valid and requiring action will ensure that business continues to be the focus of public disquiet and mistrust.

These results reflect a crisis of confidence in leaders that is global, worsening and without deliberate action from the top of organizations in all sections of civil society, potentially destabilizing. The crash and the role played by business leaders particularly in creating the climate where the international financial system was taken to the very edge of collapse will accelerate and exacerbate this trend. However, the trend has been there for some time and the potential for nemesis had been flagged, not just by those like me who were uncomfortable with the shift in the values set but also by those with serious platforms to whom serious people listened. Yet if they listened, they cannot have understood the potential for disaster as they did nothing.

In the 2010 World Economic Forum the measure used was the Edelman Trust Barometer and despite the crisis, it would seem that the response so far by business and its leaders has done little or nothing to address this dire state of affairs. Over 60% of the global population said they trusted business less in 2009 than they did in the previous year, with only one major country, India, showing fewer than 50% felt this way. In the UK, France and Germany only 36% of those questioned trusted business. In the US trust in business was not much higher and there were significant falls in trust in two industries: banking and automotive where levels of trust in both roughly halved in a year. This trend was not reflected in emerging economies such as China, Brazil and Indonesia, perhaps reflecting the difference in perceived role and responsibilities.

These overall trends were reinforced when asked if business should face stronger and tougher regulation, with over 60% globally saying that governments should intervene and even nationalize companies to restore trust. Even in the US not even half of those questioned thought the free market should be able to operate independently.13

So how on earth did we find ourselves here, and even more importantly what on earth can we do about it? This book explores these issues. In Part One it offers an explanation of why leadership in the latter part of the 20th century became so self-centred and narcissistic. It analyses the impact on public trust in leaders in all sectors and the lack of confidence we have in today’s leaders to act in the best interests of the whole as opposed to themselves. In Part Two it turns to thinking about what can be done to change where we are and lays out a radical programme that could transform public perceptions of leaders in today’s organizations. For in the end only really radical change can re-set public perceptions. Without it, we lay the seeds for upheaval that could see much of what we have worked hard to achieve swept away. Regardless of country, the current state of public opinion in much of the developed and developing world is driving a resurgence of political movements that want to impose controls on the natural human behaviours that underpin the market as the mechanism through which we create wealth. This desire to restrain or even remove the market mechanism will be accelerated by any continuation of the failure of those responsible for regulation and proper management of the market to address the iniquities of today’s leadership class. The cost of a government committed to shackle the market, rather than to regulate it, is far too big a price to pay for a failure to reform. This book offers leaders of business and society a manifesto for change: without these changes it won’t just be business that suffers, but society as a whole.

Notes

1 Great Britain is the United Kingdom minus the province of Northern Ireland, so consists of England, Scotland and Wales.

2 Source: The Poverty Site (http://www.poverty.org.uk/09/index.shtml).

3 Dictionary.com, ‘lifestyle,’ in Dictionary.com Unabridged. Source location: Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lifestyle. Available: http://dictionary.reference.com.

4 Sources: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/whos-who-on-the-new-guest-list-at-chequers-it-helps-if-you-are-highbrow-874855.html.

5http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6506365.stm regarding Blair’s holiday hosts.

6 Sourced from: http://www.achievemax.com/bookreviews.

7 St Peter’s denial of Christ, St Paul’s usury, St Mary Magdeline’s profession are probably three of the best known examples that support the proposition that sainthood in the Christian tradition is not about perfection in life.

8 The core story of Buddha in finding no happiness in either fabulous wealth or abject poverty but in a middle path, that understands that it is not the experience of pleasure, but craving for that pleasure over and above anything else, that brings unhappiness is a dramatic contrast to the slavish materialism of the L’Oreal generation.

9 Management Today’s Britain’s Most Admired Companies awards are the UK’s business Oscars. (Source: http://www.haymarket.com/management_today/multi/mtandrsquos_britainandrsquos_most_admired_companies_awards/default.aspx).

10 Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/feb/10/abn-amro-columnists-predictions.

11 Aristotle, Politics.

12 ‘Gallup International releases its 5th Annual Davos Survey’ http://www.gallup.com.pk/Polls/18-1-08.pdf.

13http://www.edelman.co.uk/files/trust-barometer-2009-summary.pdf.

Part One: The Diagnosis

Chapter One

Practically Perfect in Every Way

The Making of the Modern Leader

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LEADER

The Modern Leader is, like all of us, a result of inheritance. Our genetic forefathers shaped our physical strengths and weaknesses and our intellectual potential. Much of who we are in these dimensions is as a result of history (and pre-history). What we do with this inheritance, however, is not pre-determined. Today’s leaders are the product therefore of two specific things: the historical development of leadership and the environment in which they operate. This chapter deals with the historical development of the cult of the leader, the two that follow will deal with the current environment: combined they present a proposition as to why the modern leader has failed.

In the cult of the leader, history matters. We have an inherited way of living in tribes which is at the heart of the way that we, as a species, have evolved. As with other primates, pecking orders and leadership roles have always been with us. What differentiates us from other primates is our ability for rational thought and as this has developed so we have applied it to leadership as we have to so many other aspects of our lives. From the earliest beginnings of recorded thought man has reflected on the nature of success in leadership. The earliest civilizations recorded and celebrated the achievements of their leaders and in those civilizations where deities took human forms, they too were given attributes associated with the human experience of leaders in real life. Not just in the writings of historians, writers and poets but also in the pictures and sculptures of each tradition we have built through time an image of leaders and their characteristics: whether these were good, bad or indifferent.

Clearly whilst alive, powerful leaders went out of their way to ensure that stories about them and the images that were employed to portray them reinforced their right to lead and the basis of their power. In a world where the majority did not read or write and where brute force, superstition and religion played as much as role in the acceptance of a leader as any sophisticated justification of hereditary, judicial or democratic right, portraiture developed a very significant role in communicating and reinforcing the role of the leader.

Since the early renaissance, art developed a very sophisticated ability to reflect upon the nature of leadership. Arguably this came about initially as a result of patronage in that those with the wealth from positions of economic, social or religious power retained and sponsored artists and in return were portrayed by them in return. Over centuries, as artists continued to be sponsored by the powerful they developed an iconography and a presentation of power that has shaped a significant part of the inheritance of leaders in modern organizations. The history of the representation of the leader in art shows us the degree of conditioning within which leaders have grown up and how the continuing sense of their own position and perspective of many of those in leadership roles has been shaped. Leadership became embodied in a single leader and as the leader became the embodiment of the state so this set the scene for the leader in other contexts to become the embodiment of their own organization.

European art was transformed with the development of new understandings of perspective that transformed the flat, Byzantine-style two dimensional representations of the dark ages into the figurative, three dimensional realism that appeared in the 13th century. Art historians have identified the pioneering techniques of Giotto Di Bondone and his followers as a significant transformation which enabled a shift in subject matter for the visual arts from the predominantly religious to embrace far more realistic representations of the secular. As art techniques progressed and as artists became more sophisticated in their representation of the human condition so they were able to tell much more sophisticated and complex stories in their pictures. Leaders become flattered by those artists whom they patronized and were placed at the heart of society and at its highest point. What finally developed was the presentation of the leader as next only to God, the leader as God’s representative on earth, the leader as the embodiment of us all and as above all others bar God. In the 14th and 15th centuries even renaissance leaders in supposedly democratic Florence and other city-states found way of reinforcing themselves as ‘primus inter pares’ (first amongst equals) whilst later, more autocratic leaders firmly dispensed with this humility and had themselves presented as the apotheosis of human achievement.

Renaissance painters used heavy symbolism to underline the importance of the secular power at a time when the power of the church was significantly greater than that of any secular leader. One of the leading practitioners of this approach was Sandro Botticelli (c. 1446–1510) and the most famous representation of his approach hangs in the Uffizi gallery in Florence: ‘The Adoration of the Kings’. This shows the story of the Christian Holy Family receiving the adoration of the magi. Here, however, is not only an image of a story known by everyone who would have seen the picture when it was first displayed, but also a stark representation of the power and importance of the Medici family, the first and foremost of the merchant princes of Florence. For the magi kneeling at the feet of Christ is the most powerful man in Florence, Cosimo Medici. By placing him next to the Son of God himself Botticelli is telling everyone in Florence to whom they have to pay homage as leader. The representation does not stop here, but goes on to reinforce the power of the dynasty by including in the painting two further generations of Medici: Cosimo’s son Piero and grandson Giovanni.1

As the renaissance developed its fascination with things classical, the pre-industrial age in Europe often used Greco-Roman or local mythology to portray its kings, generals and grand citizenry in the guise of the Caesars, or with allusions to local and well understood legends such as those from Arthurian, Germanic or Norse tales. As the 18th century progressed so the leader moved from a paragon of virtues associated with Aristotle’s leader (learned, artistic, a sportsman as well as a general) to being portrayed as the source of power. The symbols and trappings of the state (crowns, sceptres, orbs, ermine and the like) as representations of the power of armed force came to the fore. So much so that revolutionaries once in possession of power employ exactly the same allusions as those whom they have deposed.

The renaissance leader, informed by the counsel of Machiavelli, developed into a leader who presented himself as the source of all: ‘L’Etat c’est moi’ said Louis XIV to the Parlement de Paris in 1655.2 This reflected the philosophical proposition that directly connected kings to God and made them the dispenser of justice, of position in society and ultimately of wealth. He is portrayed in a series of paintings by all of the great artists of the day. The most famous is probably by Henri Testelin (1616–1695) and is an example of how the artist was able to tell this story through a single image. Louis commands his throne with a firm grip on the symbols of power. At his feet is the world, represented by the globe, showing his dominance even over other kings and images of learning, of wisdom (the Greek head) and of scientific understanding (the trigonometry instruments). His hand rests on a child, representing him as the father of the nation as well as the father in the family.

Whilst in England this belief in the inherited right from God of kings to rule without let or hindrance cost Charles I his head and the monarchy its primacy over parliament, in much of Europe this leadership model was reinforced during the latter part of the 18th century by the Hapsburgs, the Hohenzollerns, the Bourbons (in Spain and in France) and the Romanovs. This era of the enlightened autocrat developed the theme of ‘father or mother of the nation’ acting on behalf of their children as all parents do because they knew best. This leader was benign, a leader who was committed to the well-being of the nation, who was forward-looking and interested in the life of every subject. They were wise and all powerful. For those who accepted this settlement of power within the state the enlightened autocrat protected them from injustice within and from enemies without. They were reformers, yet in no sense were they democrats nor were they interested in sharing power. They controlled the reins of central power and were ruthless in removing privileges from provinces, representative assemblies and religious organizations, especially those associated with taxation or with exercising any degree of control or restraint over the monarch’s ability to enact legislation and dispense justice.3 For those who attacked the state, and the status quo within in it, there was to be neither tolerance nor mercy. They ran highly disciplined police forces and secret services, they employed informers and used their power to imprison without trial, to exile (internally and externally) and to murder. They often ascended their thrones as a result of violence and many died violently. As well as brute force, these leaders employed extravagant display, wealth and external show to demonstrate their power and their permanence. Their courtiers, cardinals and catamites did likewise.

Joseph II of Austria (1741–1790) was arguably the greatest exponent of Enlightened Autocracy. His portrait by Joseph Hickel (1736–1807) is a wonderful example of the development of the cult of the leader in the 18th century. It shows Joseph in his finery, wearing his honours next to a sculpture of Minerva the goddess of wisdom and between them an owl representing knowledge. Here is the leader as all wise, all knowing and all powerful, utilizing these super-human attributes for the good of those he rules over. Despite the shifts in the balance of power between the rulers and the ruled in the intervening two hundred and fifty years and the introduction of the concept of a universal franchise for the appointment of people to executive office the presentation of many modern leaders in all walks of life is not much different.

In some ways this shouldn’t surprise us. If one looks at the development of the business leader in generation after generation we can see a progression from the economic radicalism of the entrepreneur to the social conservatism of the respected elder. As societies developed and the ownership of land became the defining attribute of power so those in ‘trade’ and later in ‘production’ looked to acquire social standing with the wealth they created. In so doing they aped the pretensions and the practices of those with political and social power in society. The industrial revolution may well have brought a radical shift in power and influence in favour of those who owned capital rather than land, but it didn’t change the leadership paradigm. To confirm their status in 18th and 19th century society these newly rich4 bought estates, acquired aristocratic titles, sat in parliaments and presented themselves as leaders in the same way as those who were born into leadership roles. The acceptability of business came much later to society’s leaders than that of the church or parliament or the professions. Whilst no-one could doubt the economic muscle, it was conforming to social norms of leadership status that eventually secured these new men their acceptance. Business leaders shaped themselves in the mould of the formerly omnipotent.

The modern inheritors of this tradition of faithful representation of the person, both in painting and in photography, show the leaders of today as thoughtful, considered and as socially conservative as their predecessors. They sit in solid chairs reminiscent of the thrones of the kings of old. They often hold representations of their power or achievements or appear against backgrounds that tell their story. These representations are used to communicate leadership traits that people want to see: reliability, prudence and trustworthiness. Even with the advent of television and radio these images continue to play as significant a part in the public relations agenda for today’s leaders as they have ever done. They are consistently presented in ways that remind us of their importance, their insightfulness and their infallibility. The difference in today’s less deferential world is that these images can be used to undermine the pretensions of leadership just as much as they can reinforce them.

In recent times the image and positioning of the leader as the incarnation of the state has been used to great effect, most notably in the UK where a recent report on the removal of democratic accountability of the government was presented under a cover showing Tony Blair’s face superimposed on the famous portrait of Louis XIV, with the title: ‘L’ etat, c’est moi?’.

If art is a mirror of society6 then what it tells us is this: whilst we may want to see changes to how leaders behave, one of the big constraints we face is that our leaders still carry the expectations set by their predecessors. We want them to know the answers, to understand our needs and aspirations, to solve our problems and to protect us from ourselves as much as from others. In fact, the model of leadership still expected and applied in the early part of the 21st century is that of parent. From renaissance princes through imperialism to the 20th century’s dictators so many of history’s leaders have styled themselves as ‘fathers’ or ‘mothers’ of the nation (the modern tribe). Leaders within these tribes (such as leaders in organizations) sit in organizational structures that reinforce these expectations. They are still judged by performance models that reinforce the importance of infallibility.

Malcolm Higgs7 offers us an historical assessment of the development of the understanding of leadership taking Plato’s proposition that ‘society values whatever is honoured there’ as his starting point. He usefully divides mankind’s exploration of leadership into four historical phases: classical, renaissance, industrial and modern, recording the dominant discourse and defining each age through the eyes of the major thinkers on the nature of the leadership of the day.

Table 1.1 Leadership Discourses: An historical perspective

EraDominant DiscourseExample of AuthorsClassicalDialogue Society DemocracyPlatoAristotleHomerPericlesSophoclesRenaissanceAmbition Individual Great Man not Great EventPetrarchChaucerCastiglioneMachiavelliShakespeareIndustrialSurvival of the Fittest Control RationalityWeberDarwinDurkheimMarxModernPsychological BehaviouralFreudSkinnerJung

This modern concept of leadership is not that promoted by Aristotle of a virtuous leader as the servant of the state, democratically (however restricted the franchise) appointed and accountable to others for their leadership. Nor does it resonate fully with Machievelli’s renaissance prince where coalition, alliance and the search for common ground drives achievement of ambition for the city-state. It is the direct inheritor of the concept of enlightened absolutism where the leader is firmly established as the state appointed by birth and accountable to themselves and of course God. Importantly, as they were God’s appointed representative on earth they were the only person apart from the Pope – mercifully far less powerful by this time – who could articulate with assurance whatever the divine purpose was. So for all intents and purposes they were it.