Leadership at the Crossroads (Praeger Perspectives)

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Author: Joanne B. Ciulla | Donelson R. Forsyth | Michael A. Genovese | George R. Goethals | Lori C. Han | Crystal L. Hoyt

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LEADERSHIP AT THE CROSSROADS

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LEADERSHIP AT THE CROSSROADS Joanne B. Ciulla, Set Editor

Volume 1 Leadership and Psychology Edited by Crystal L. Hoyt, George R. Goethals, and Donelson R. Forsyth

Praeger Perspectives

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Leadership at the crossroads. v. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: v. 1. Leadership and psychology / edited by Crystal L. Hoyt, George R. Goethals, and Donelson R. Forsyth – v. 2. Leadership and politics / edited by Michael A. Genovese and Lori Cox Han – v. 3. Leadership and the humanities / edited by Joanne B. Ciulla. ISBN 978-0-275-99760-1 ((set) : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-275-99762-5 ((vol. 1) : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-275-99764-9 ((vol. 2) : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-275-99766-3 ((vol. 3) : alk. paper) 1. Leadership. I. Forsyth, Donelson R., 1953HM1261.L422 2008 303.3’4—dc22 2008018976 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2008 by Joanne B. Ciulla, Donelson R. Forsyth, Michael A. Genovese, George R. Goethals, Lori Cox Han, and Crystal Hoyt All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008018976 ISBN: Set: 978-0-275-99760-1 Vol. 1: 978-0-275-99762-5 Vol. 2: 978-0-275-99764-9 Vol. 3: 978-0-275-99766-3 First published in 2008 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents Preface Introduction: A Contemporary Social Psychology of Leadership Crystal L. Hoyt, George R. Goethals, and Donelson R. Forsyth

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Part I. The Personal Characteristics of Leaders

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1. Personality and Leadership Stephen J. Zaccaro, Lisa M. V. Gulick, and Vivek P. Khare

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2. Social Psychology and Charismatic Leadership Ronald E. Riggio and Heidi R. Riggio

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3. Knocking on Heaven’s Door: The Social Psychological Dynamics 45 of Charismatic Leadership Sheldon Solomon, Florette Cohen, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski 4. Social Identity Theory of Leadership Michael A. Hogg

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5. Emotional Intelligence and Leadership: Implications for Leader Development Paulo N. Lopes and Peter Salovey

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Part II. Perceiving Leaders

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6. Social Cognitive Perspectives on Leadership Tiane L. Lee and Susan T. Fiske

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7. Seeing and Being a Leader: The Perceptual, Cognitive, and Interpersonal Roots of Conferred Influence Donelson R. Forsyth and Judith L. Nye

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8. Presidential Greatness and its Socio-Psychological Significance: Individual or Situation? Performance or Attribution? Dean Keith Simonton

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9. The Unbearable Lightness of Debating: Performance Ambiguity and Social Influence Matthew B. Kugler and George R. Goethals

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10. Social Stigma and Leadership: A Long Climb Up a Slippery Ladder Crystal L. Hoyt and Martin M. Chemers

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11. Deifying the Dead and Downtrodden: Sympathetic Figures as Inspirational Leaders Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

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Part III. What Leaders Do

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12. Persuasion and Leadership James M. Olson and Graeme A. Haynes

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13. What it Takes to Succeed: An Examination of the Relationship Between Negotiators’ Implicit Beliefs and Performance Laura J. Kray and Michael P. Haselhuhn

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14. Presidential Leadership and Group Folly: Reappraising the Role 230 of Groupthink in the Bay of Pigs Decisions Roderick M. Kramer 15. Self-Regulation and Leadership: Implications for Leader Performance and Leader Development Susan Elaine Murphy, Rebecca J. Reichard, and Stefanie K. Johnson

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Part IV. Interactions between Leaders and Followers

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16. Evolution and the Social Psychology of Leadership: The Mismatch Hypothesis Mark Van Vugt, Dominic D. P. Johnson, Robert B. Kaiser, and Rick O’Gorman

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17. Harnessing Power to Capture Leadership Adam D. Galinsky, Jennifer Jordan, and Niro Sivanathan

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18. Morality as a Foundation of Leadership and a Constraint on Deference to Authority Linda J. Skitka, Christopher W. Bauman, and Brad L. Lytle

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About the Editor and Contributors

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Index

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Preface The spring of 2006 found the three of us ensconced as a cabal of social psychologists in a school dedicated to the study of leadership: the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. Crystal had joined the faculty in 2003 fresh from her graduate studies at UC Santa Barbara. Don took the Colonel Leo K. and Gaylee Thorsness Chair in Ethical Leadership in the fall of 2005 after long service at Virginia Commonwealth University. Then, in the spring of 2006, Al left Williams College to join the group as the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Chair. Different in backgrounds and research interests, we shared a social psychologically framed perspective on leadership. As a trio, we constituted a sizeable coalition of like-minded leadership scholars in our new academic home. With 12 professors, we comprised a quarter of the faculty. The Jepson School of Leadership Studies is dedicated to the study of leadership, interdisciplinary education, and the liberal arts. The faculty in this intellectually vibrant school hail from a number of traditional disciplines (e.g., philosophy, political science, history, religion, English, economics), and together explore fundamental questions about who we are, how we live together, and how we influence the course of history. As new colleagues in this school of leadership studies, we knew three things for certain: First, most of what social psychologists study is related to our understanding

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Preface

of leadership. Second, the connections between social psychology and leadership needed to be made more apparent. Third, the three of us wanted to work collaboratively on a project to such ends. It was at this auspicious moment that our colleague, Joanne Ciulla, a philosopher at Jepson, approached us about contributing a volume on social psychology and leadership to the Praeger set Leadership at the Crossroads. We jumped on the opportunity. The result is that 41 social psychologists, including ourselves, have contributed 19 chapters on the intersection of leadership and social psychology. The chapters revolve around the following four themes: the characteristics of leaders, people’s perceptions of leaders, what leaders do, and the interaction between leaders and followers. Our collective goal in this volume was to communicate not only to our social psychology colleagues but also to a larger audience of social scientists, well-read laypersons, and advanced undergraduate students who are interested in leadership but who may not know very much about social psychology and how it can inform that interest. The chapters in our book integrate conceptual approaches to leadership, but they stress the importance of empirical evidence in evaluating theoretical understandings. Thus, our goal was not to offer another ‘‘airport book’’ (a book, often purchased when one is stuck on a layover in an airport, typically written by a former leader who draws largely on personal experience to pontificate about leadership) full of unsubstantiated claims about leadership, but rather an accessible book with claims that are backed up with empirical evidence. The process of editing this book has been invigorating. Merely choosing the topics we should include in the book reaffirmed our belief that issues of leadership are at the heart of most research in social psychology. The process of editing this volume has also provided us opportunities both to reconnect with old friends and to make new ones. It has also given the three of us an opportunity to strengthen our own bonds—with the added benefit of instilling fear in our leadership colleagues about what happens when the ‘‘three social psychologists’’ meet behind closed doors. We owe a debt of gratitude to many individuals who have helped us in this process. Joanne Ciulla’s wide-ranging understanding of leadership prompted her to consider social psychology as a source of insights, and she secured the relationship with our publisher. We never would have undertaken this project without her support and her leadership. We also recognize and appreciate the leadership of the Jepson School, including former Dean Kenneth Ruscio (now president of Washington and Lee) and our new dean, Sandra Peart, who have worked to create an amazing configuration of scholars dedicated to leadership. Tammy Tripp was instrumental in the final stages of the project, patiently and cheerfully providing the editorial guidance needed to turn our rough manuscript pages into clean copy. We also thank Tom

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Matthews, Robert Jepson, and the Robins family whose vision and support provided us with the means to join together to pursue our studies of leaders and leadership. Finally, on a more personal note, we also thank our families and loved ones for tolerating our need to sneak away from time to time to work on these chapters. This project has been more fun for us than for them. We appreciate their support and understanding.


Introduction: A Contemporary Social Psychology of Leadership CRYSTAL L. HOYT, GEORGE R. GOETHALS, AND DONELSON R. FORSYTH

From its inception as a distinct discipline devoted to the scientific study of how people influence and are influenced by others, social psychology has explored the nature of leadership. After noting the origins of leadership research in the work of such early theorists as Le Bon, Freud, and Lewin, we discuss the four key themes addressed in this volume: (1) the characteristics of the leader; (2) people’s perceptions of their leaders or their potential leaders; (3) what it is that leaders actually do; and (4) the nature of the interaction between leaders and followers. No one discipline can claim the analysis of leadership as its sovereign dominion, but social psychology’s emphasis on the scientific study of how people influence and respond to the influence of others makes it entirely appropriate that a collection of chapters written by the best minds in that field should stand beside ones examining leadership from the humanities on the one hand and political science on the other. Social psychology has much to say about leadership, hence its inclusion in the interdisciplinary Praeger set Leadership at the Crossroads. How has the social psychological study of leadership evolved over the years? When psychology and social psychology emerged from philosophy as distinctive disciplines in the late nineteenth century, leadership was a central concern for many in the field of social psychology. Allport (1968, p. 1), writing in his classic historical analysis of social psychology, noted that the

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Leadership and Psychology

field’s intellectual ancestors were the political philosophers who understood that ‘‘governments must conform to the nature of the men governed.’’ Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and other social philosophers speculated about the nature of humans and their societies, but it remained for the emerging social sciences—economics, sociology, psychology, social psychology, political science, and anthropology—to seek out data to test the validity of their conjectures. For example, Le Bon in his 1895 book Psychologie des Foules described the way leaders can hold sway over individuals who have been transformed by their membership in a mob or crowd. Wilhelm Wundt, the recognized founder of scientific psychology, turned his attention in the early 1900s to the study of Volkerpsychologie, which included within it substantial conceptual material pertaining to leadership, particularly with regards to the subordination of the individual to the will of the leader. One of the first textbooks in social psychology, Ross’s (1908) Social Psychology, included detailed discussions of the heroic leader and the leader with natural authority, as did Allport’s classic 1924 text. Freud (1921), although known primarily for his work on personality and psychodynamics, provided a provocative theoretical perspective on leadership in his Group Psychology and the Analysis of Ego. As the field matured, journals began to carry research reports with such titles as ‘‘The social psychology of leadership’’ (Bartlett, 1926), ‘‘Psychology, leadership, and democracy’’ (Tait, 1927), and ‘‘A psychological description of leadership’’ (Nafe, 1930), and some of the new field’s most iconic studies focused on leadership. This gradual increase in research was underscored by the 1939 publication of the classic work of Lewin, Lippitt, and White, which examined the consequences of different styles of leadership on productivity and satisfaction. In light of this early work, editions of the Handbook of Social Psychology and the highly influential series on Readings in Social Psychology from the 1940s and 1950s accorded leadership a significant place in the overall concerns of the discipline. In recent decades, leadership has been upstaged as a topic of concern among social psychologists, but this respite is now over. Social psychologists’ renewed interest in leadership points to the centrality of the topic in a field dedicated to understanding processes of social influence. The essays collected here show that many of the finest scholars in social psychology are exploring leadership and its connection to such central topics as attitudes and social cognition, group dynamics and interpersonal processes, and personality and individual differences. We also include chapters that look at leadership from such relatively new perspectives as evolutionary social psychology, terror management theory, emotional intelligence, and social identity theory. In sum, we are delighted to include here contributions illuminating leadership

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from the most distinguished scholars doing work in the most central areas of the discipline of social psychology. The chapters lend themselves to a variety of organizational schemes, depending on the readers’ interests and orientation, but we have settled on an approach that pays homage to the earliest social psychological studies of leadership: (1) the characteristics of the leader; (2) people’s perceptions of their leaders or their potential leaders; (3) what it is that leaders actually do; and (4) the nature of the interaction between leaders and followers. Most of our chapters fall clearly into one of these four categories. Those by Zaccaro, Gulick, and Khare; by Riggio and Riggio; and by Hogg, for example, discuss various leader qualities, such as charisma and prototypicality, that affect both their emergence as leaders and their success as leaders. Lee and Fiske and Forsyth and Nye deal squarely with perceptions of leaders, and concepts such as implicit theories of leadership. And so forth. On the other hand, some chapters may have required a bit of forcing to fit into one of the groupings. Kramer’s chapter on ‘‘group folly,’’ for example, touches on several themes, but pays particularly close attention to the intricacy of leader-follower interactions. Having been as sensible as we could about organizing the book, let us provide an overview of what follows.

THE PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LEADERS Freud (1921), in his seminal analysis of leadership, said that groups crave leadership and the strong exercise of authority, and that this need carries the group ‘‘half-way to meet the leader, yet he too must fit in with it in his personal qualities.’’ Five of our chapters consider these personal qualities. Zaccaro, Gulick, and Khare ask a very old question—is leadership determined by one’s personality?—but offer a very new set of answers. Although for many years experts maintained that there is no such thing as a ‘‘born leader ’’—that is, that temperament and personality are unrelated to leadership—more sophisticated approaches that recognize the interaction of personality and situational factors reach a different conclusion. New research designs allow investigators to differentiate the effects of various personality factors from background causes, resulting in clearer estimates of the strength of the personality-leadership relationship. The chapters by Riggio and Riggio and by Solomon, Cohen, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski address aspects of a leaders’ charisma. The Riggios consider the characteristics of charismatic leaders but also how group dynamics and attribution processes affect perceptions of charismatic leadership. Charisma therefore has a great deal to do with personal qualities, but even more to do with perception and interaction within the group. Solomon and his colleagues use their terror management theory to explain the allure of

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charismatic leaders. According to terror management theory, people manage the potential terror invoked by awareness of one’s mortality by reaffirming a belief in a meaningful worldview and one’s place in that world. Accordingly, people follow charismatic leaders because these leaders make them feel like a valued part of something great. The authors provide empirical evidence supporting this motivational account of the appeal of charismatic leaders. Hogg’s chapter explores the identity functions of leadership, and in so doing introduces the importance of group members’ prototypicality, or the extent to which, in Freud’s terms, they possess ‘‘the typical qualities of the individuals concerned in a particularly clearly marked and pure form.’’ His social identity theory-based approach maintains that as membership in a group or category becomes more important to one’s sense of self, one is more influenced by group members, or leaders, who best embody the prototypical qualities of the group. Highly prototypical leaders have an effectiveness advantage over less prototypical leaders because they are well-liked, they are influential and gain compliance from followers, they earn their followers’ trust, they are perceived as charismatic, and they are in a position to be both innovative and maintain their prototypicality. Lopes and Salovey, in the final chapter dealing with personal qualities, consider the importance of a newly studied individual capacity, ‘‘emotional intelligence.’’ Emotional intelligence consists of a number of closely related abilities, namely the abilities: (1) to perceive accurately one’s own and others’ emotions; (2) to understand how emotions influence cognition and behavior; (3) to use emotions to stimulate thinking; and (4) to manage our own emotions and those of others. Lopes and Salovey clarify the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership, and how developing emotional intelligence contributes to the development of effective leadership.

PERCEIVING LEADERS As Kurt Lewin aptly noted, ‘‘social action no less than physical action is steered by perception’’ (Lewin, 1997, p. 51). Indeed, leadership has long been considered to principally exist in the eye, or the mind, of the beholder. Le Bon, Freud, and other early scholars in social psychology believed that people’s perceptions of leaders are complicated. Most are drawn to group members who match their expectations of what a leader should be, even if that image suggests the leader may be despotic or motivated by a desire to control others. These notions have evolved into concepts of implicit leadership theories or leader schemas, which are the focus of chapters by Lee and Fiske and Forsyth and Nye. These authors help us begin to examine the perceptual and cognitive processes that help both leaders and followers interpret the nature of their joint social situation. Both chapters view people as processors

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of information who continually seek data about important others. This cognitive perspective assumes that people search for information that will help them understand the motives, actions, and emotions of others, and that they organize the clues they have available to them from their perceptions and their memories. Lee and Fiske provide an introduction to the importance of mental representations in the leadership process. Their general overview of social cognition focuses on three mental representations that are key in person perception: schemas, prototypes, and exemplars. They then demonstrate that, although leader perceptions vary across contexts, there are two main dimensions that underlie most leader images: competence and warmth. Forsyth and Nye extend this analysis by asking if people’s cognitive expectations about leaders substantially influence the veridicality of their social inferences. They find that people’s personal theories about leaders exert a strong influence in leadership situations, and that these cognitive schemas affect people’s thinking about leaders across a wide variety of cultures and contexts. Leader schemas also play an important conceptual role in Simonton’s chapter on perceptions of presidential greatness. Simonton’s work suggests that in rating U.S. presidents supposedly expert historians use many of the same implicit theories of leadership as laypeople, and that both groups are highly influenced by salient information, such as whether there was a scandal during a president’s term. Simonton further suggests that situational rather than personal variables account for many of these ratings. For example, presidents who were assassinated tend to get favorable ratings. While this finding certainly points toward the impact of situations, there is an intriguing relationship between a personal variable, need for power, and assassination. Simonton unravels the complexities of historians’ judgments in some of the familiar terms of social cognition. Kugler and Goethals also consider what we might call political social cognition. Their research on assessments of performance in presidential and vice-presidential debates suggests that a large number of personal and situational variables combine and interact to affect viewers’ perceptions. Most impressive, perhaps, is the extent to which those perceptions are influenced by the opinions of others. Their findings suggest that debates are often quite ambiguous, and different people’s performance appraisals are affected in subtly different ways by what they learn from both peers and pundits. A chapter by Hoyt and Chemers addresses the unique experiences of nondominant, or stigmatized, leaders such as women and minorities. It begins with the problem that leader schemas or prototypes are typically male and typically of a socially dominant race/ethnicity. They examine how people respond to and perceive stigmatized leaders as well as the experiences of those leaders themselves. Negative stereotypes of individuals based on skin color, gender, or other devaluing characteristics are incompatible with

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expectations of effective leadership and can result in negative judgments by others. Additionally, members of stigmatized groups are fully aware of these stereotyped expectations, and their awareness often influences the way they behave, both negatively and positively, and the attributions they make in leadership positions. Even though individuals tend to more strongly endorse leaders who match their personal beliefs about what makes for good leadership, their emotions and motivations can also prompt them to throw their support behind one type of leader and not another. In their chapter, Allison and Goethals review findings that suggest followers who feel sympathy, adoration, or concern for a leader tend to support that leader. These emotional foundations of leadership endorsement extend, for example, to underdog leaders who must overcome significant obstacles on their way to office or position. Similarly, and perhaps more surprisingly, followers are also more positive toward leaders after they have died, particularly if they were martyrs for a noble cause.

WHAT LEADERS DO Social psychologists, skeptical of the principles of leadership so frequently offered by sages and self-proclaimed experts, early on sought to distinguish between prescriptive, normative analyses of leadership and descriptive, data-based analyses of leadership. Those studies of what leaders actually do as they strive to guide, organize, and inspire others suggest that leadership is more than just the traditional duality of socioemotional work and initiating structure. The role of leader is a multifaceted one, for one must be able to persuade others, make decisions, resolve conflicts, and effectively regulate oneself. Freud (1921) emphasized that the most influential leaders had great faith in an idea and were able to articulate it in a way that appealed primarily to people’s emotions. He wrote of ‘‘the truly magical power of words’’ and that while those words needed to use powerful images, they did not need to appeal to rationality. He articulated one of the most powerful principles of persuasion, repetition: the leader ‘‘must repeat the same thing again and again.’’ In accord with this emphasis on oratory, Olson and Haynes open this section with their look at leadership and persuasion. Their discussion of the attitude change literature relevant to leadership certainly points to the importance of nonrational factors in persuasion, particularly the idea that much of persuasion happens through the less deliberative ‘‘peripheral route’’ rather than the more thoughtful ‘‘central route.’’ On the other hand, they argue that using strong, cogent, and clear arguments is the leader’s most effective path to persuasion. They also point to the personal characteristics that make

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leaders maximally effective, including charisma, likability, poise, and self-assurance. Although Freud focused on persuasion, he also understood the importance of perceptions of justice in effective leadership. For example, he discussed the idea that the leader had to foster an illusion of fairness, that is, that he loved ‘‘all the individuals in the group with an equal love’’ so that rivalries among followers would not disrupt the group, or induce them to challenge the leader. In effect, leaders had to be skillful negotiators. John F. Kennedy reminded us of this critical element of leadership when he asserted ‘‘let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.’’ Kray and Haselhuhn contribute a chapter on negotiation as a critical skill in leadership, and emphasize the cognitive underpinnings of effective negotiation. They explore the importance of negotiator beliefs in determining negotiation effectiveness. Such beliefs include conceptions of the resource pool as fixed or expandable, whether an issue is even thought to be negotiable, and people’s implicit beliefs about the traits needed to be an effective negotiator. Kray and Haselhuhn discuss their research examining the importance of implicit negotiation beliefs about whether negotiators are born (fixed ability) or made (malleable ability). Their work resonates with the age-old question of whether leaders are born or made. (We think the short answer is, both.) Social psychologists have made a number of important contributions to our understanding of group decision-making processes and the role of leaders in those processes. Notably, Irving Janis’s concept of groupthink has made a substantial impact on the field. Kramer’s chapter reconsiders the role of groupthink in President John F. Kennedy’s decision making leading to the Bay of Pigs fiasco during the first three months of his administration. Recent documents suggest that groupthink was less a dynamic in the covert plan to overthrow Castro’s regime in Cuba than Kennedy’s own political calculations and the ability of advisers in various agencies, including the CIA and the military, to manipulate Kennedy by playing on his political concerns. Kramer’s work suggests that in the aftermath Kennedy understood that his own way of thinking was ultimately responsible for the decision to proceed with the operation. Furthermore, it suggests that Kennedy’s awareness that he was ‘‘the responsible officer of the government’’ during the operation led to him being much more thoughtful about decision making during the Cuban missile crisis a year and a half later. The first three chapters of this section emphasize behaviors leaders engage in with others: persuasion, negotiation, and decision making. The final chapter in this section speaks to the importance of leaders’ self-oriented behaviors. Effective leadership demands both the motivation and capacity for effective self-regulation. Murphy, Reichard, and Johnson focus on this often overlooked aspect of leader behavior. They begin with a consideration of how

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leaders’ own self-perceptions affect their behavior and demonstrate the importance of using theories of the self, such as self-schema or identity theories, in understanding leader effectiveness. Their primary focus becomes the relationship of Bandura’s notion of self-regulation to the domain of leadership and the significant roles of leadership self-efficacy, self-management, and self-awareness in effecting more constructive leader behavior. Finally, they examine leader self-development through the lens of self-regulation techniques.

INTERACTIONS BETWEEN LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS Freud once more is the source of insightful ideas about the relative power of the leader to exert influence over others. In some cases, he suggested, when followers are transformed into the primal horde, leaders can indulge their own wishes and their narcissism, and treat group members quite severely. Such a leader is ‘‘free. His intellectual acts were strong and independent . . . and his will needed no reinforcement from others . . . he loved no one but himself, or other people only as they served his needs.’’ In this final section, the authors more closely examine these interactions between leaders and followers by focusing on how evolutionary processes result in contemporary leaders who may be unfit to provide for the needs of their followers, how power can alter the dynamics between leaders and followers, and how followers’ moral convictions guide their interactions with leaders. Van Vugt, Johnson, Kaiser, and O’Gorman’s chapter considers research on the evolutionary underpinnings of leadership that suggests a more complicated and balanced view of the development of relations between leaders and followers. They suggest that leadership is an evolutionarily stable adaptation that enhanced the fitness of human beings across long spans of time and a variety of situations. Actions that help others organize their communal activities and reduce conflict among members benefit the group but also increase the leader’s access to resources and increase the likelihood that the leader will survive long enough to procreate. Leadership also benefits those who follow, for in scarce resource environments competition among members over resources, constant struggles for dominance, and uncoordinated defensive and domestic activities will be deadly to all. As Van Vugt and his colleagues note, however, leadership and followership processes evolved in human groups that existed in an environment of evolutionary adaptiveness (EEA) that differs in dramatic ways from the groups and communities where humans currently live. The result is that contemporary leaders sometimes fail because the psychological and interpersonal reactions of both followers and leaders are influenced by genetic tendencies that are not as behaviorally

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adaptive as they were in earlier evolutionary contexts: the evolutionary mismatch hypothesis of leadership. Consistent with the focus on the failures of contemporary leaders, the chapter by Galinsky, Jordan, and Sivanathan implicitly details Freud’s view of a despotic leader who fully illustrates Lord Acton’s famous warning that ‘‘power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.’’ Galinsky et al. explain that since leaders tend to be more powerful than their followers, they are psychologically and behaviorally activated: more proactive, more selfpromoting, and more likely to seek out rewards and exploit opportunities. Followers, in contrast, are more inhibited, for they tend to be more reactive, cautious, and vigilant. Galinsky and his colleagues identify a number of negative side effects of the acquisition of power by leaders, but they also suggest ways that power can be harnessed to energize positive forms of leadership. In the final chapter of our volume, Skitka, Bauman, and Lytle provide a useful counterpoint in focusing on the follower’s capacity to resist the demands of the powerful leader. Social psychologists have demonstrated that powerful leaders can extract obedience from their followers, to the point that they undertake actions that most would consider to be morally questionable. Skitka and her colleagues, however, note that leaders who direct their followers in ways that violate the followers’ own core moral values will likely fail as a source of influence. Moral conviction, they suggest, is a more potent guide to behavior than more general attitudes and beliefs, and thereby provides followers with guides for action as well as criteria for the evaluation of a leader. Not only will they refuse to follow the direction of a leader who asks them to act in ways that are inconsistent with their convictions, but they will also come to question the legitimacy of that leader.

AN OVERVIEW Although we can distinguish four aspects of leadership for the purposes of organizing the work of our colleagues in this volume, they are, in fact, very much interrelated, even intertwined. An understanding of the connections between these aspects is suggested by considering our chapters as a whole. The leader’s personal characteristics are surely important, but what matters more is how they are perceived. There must be some correspondence between what followers or potential followers expect and desire, and what qualities leaders or potential leaders have, or are perceived to have. People have expectations not only about what leaders are like but also about what they do. They expect leaders to persuade, to push and prod, and to innovate. Furthermore, followers hold leaders responsible for success and failure, and so leaders, like President Kennedy, carefully weigh how actions are likely to affect their perceived competency and legitimacy. And then beyond mutual

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sets of expectations, leaders and followers actually interact. Evolutionary analyses suggest that groups have developed highly adaptive ways for coordinating leading and following, in the interests of goal accomplishment, tranquility within the group, and protection from outside threats. Despite the evident adaptive nature of leader/follower coordination, the power leaders obtain leads to several varieties of exploitation of followers. Effective resistance by followers and effective self-regulation by leaders reduce these destructive aspects of power. In conclusion, we are extremely pleased that the chapters in this book provide insight into the interrelated processes of leadership. They represent the state of the art of the social psychology of leadership. We are grateful to our contributors and excited for our readers. We hope that the latter will develop a useful and stimulating understanding of leadership from the work of the former.

REFERENCES Allport, F. (1924). Social psychology. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Allport, G. W. (1968). The historical background of modern social psychology. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (2nd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 1–80). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Bartlett, F. C. (1926). The social psychology of leadership. Journal of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, 3, 188–193. Freud, S. (1921). Group psychology and the analysis of the ego (J. Strachey, Trans.). London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-analysis. Le Bon, G. (1895). Psychologie des Foules [The Crowd]. London: Unwin. Lewin, K. (1997). Conduct, knowledge and the acceptance of new values. In G. Lewin (Ed.), Resolving social conflicts: Selected papers on group dynamics (pp. 48–55). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Lewin, K., Lippitt, R., & White, R. (1939). Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created ‘social climates.’ Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 271–299. Nafe, R. W. (1930). A psychological description of leadership. Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 248–266. Ross, E. A. (1908). Social psychology: an outline and source book. New York: Macmillan. Tait, W. D. (1927). Psychology, leadership and democracy. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 22, 26–32.

PART I

THE PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LEADERS


1 Personality and Leadership STEPHEN J. ZACCARO, LISA M. V. GULICK, AND VIVEK P. KHARE

The question of personality influences on leadership has been oft-studied but still presents a source of controversy. In this chapter, we briefly review the history of this question in social and organizational psychology. We also provide a rationale, based on variance in situation strength, for the viability of personality as a predictor of leadership. We then articulate some conceptual frames for the specification of personality attributes that predict leader role occupancy and leader role effectiveness. While the predictors of leader role occupancy will overlap somewhat with those of leader role effectiveness, we point to some important differences in the two sets of variables. We conclude this chapter by arguing that, when examining leader traits, researchers should explore multiple attributes and how these attributes interact with one another, rather than relying on traditional univariate or additive approaches. The topic of leadership has waxed and waned in prominence over the historical breadth of social psychology. The first handbook of social psychology (Murchison, 1935) included limited references to leadership patterns in animal colonies and in nursery school children. Murphy and Murphy’s (1932) chapter in that handbook was also one of the earliest sources to discuss research suggesting that leadership derived from situational dynamics in addition to, or rather instead of, stable or trait characteristics of the individual (e.g., Parten, 1933). Over the next three decades, leadership emerged as a major topic in social psychology, enough to warrant separate chapters (Gibb, 1954, 1969) in the next two handbooks (Lindzey, 1954; Lindzey & Aronson, 1969). However, the latest edition of the handbook (Gilbert, Fiske, & Lindzey,

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1998) relegated leadership to small sections in two chapters (Pfeffer, 1998; Levine & Moreland, 1998). This ebb and flow corresponded to countervailing shifts in this literature regarding the focus on personality and individual differences as prominent influences on leadership (Zaccaro, 2007). Indeed, the role of personality in leadership has remained a consistent and controversial topic in social and organizational psychology through the whole of the twentieth century and into the first decade of the present century. We revisit this question in this chapter; we first review traditional conceptions of the personality and leadership connection before offering a revitalized perspective that takes into account both the coherence of personality and the power of the situation where leadership occurs.

LEADERSHIP AND PERSONALITY: A HISTORICAL REVIEW The earliest scientific research on leadership focused on the stable qualities that distinguished leaders from nonleaders (Terman, 1904). For some, leadership reflected an identifiable personality attribute of the individual. For example, Gibb (1947, p. 267) summarized this approach well: ‘‘Leadership has usually been thought of as a specific attribute of personality, a personality trait, that some persons possess and others do not, or at least that some achieve in high degree while others scarcely at all.’’ For others, leadership activities were defined as being derived from stable individual qualities, mostly including personality traits, but other stable characteristics as well ( e.g., intelligence, physical characteristics). Thus, an early study by Craig and Charters (1925) described the individual attributes of successful industry leaders. Bird’s (1940) textbook on social psychology contained a chapter on leadership that summarized the results of ‘‘approximately twenty inquires bearing some resemblance to controlled investigations’’ (p. 378) into the traits that distinguish leaders from nonleaders. He reported 79 traits. However, he also reported little consistency in the literature in defining core leadership traits, citing only four general traits of leadership—‘‘intelligence, initiative, a sense of humor, and extraversion’’ (p. 380). Several reviews published in the 1940s and 1950s also summarized this literature, echoing Bird’s observation of inconsistency in observed relationships between leader traits and outcomes. As a consequence, more leadership scholars began to argue for contextual approaches to leadership (Jenkins, 1947; Gibb, 1947, 1954; Stogdill, 1948; see Day and Zaccaro, 2007, for a more comprehensive review of the history of leadership traits research). These literature reviews and corresponding arguments likely instigated a changing zeitgeist in leadership theory and research away from a focus on the personality of leaders and toward the situational factors that determine leader role

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occupancy and leadership behavior. Day and Zaccaro (2007) argued that this change, beginning in the 1940s, possibly resulted from growing attention by social psychologists to the phenomenon of leadership. Because social psychology emphasizes social context as the sine qua non for explaining behavior, the focus in leadership research became leadership behavior and the situational influences that governed its effective enactment. For example, Day and Zaccaro noted that the classic research programs at The Ohio State University and at the University of Michigan in the 1940s and 1950s ‘‘sought to identify what leadership behaviors were likely to be most effective in different situations and in a broader sense identify the situational characteristics that demand particular patterns of leadership’’ (p. 390). The situational perspective continued to dominate the study of leadership in social psychology for much of the next 20–30 years, with decreasing (or no) emphasis placed on the personality of the leader as an important driver of leadership dynamics. Fiedler’s (1964, 1971) theory presented a disposition by situation model, where individuals would be effective as leaders only in situations that matched their orientation to leadership. Thus, while Fiedler still described an important role for personality in leadership, he also defined situational moderators as being critical for this relationship. Subsequent theories described leadership more purely in terms of situational parameters (e.g., Hersey & Blanchard, 1969; House, 1971; Kerr & Jermier, 1978), while others emphasized leader-follower dynamics (e.g., Graen & Cashman, 1975; Hollander, 1964; Lord, Foti, & Phillips, 1982). These latter approaches did not consider personality attributes as integral variables in the prediction of leadership. These contributions represented the mainstream of leadership research and theory in social psychology. However, new analyses and perspectives of leadership began to rise to prominence in the 1980s that reemphasized the importance of the leader’s personality in leadership. Several studies used updated measurement and statistical strategies to revise conclusions from earlier leadership research. For example, Mann (1959) reviewed research on personality and performance in small groups. While he found some consistent relationships, he noted that ‘‘in no case is the median correlation between an aspect of personality . . . and performance higher than .25, and most of the median correlations are closer to .15’’ (p. 266). These findings became part of the oftcited support for the conclusion that trait approaches were not helpful in explaining leadership. However, Lord, De Vader, and Alliger (1986) used more sophisticated meta-analytical strategies to reexamine these same studies, along with those that were published since Mann’s paper. They found stronger correlations between the sets of personality variables examined by Mann and several indicators of leadership. Other meta-analyses conducted since that paper yielded similar conclusions regarding personality attributes

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and leadership (Judge & Bono, 2000; Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002; Keeney & Marchioro, 1998). For example, Judge, Bono, Ilies, and Gerhardt (2002) found support for a significant relationship between the five-factor model of personality and leadership (multiple correlation of .48). Theories of inspirational leadership that began to emerge in the organizational literature offered perspectives of leadership that emphasized leader personality. For example, House (1977; also see Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993) described how leaders use the formation and articulation of inspiring messages (e.g., vision) to motivate subordinate loyalty and commitment. Similar models were offered by Bass (1985), Conger and Kanungo (1987), and Sashkin (1988). Such charismatic influences were defined as grounded in the personality of the charismatic leader (House & Howell, 1992), specifically such attributes as socialized power needs, risk propensity, nurturing ability, and high self-esteem or confidence (Zaccaro, 2001). More recently, leadership theorists have begun to offer theories and models that appear to place an even stronger emphasis on leader personality. For example, Avolio, Gardner, Walumbwa, Luthans, and May (2004) offered a theoretical framework of how ‘‘authentic leaders’’ influence follower attitudes and behaviors. Such leaders were defined as ‘‘those individuals who are deeply aware of how they think, and behave, and are perceived by others as being aware of their own and others’ values/moral perspective, knowledge, and strengths, aware of the context in which they operate and who are confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, and high on moral character’’ (from Avolio, Luthans, & Walumbwa, 2004; cited in Avolio et al., pp. 802–804). This definition suggests that personal attributes of the leader play a significant role in producing perceptions of authenticity. For example, Wood (2007) argued that the character attributes of integrity and self-transcendence act as important antecedents of authentic leadership. This summary suggests that leader personality is once again being defined as an important contribution to leadership. Reviews by Day and Zaccaro (2007), Zaccaro, Kemp, and Bader (2004), and Zaccaro (2007) describe in more detail the ebb and flow of the importance of personality and traits in leading models of leadership in different time periods. We would argue that while current perspectives of leadership no longer dismiss leader traits and personality as important influences, there is still a significant deficiency in understanding how such variables act within the context of situational parameters to affect leadership outcomes. Also, the typical approaches to studying personality and leadership still resemble the traditional univariate or additive methods applied in earlier research. For example, a number of studies cited in the meta-analysis by Judge et al. (2002) examined only a single personality attribute (such as extraversion or conscientiousness) as a predictor of leadership. Indeed, while most recent reviews of leadership acknowledge the


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reemergence of traits, they still tend to present such perspectives in ways fundamentally unchanged from those in the 1930s and 1940s (e.g., Den Hartog & Koopman, 2001; Levine & Moreland, 1998). For example, in their chapter in the last edition of the Handbook of Social Psychology, Levine and Moreland (1998, p. 443) note that ‘‘although personal characteristics can influence who becomes a leader and how the person behaves in the role, it is clear that leaders vary widely in personality and no set of critical characteristics determines leadership in all situations.’’ This summary varies little in tone and consequence from the summary offered by Gibb in his review of leadership in the 1954 Handbook of Social Psychology. In the remainder of this chapter, we will offer some basic premises about personality and leadership, including some arguments for why the nature of leadership supports an emphasis on leader traits. We will also summarize research linking personality (a) to leader role occupancy and (b) to leadership effectiveness. We do not wish to present our arguments or summaries in terms of the worn-out ‘‘personality versus situation’’ typology. We agree with Day and Zaccaro (2007) who stated, ‘‘any assertion that traits are irrelevant to leadership seems naı¨ve at best’’ (p. 398). We also agree that any explanation of leadership that does not boldly include situational influences as central drivers would fail several tests of conceptual and practical validity. As Vroom and Jago (2007) argue, ‘‘viewing leadership in purely dispositional or purely situational terms is to miss a major portion of the phenomenon’’ (p. 23). Models of leadership need to offer more complex integrations of leader traits and situations. In this chapter we summarize research on constructions of leader personality that (a) demark most leaders from nonleaders, and (b) could fit into such integrations.

PERSONALITY AND THE NATURE OF LEADERSHIP SITUATIONS Several personality theorists (e.g., Bem & Allen, 1974; Mischel, 1977, 2004) have argued that the strength of situational demands in a context can act to mitigate the expression of strong disposition-based behavior. The essence of leadership, particularly at executive and middle levels of organizations involves making decisions in situations that allow choices among viable alternatives. For example, individuals working at different levels of organizations experience different environmental constraints that pose unique skill requirements. Upper level leadership positions often involve a greater amount of ambiguity (Hambrick, 1989) and discretion (Jacobs & Jaques, 1990), while lower level leadership positions are often associated with more concrete instructions from supervisors and more well-defined tasks, leaving little room for deviation or choice (Jacobs & Jaques, 1987). House and Aditya

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(1997) compared higher degrees of leader discretion to the weak situations outlined by Mischel (1977). Weak situations are those contexts that lack structure and concrete direction of how one is supposed to behave (Mischel, 1977). In weak situations, individual traits become more prominent and are therefore stronger determinants of behavior (Mischel, 1973). This line of thinking suggests that personal attributes will be especially important in leadership, particularly at upper levels of organizational leadership. A leader who is operating in a strong situation may be more certain of the appropriate behaviors to demonstrate than a leader operating in a weak, or ambiguous, situation. The strength of the situation thus provides a sense of clarity that reduces discretionary choice in selected leadership behaviors. Mischel (2004) summarized his approach as reflecting ‘‘more situationqualified characterizations of persons in contexts, making dispositions situationally hedged, and interactive with the situations in which they were expressed’’ (pp. 4–5). Mischel (1977) argued that in ‘‘strong’’ situations, contextual cues and normative expectations provide clear guidance to participants regarding appropriate behavior, and thus constrain the expression of personality. Individuals in such situations have little real choice and autonomy in what behaviors they need to display in order to remain socially effective. In ‘‘weak’’ situations, no such guidance or cues are available. Barrick and Mount (1993) noted that in such situations, ‘‘the person has considerable discretion in determining which behaviors, if any, to undertake’’ (p. 12). Behavioral expectations are at best ambiguous, providing individuals with more choice and autonomy in their choice of responses. Thus, when situations allow behavior discretion, personality and individual differences are likely to play a more prominent role in determining the content of behavior. Several studies have provided evidence for this moderating influence in terms of work performance. For example, Barrick and Mount (1993) examined the relationships between conscientiousness and extraversion, respectively, with managerial performance under conditions of high and low autonomy. As expected, they found that when midlevel managers and firstline supervisors experienced more autonomy in their jobs, the association of each personality variable with performance was much higher than when managers indicated their jobs had low autonomy. Beaty, Cleveland, and Murphy (2001) examined associations between conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, respectively, and contextual performance, defined as the ‘‘behaviors associated with helping coworkers perform their assigned tasks’’ (p. 126). They completed a laboratory study in which they varied the strength of situational cues and a field study in which they measured the strength of normative expectations. In the laboratory study, they found that when expectations about how to behave were unclear in organizational scenarios, extraversion was more strongly related to choices to engage


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in helping behavior than when task performance expectations were very clear. Similar findings of stronger personality-behavior correlations in ‘‘weaker’’ situations were reported in the field study. This argument suggests that when examining the effects of personality on leadership, one needs to take considerable account of the degree to which situations afford the display of leadership. Indeed, leadership substitutes theory is premised on the notion that a large number of situational variables can minimize the appropriateness or necessity of leadership behaviors (Kerr & Jermier, 1978). However, this conclusion ignores a defining feature of such behavior that we have noted—leadership as a phenomenon occurs almost exclusively in situations where individuals have choices and autonomy in their decisions and responses. That is, leadership is, by definition, the province of weak group and organizational situations. This defining feature of leadership is not a new one. Katz and Kahn (1978) defined leadership as ‘‘the influential increment over and above mechanical compliance with the routine directives of the organization’’ (p. 528). In light of the aforementioned definitions of strong situations, they can be considered as containing ‘‘routine directives’’ and inducing ‘‘strong compliance.’’ Thus, leadership by this definition refers to activities that reflect social influence beyond that exerted by a situational press. Indeed, most definitions of leadership define such influence in part as providing direction for collective action (Yukl, 2006). The provision of direction implies choice in determining among different action paths (or even inaction), which is most appropriate for reaching collective goals. For example, Jacobs and Jaques (1990) noted that leadership involved ‘‘an exchange of information about what ought to be done (or how it ought to be done, or some other discretionary issue)’’ (p. 282, italics added). Finally, Mumford (1986) captures this aspect of leadership when he defines it as ‘‘a form of discretionary behavior which involves some significant element of choice in whether or not and what kind of action will be taken. This constraint is based on the fact that actions which are completely specified by normative role requirements are a property of the organization rather than of the individual’’ (p. 513). The idea that acts of leadership inherently involve choice and autonomy strengthens the pure case for personality influences on leadership outcomes. However, these influences, and the particular mix of personality variables specified as precursors of leadership, will likely vary depending upon the particular outcome being examined. For example, the personality attributes that predict the attainment of leader roles, or leader role occupancy, may be distinct from those that predict effectiveness in these roles. Also, single personality variables will rarely exert strong influences on leadership. Instead, personality attributes are likely to affect leadership in concert with other attributes as part of an integrated constellation. This latter perspective has

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been labeled the ‘‘pattern’’ approach to leadership and personality (Foti & Hauenstein, 2007; Smith & Foti, 1998: see also Zaccaro, 2007, and Zaccaro, Kemp, & Bader, 2004). We examine these ideas more closely in the next sections. Specifically, we have argued that leadership situations are weak in the sense that they typically do not provide clarity in terms of expected behavior. Instead, they offer individuals choices in (a) whether or not to assume the leader role, and (b) what decisions to make in such roles. When greater ambiguity exists for the leader in making these choices (e.g., at higher levels of organizational leadership, where leaders typically face greater complexity and decision choices), personality attributes should more strongly predict leadership role occupancy and leadership effectiveness. Accordingly, in the next sections we examine how multiple personality attributes, acting jointly, influence these leadership outcomes.

PERSONALITY AND LEADER ROLE OCCUPANCY We have noted that leadership criteria can include leader role occupancy, or the attainment of leader roles, and leadership effectiveness, or the success of the leader role occupant (Judge et al., 2002; Lord et al., 1986). Further distinctions can also be made in each of these sets of criteria. For example, most studies of leader role occupancy have used peer rankings or ratings to determine leadership attainment (i.e., leader emergence). Others have examined the successive occupancy of leader roles over a career span (i.e., leader promotion, leader selection). However, few studies have examined criteria related to an individual’s motivation to obtain leadership roles (i.e., leadership seeking) (Chan & Drasgow, 2001). Leadership role seeking derives from a set of individual attributes that reflect an individual’s willingness or motivation to actively obtain the leadership role in a team or organization. The grounding of this leadership in personality attributes is supported by Schneider’s Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) model (Schneider, 1987; Schneider, Goldstein, & Smith, 1995). This model argues that individuals are differentially attracted to careers and organizations as a result of different mixes of personality attributes. As applied to leadership, individuals with certain personality attributes would likely be more attracted to leadership roles. A recent study by Arvey, Rotundo, Johnson, Zhang, and McGue (2006) provides some evidence for this premise. They found that significant variance in leadership role attainment was based in part on social potency, which was measured as the degree to which an individual ‘‘enjoys or would enjoy leadership roles’’ (Arvey et al., 2006, p. 17).


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Related dispositional variables that should predict systematic variance in seeking leadership include motivation to lead (Chan & Drasgow, 2001), need for power (McClelland & Boyatzis, 1982), and dominance (Lord et al., 1986; Mann, 1959). Each of these personality attributes increases the likelihood that an individual will choose to pursue a leadership role if a situation provides the choice or opportunity to do so. Motivation to lead refers to a personal construct ‘‘that affects a leader’s or leader-to-be’s decision to assume leadership training, roles, and responsibilities, and that affect his or her intensity of effort at leading and persistence as a leader’’ (Chan & Drasgow, 2001, p. 482). Chan and Drasgow reported that such motivation influenced ratings of leadership potential. Need for power refers to personal motives to seek and use power and influence (cf. McClelland and Boyatzis, 1982)). Yukl (2006) noted that ‘‘someone with a high need for power enjoys influencing people and events and is more likely to seek positions of authority’’ (p. 193). Longitudinal studies by Howard and Bray (1988) and McClelland and Boyatzis (1982) found significant relationships between variables elated to personal need for power and managerial promotion rates. Dominance, or the stable desire to impose one’s influence and will on situations, has been prominently linked to leadership emergence in a number of studies (Foti & Hauenstein, 2007; Keeney & Marchioro, 1998; Lord et al., 1986; Mann, 1959). Note that while a number of studies support the importance of personality attributes that predict one’s attraction to leadership roles, most of them use leader emergence or actual role attainment (through selection or promotion) as criteria. Few studies have examined leader role-seeking behaviors directly. This distinction is important because leader emergence rests on attributes in addition to one’s motivation to seek leadership roles. Leader emergence requires some form of endorsement from potential followers—Judge et al. (2002, p. 767) note that ‘‘leader emergence refers to whether (or to what degree) an individual is viewed as a leader by others.’’ This need for support from followers suggests that leader emergence is predicted by personal attributes that systematically impact how one is perceived by others, in addition to those influencing attraction to leader roles. Potential leaders need to understand the leadership needs of followers and be able to respond accordingly (Zaccaro, Foti, & Kenny, 1991). Accordingly, Zaccaro et al. reported significant positive associations between self-monitoring dispositions and leader rankings and ratings in small groups. Likewise, in their meta-analysis, Judge et al. reported significant correlations between leader emergence scores and such attributes as extraversion and sociability. These attributes predispose the leader to favor interactions with others and to conduct those interactions more effectively. These studies share a common theme—the use of either a single variable or an additive approach to an examination of personality and leader role

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occupancy. That is, these studies have typically examined only one personality attribute, or looked at the independent contributions of several attributes. Smith and Foti (1998) argued, instead, that particular combinations or patterns of personality attributes ought to be examined for their association with leader emergence. Similarly, Zaccaro (2007) argued that researchers need to examine how multiple traits can be ‘‘combined in optimal ways to jointly influence leadership’’ (p. 12). Foti and Hauenstein (2007) provided evidence for this approach by showing that combining attributes such as intelligence, dominance, self-monitoring, and self-efficacy in particular ways explained significant incremental variance in leader emergence scores over simple additive contributions of these same attributes. In sum, a number of recent studies have documented significant links between personality attributes and leader role occupancy. We have suggested that the mix of influential dispositions will vary according to the targeted leadership criteria—leadership seeking, leader emergence, or leader selection. We have also argued that specified dispositions need to be considered as part of an integrated constellation of attributes that influence each of these criteria. Earlier, we suggested that leadership as a phenomenon reflects behaviors that are inherently displayed in weak group or organizational situations. However, at this point we should offer a possible qualifier to this premise for leader emergence and leader selection. Both of these processes reflect endorsements of leader role occupancy by others. In some instances, situational demands can preclude a particular person from assuming the leadership role regardless of his or her predisposition for the role. For example, an individual may possess all of the aforementioned personality attributes that promote leadership seeking behavior, but if the position also requires particular functional knowledge that he or she does not have, or if that person cannot gain the endorsement of a powerful patron in the organization, then he or she will not gain the position.

PERSONALITY AND LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS Several studies have demonstrated significant associations between personality attributes and measures of leader effectiveness (e.g., Foti & Hauenstein, 2007; Judge et al., 2002). Zaccaro (2007) has asserted that much of the earlier work on leader traits and leadership criteria has been atheoretical with little or no explanation for why certain attributes should relate to particular indices of leadership effectiveness. Mumford and his colleagues (Mumford, 1986; Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000) have provided one such conceptual rationale based on a perspective of leadership as complex social problem solving. This perspective argues that the central role of leaders is to help their constituent teams and organizations achieve collective


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goals (Hackman & Walton, 1986). The contexts of organizational action can present threats to goal progress or opportunities for goal advancement. Likewise, organizational environments can change significantly such that group and organizational structures and processes become misaligned with environment requirements (Katz & Kahn, 1978; Mumford, 1986). Accordingly, leaders facilitate the progress of their followers by helping them resolve threats to goal progress, take advantage of goal opportunities, and correct misalignments with operating environments. Based on this perspective Mumford (1986; Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000) argued that leadership can be defined in terms of problem solving processes that promote organizational adaptation. These processes include the definition of problem components and the generation and evaluation of potential solutions. They also include the implementation of solutions in complex social domains and monitoring the effects of such implementation. Defining leadership in terms of such social or organizational problem solving processes provides a basis for hypothesizing the nature and direction of influences on leadership effectiveness by particular personality attributes. For example, because organizational contexts are typically complex, attributes that predispose the leader toward a willingness to tackle tough problems, persist in their resolution, and be comfortable with complexity should promote leadership processes related to problem definition and solution generation. Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al. (2000) specified several such attributes, including mastery motives, dominance, openness, tolerance for ambiguity, curiosity, and an orientation toward abstract conceptualization (e.g., intuition on the Myers-Briggs scale, Gardner & Martinko, 1996). Studies that have affirmed the effects of these attributes on leader effectiveness include Gardner and Martinko (1996), Lord et al. (1986), and Judge et al. (2002). Other personality attributes should foster solution implementation processes. Because such processes involve facilitating complex social dynamics and carefully monitoring the effects of solutions in social contexts, variables such as extraversion, sociability, and conscientiousness should be significant predictors of leader effectiveness. In support of this premise, Judge et al. (2002) reported that extraversion and conscientiousness yielded significant corrected correlations with indices of leadership effectiveness. Note that most studies supporting the proposed effects of these personality attributes have used a univariate or additive approach. However, we have argued here (and elsewhere by the first author; Zaccaro, 2001, 2007; Zaccaro et al., 2004) that leadership researchers need to explore how personality affects leadership jointly with other cognitive, social, and motivational attributes. We noted earlier that Foti and Hauenstein (2007) reported support for this approach when using leader emergence as the criterion. They also found

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similar support for joint effects of individual differences on leadership effectiveness criteria. We suggest, though, that the pattern trait approach needs to be extended to consider not only the joint effects of personality and nonpersonality attributes but also the joint effects of multiple personality variables. If different personality variables are more likely to foster effectiveness of different leadership processes, then overall leader success will likely result from the combined influences of several attributes. For example, leader effectiveness is likely to be maximized when (a) leaders possess motives to lead, an orientation for abstract conceptualization, mastery motives, openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness; and (b) these leaders also possess other attributes such as cognitive ability, social capabilities, problem solving skills, and expertise (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000; Zaccaro, 2007). Personality theorists have argued for such combinations in discussion of ‘‘types’’ (e.g., Magnusson, 1988). Mumford, Zaccaro, Johnson, et al. (2000) identified several types that distinguished leader rank and leadership effectiveness among army officers. Specifically, they found two types that were more likely to be evident in senior officers than among their junior counterparts—motivated communicators and thoughtful innovators. Motivated communicators were those officers who scored high on measures of extraversion, responsibility, achievement, dominance, verbal reasoning skills, and problem solving skills. Note that this type contains several of the personality attributes that we described earlier as linked to different aspects of leader problem solving effectiveness. This type contained cognitive capacity and skills as well. The second type reflected officers who scored high on introversion, preferences for abstract conceptualization, achievement, dominance, verbal reasoning and problem solving skills. Of particular note is that opposing attributes (introversion-extraversion) appear in different types. Mumford, Zaccaro, Johnson, et al. noted that each type corresponded to different aspects of the leadership role–tactical operations (motivated communicators) and operational planning (thoughtful innovators). This study demonstrated the complexity of how personality attributes can relate to leadership criteria. We urge more research on such joint and integrated effects of different personality attributes and with other nonpersonality variables.

SUMMARY We have noted in this chapter that the premise that personality attributes are significant predictors of leadership has been substantially revived in the organizational literature. We have also argued that because leadership refers to sets of processes that occur in response to organization problems that do not have routine solutions, and that require discretion and choices by the leader (i.e., ‘‘weak’’ situations), personality and individual differences should


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have a stronger role in these processes than in other situations fully constrained by normative expectations. We would add that this does not diminish or obviate the role of situations in leadership, for situational events define the parameters of organizational problems and the constraints on their solutions. We suggest accordingly that when leadership researchers examine personality and leadership, they should focus on individual differences that allow stability in leader role occupancy but variability in enacted leadership activities (Zaccaro, 2007; Zaccaro et al., 1991). We would also suggest leadership researchers devote attention to developing more sophisticated conceptual frames that describe how personality attributes differentially predict leader role occupancy and leader effectiveness. We have argued that different models likely apply to leader role occupancy and leader effectiveness, but current theories and models do not specify these differences in terms clear enough to develop testable propositions. We have offered some ideas here based on more complex integrations of multiple personality attributes. Because leadership activities are situationally bound, these attribute patterns need to be constructed around individual qualities that predict stability in role occupancy, but also adaptability and flexibility to situational demands (Zaccaro, 2007; Zaccaro et al., 1991). We would encourage researchers to continue along this research path and to develop leadership models that specify further integrations of personality attributes with other sets of variables such as cognitive capacities, social competencies, and expertise. We believe these prescriptions can advance our current understanding of how leaders differ from nonleaders, and how they persist in being effective across diverse situations.

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2 Social Psychology and Charismatic Leadership RONALD E. RIGGIO AND HEIDI R. RIGGIO

Charisma and charismatic leadership can be understood as a social psychological phenomenon. Charismatic leadership only occurs with follower identification with the social group, from which follows a tendency to attribute power and causal influence to the leader, intense liking of the leader, modeling of leader behavior, increasing commitment to group goals, and shared emotions with the leader. Leader charisma is enhanced as followers discount discrepant leader behaviors, reciprocate leader selfsacrifice, and self-fulfill leader expectations. Situational factors enhance leader charisma, including comparison with less successful leaders and situational uncertainty or threat. Individual factors also come into play because charisma can be viewed as a set of behaviors and characteristics, including sensitivity to the environmental context, sensitivity to followers’ needs and concerns, ability to articulate a compelling, shared vision, unconventional behavior, personal risk taking, and skills in social and expressive communication. Viewing charisma as resulting from the interplay between individual leader characteristics and behaviors, and features of followers, situations, and interactions, may guide future research on charisma and facilitate our understanding of the powerful effects, historical ramifications, and memorable nature of charismatic leadership. Ask any assembled group to generate a list of famous charismatic leaders and you will find remarkable agreement. In the United States, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan will usually top the list, as will World War II

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leaders Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. The names of leaders of national and international social movements—Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi—will also be mentioned. These are then usually followed by local politicians and, depending upon the group, business leaders, sports leaders, religious leaders, and sometimes entertainers.1 But then it gets troublesome. Adolf Hitler usually makes the list, followed by notorious, Svengali-like figures such as the Peoples Temple leader, Jim Jones, and religious cult leader David Koresh. If you look at the personal qualities or personalities of this diverse group, there is seemingly little in common. If you consider that the list contains individuals who are perceived to be both morally good (King, Gandhi) and bad (Hitler, Jones), it gets even more confusing. Although many hold formal leadership positions (U.S. presidents or other heads of state), others do not. This suggests that charisma is not about personality, nor is it associated with a particular role. Much of what constitutes charismatic leadership is social psychological in nature, although it is clear that these leaders possessed certain elements in common that contributed to their charisma. Yet, even these personal elements are tied to social psychological constructs. This chapter will examine charisma and charismatic leadership. Although charismatic leadership has been studied by sociologists, psychoanalyticoriented and personality psychologists, and management scholars, social psychologists have paid scant attention to charisma and charismatic leadership. Yet, many of the elements of charismatic leadership, and the relationship between charismatic leader and followers, are better understood through the application of social psychological theories and constructs. Charisma is both ‘‘smoke’’ and substance. We maintain that charisma is partly a social construction, but that there is also some true substance— individual and social factors that contribute to a leader’s charisma. We will begin by exploring how shared perceptions of a leader result in attributions that a particular leader is or is not charismatic. We will then look at how situational factors play a part in helping to create charismatic leaders. Because charismatic leadership is a relationship-based type of leadership, we will look at how the social psychology of relationships helps us understand the process of charisma. Finally, we will look at the substance—the skills and behaviors that distinguish charismatic leaders from those who do not possess charisma. The notion of charisma has Christian religious roots, and the word itself means ‘‘a divine gift of grace.’’ Social scientific analyses of charisma, however, began with the work of sociologist Max Weber (1947), who, in his conceptualization of ‘‘charismatic authority,’’ suggested that during times of unrest or inertia followers latch onto an individual who has some reason to draw their collective attention. The followers then imbue this individual with extraordinary powers and qualities. The devotion of followers to charismatic

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leaders is very strong, but Weber puts the real source of the charismatic authority in the situation (‘‘crisis’’ conditions; the leader has notable success) and in followers’ shared perceptions of the leader. Weber’s perspective foreshadows the more recent research on charismatic leadership by social psychologists that apply social identity theory to the study of leadership (Hogg, 2001; van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003).

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY AND CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP According to social identity theory, group members who are highly prototypical, that is, members who embody the beliefs, values, and norms of the group, are more likely to emerge as group leaders. These emergent leaders are well liked and are attractive to group members. As a result, they can become persuasive and powerful. When a leader is seen as attractive, the potential attractiveness of the entire group increases, increasing the positive distinctiveness of the group and bolstering follower social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). According to social identity theory, this perceived attractiveness can evolve into perceptions of the leaders possessing ‘‘charisma.’’ This is particularly true in the U.S. and Western cultures that have a ‘‘romance of leadership’’—making leaders into heroic figures and viewing them as the primary cause of a group or organization’s success or failure (Meindl, Ehrlich, & Dukerich, 1985). The celebrity status given to U.S. companies’ chief executive officers (CEOs) and their enormous salaries, often tied to the companies’ performance, support the romance of leadership concept. The strong focus on the leader common in Western cultures often leads to overattributing a group’s successful (or failed) outcome to the leader and is an example of the well-known social psychological construct of the fundamental attribution error (Jones & Nisbett, 1972; Ross, 1977). The fundamental attribution error, in brief, is the tendency to make personal (or ‘‘dispositional’’) attributions for the causes of particular actions or outcomes, and to minimize the role that situational factors play in the outcome. Leaders, who are the focal point of attention, particularly in a society that has a romance of leadership, are more likely to be viewed as primary agents or causes of the group’s success or failure. Social identity theory and the fundamental attribution error seem to clearly explain the charisma of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Reagan was elected at a time in U.S. history when morale was low due to poor economic conditions and a decline in U.S. influence abroad. For many Americans, Reagan represented the prototype of the confident, ‘‘get-tough’’ individual. His unabashed patriotism made him the perfect example of the proud American. Coupled with his celebrity status as a former actor, Reagan was enormously popular and was elected over the


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incumbent president, Jimmy Carter. At the same time, blame for a stalled economy and the failed attempt to rescue U.S. hostages being held in Iran was attributed to Carter (who is often mentioned as a ‘‘noncharismatic’’ leader). Reagan, on the other hand, has been attributed by many with reviving the economy (via ‘‘Reaganomics’’) and causing the collapse of the Soviet Union and the tearing down of the Berlin wall—consistent with the fundamental attribution error, which downplays the situational and other factors that impacted these outcomes. Social identity theory also suggests that the highly prototypical, charismatic leader is viewed by followers as the embodiment of the group’s norms and values (Hogg, 2004; Hogg & van Knippenberg, 2003). As a result, followers develop a great deal of trust that the leader will work in the best interests of the group or organization. Yet, leaders are afforded greater latitude than regular members to violate shared group norms by using what Edwin Hollander (1958) termed ‘‘idiosyncrasy credits.’’ It is these idiosyncrasy credits that are earned by leaders, but perhaps received in greater numbers by charismatic leaders, which allow leaders to be forgiven for violations of group norms. This is consistent with supporters’ willingness to forgive certain transgressions of their leaders, such as the sexual indiscretions of Presidents Kennedy and Clinton. Reagan seemingly had built enough idiosyncrasy credits that he was nicknamed the ‘‘Teflon president’’ because of the public’s willingness to forgive the Iran-Contra scandal and other missteps. It seems that followers are more likely to discount inconsistent behavior by charismatic leaders because it allows them to maintain their extremely positive schema of the leader, thereby maintaining positivity of the group as a whole (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979). Charismatic leaders impact followers by serving as positive role models. Leadership typically involves clear status differences between leaders and followers, so leaders are the focus of followers’ attention and they are scrutinized constantly and often emulated. As noted in the social identity theory of leadership, leaders are expected to embody the norms and values of the group. To be seen as a charismatic leader, it is particularly important that the leader be visible and seen as greatly involved in the group’s functioning. They become exemplars for group behavior. For example, charismatic military leader Alexander the Great typically led the offensive charges in battle. As a result, Alexander was often wounded, which not only inspired his followers to equal Alexander’s boldness but also served to increase his charismatic appeal to his followers. Recent research has demonstrated that leaders who are seen as sacrificing themselves or their self-interests for the good of the group tend to be viewed as more charismatic and more trustworthy (DeCremer & van Knippenberg, 2005; Halverson, Holladay, Kazama, & Quinones, 2004). In the business world, charismatic CEOs, such as Apple’s Steve

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Jobs and Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca, became models of self-sacrifice when they elected to take one dollar as annual salary to demonstrate their commitment to helping lead their companies out of difficult times, a practice that has been adopted by the founders of Google, Inc. (not withstanding that all of these leaders are well-compensated via stock options and other revenue streams). Self-sacrificial behavior and demonstrating extraordinary commitment to the group and the group’s mission on the part of the charismatic leader also serves a social learning, role-modeling function (Bandura, 1977). Followers model the leader’s behavior, and with a strong commitment to the group’s goals and purposes, they are likely to follow their leader’s example of selfsacrifice. Further, when leaders themselves make sacrifices, it encourages followers to make their own sacrifices in service to the group as a method of reciprocation (viewing the leader ’s sacrifice as a favor that should be returned). It seems probable that self-sacrificing leaders are well aware that these behaviors may lead to increased compliance from followers (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). In summary, as suggested by social identity theory, charismatic leadership (and leadership in general) is part social construction. Individuals who are perceived to be prototypical group members emerge as leaders, and if they seem the embodiment of all that the group or organization stands for, they are prone to be labeled as charismatic. Engaging in bold or self-sacrificial behavior enhances followers’ perceptions of a leader’s charisma. However, situational and individual factors also contribute to charismatic leadership, and we will discuss each of these separately.

SITUATIONAL FACTORS AND CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP A number of situational factors have been hypothesized to contribute to both the emergence of charismatic leaders and the perception of a leader’s charisma. As mentioned, crisis situations represent opportunities for a charismatic leader to emerge as noted by Weber (1947) and others (Burns, 1978; House, 1977). Charismatic leaders of destructive cult groups, including Jim Jones and David Koresh, create beliefs about crisis situations among their followers, including beliefs about external threats of destruction to the group from purported enemies (Layton, 1998; Tabor & Gallagher, 1995). Shamir and Howell (1999) outline a number of additional situational factors. For example, charismatic leaders are more likely to occur in situations where there is a weak group or organization structure, such as in entrepreneurial organizations or groups that lack a rigid, bureaucratic-like structure. It is not surprising then that Silicon Valley has seemingly produced a number of


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charismatic CEOs in high-tech, start-up organizations and in an environment that thrives on constant change, new technology, and a lack of rules. Charismatic leaders may also benefit from a contrast effect. Specifically, a charismatic individual is more likely to emerge as leader if he or she follows a particularly noncharismatic individual (Shamir & Howell, 1999). Perceptions of the charismatic leader can intensify when directly contrasted with a leader who is not charismatic. A classic example is the Nixon-Kennedy televised debates during the 1960 presidential election. Kennedy emerged from the debates with his charisma intensified, while Nixon’s stilted performance led to him being labeled as noncharismatic. There is also evidence that Kennedy emerged from the debates being viewed by voters as a more ‘‘ideal President’’ (see Goethals, 2005)—consistent with social identity theory’s emphasis on prototypicality. A similar process may have occurred in the 2004 election with presidential hopeful John Kerry being labeled as particularly noncharismatic in comparison to George W. Bush (e.g., Safire, 2004). A leader’s charisma can also change depending on situational factors. For example, Winston Churchill was viewed as more charismatic during wartime than during times of peace. Similarly, George W. Bush’s popularity rose, presumably along with perceptions of his charisma, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (Bligh, Kohles, & Meindl, 2004). And again, dangerous cult leaders have often used increasing perceptions of group crisis and threat among followers as a way to periodically increase their authority and control over followers (Layton, 1998; Lofland, 1977; Tabor & Gallagher, 1995). A common misconception is that charisma is a phenomenon that only occurs when followers are distant from a leader. Adolf Hitler’s charismatic appeal, for example, was carefully managed by keeping him physically distant from followers. Billboard photos and other propaganda materials were crafted in order to portray him as powerful and handsome. Yet, research has demonstrated that charisma can occur at all levels, including in direct oneon-one relationships. For example, House, Spangler, and Woycke (1991) showed that charismatic U.S. presidents were not only seen as charismatic by the distant public, but also by their close cabinet members and advisors.

SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP PROCESSES AND CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP Although all forms of leadership involve an interaction of leaders and followers, there are peculiarities to the charismatic leadership relationship that are somewhat unique. Charismatic leaders and their followers have a deeper, more emotional relationship than do other leaders and followers. Moreover, charismatic leaders have important effects on the self-concepts of followers, which then translate into increased devotion to the charismatic leader and

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higher levels of follower commitment and performance (Bass, 1985; Bass & Riggio, 2006). We will discuss the effects of charismatic leaders on followers in some depth. Shamir, House, and Arthur (1993) explained key aspects of the relationship that occurs between a charismatic leader and followers. They describe people in social psychological terms, suggesting that while humans are goal-oriented and practical (seeking rewards and avoiding pain), they are also motivated to enhance their self-esteem and sense of self-efficacy over their environment. Self-concept is formed in part by membership in various social groups. The charismatic leader builds the relationship with followers by emphasizing that the follower is a member of a special social collective, particularly one that has admirable values. Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela appealed to followers as members of a social collective—a universal brotherhood—that advocated nonviolence and basic human rights. Jim Jones consistently presented a mission of revolutionary socialism (i.e., a world without racial and class discrimination) to his followers. This leads followers to feel a sense of collective identity as a member of a group with a noble cause, which enhances their self-esteem and sense of self-worth. The charismatic leader also expresses confidence in followers and their abilities to achieve outcomes, which builds followers’ self-esteem and individual and collective senses of self-efficacy (Bandura, 2000; Walumbwa, Wang, Lawler, & Shi, 2004). This then leads to greater shared commitment to the values and goals of the collective, as espoused by the charismatic leader. In communicating the collective mission, the charismatic leader suggests that there is intrinsic value in the attainment of performance-related goals. For the followers, then, accomplishing goals is not just performing duties, but is intrinsically valued as part of the larger purpose. Moreover, because the goals are a basis for the group’s identity, the bond between the individual follower and the group is very strong. Individual identity becomes merged with group identity (Bass & Riggio, 2006), with followers developing self-schemas of themselves as group members (Markus, 1977), making them more likely to continue to behave consistently with group goals and commitments (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). In addition, the charismatic leader tends to communicate positive affect toward followers. As charismatic leaders express positive regard and liking for their followers, followers increasingly like the leader; as followers liking for the leader increases, their compliance with leader directives will also increase (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). The leader’s communication of positive regard and high performance expectations for followers also triggers a selffulfilling prophecy—the well-researched process popularly termed the ‘‘Pygmalion effect’’ (Rosenthal, 1994; Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968)—whereby the leader’s expectations are communicated directly and subtly to followers,


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which in turn influences their sense of self-efficacy and subsequent performance (Eden & Sulimani, 2002; McNatt, 2000). The leader can convey positive expectations through subtle nonverbal cues of approval, or more directly by spending time encouraging and challenging followers to become more engaged and focused on the task at hand. Simply put, the leader expects that followers will perform well, and these expectations get communicated to followers through expression of positive feelings and encouragement. This causes followers to be more motivated and to believe that they can indeed perform at high levels, and performance follows. There is evidence that charismatic-transformational leaders are better able to improve follower performance via the Pygmalion effect than are noncharismatic leaders (Dvir, Eden, Avolio, & Shamir, 2002). The relationship between charismatic leaders and followers is also quite distinct from other leader-follower bonds because of the characteristic emotional connection. Charismatic leaders are, by definition, inspirational. Much of the charismatic leader’s ability to inspire has been encapsulated in the emotional contagion process (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994). Specifically, charismatic leaders are able to express emotions2—typically positive emotions—to followers in such a way that followers are ‘‘infected’’ by their leader’s emotions, creating a sympathetic emotional state in the followers. This emotional contagion process has been captured in several studies (e.g., Bono & Ilies, 2006; Cherulnik, Donley, Wiewel, & Miller, 2001; Friedman & Riggio, 1981). For example, Bono and Ilies (2006) demonstrated that charismatic leaders’ expression of positive emotions was correlated with ratings of the leaders’ effectiveness, as well as its having a positive influence on improving the moods of followers. Friedman and Riggio (1981) found that emotional expressiveness was a necessary component for transmission of moods/emotions to occur. Specifically, only the emotionally expressive individuals in each group were able to influence the moods of the other group members. It is likely that the contagion process goes both ways, with the charismatic leader sensing followers’ emotions and their emotional reactions in order to better connect with followers, although this has not been empirically verified. A vivid example is when a charismatic leader is making an inspiring and emotional speech to a crowd of followers, with the leader attuned to the crowd’s reaction and ‘‘feeding off’’ of their reaction to incite the crowd further. Martin Luther King Jr.’s last speech in Memphis (‘‘I’ve been to the mountaintop’’) is a good example where he begins slowly (he was ill), but both the crowd and King himself become more and more emotional as the speech progresses. As this suggests, an important and often overlooked aspect of charismatic leadership is the ability to empathize and ‘‘connect’’ with followers on a deep, emotional level. Individuals who have had face-to-face interactions with

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charismatic U.S. presidents commonly remark how the president made them ‘‘feel like they were the only person in the room.’’ Dozens of individuals have commented that presidents Kennedy and Clinton were particularly adept at making this one-on-one connection (e.g., Hayden, 2002; Sorenson, 1965), as have former and surviving members of the Peoples Temple about Jim Jones (Layton, 1998). We will explore these aspects of charismatic leaders further when focusing on their behaviors and particular charismatic qualities.

CHARISMATIC LEADER BEHAVIORS AND SKILLS What accounts for the seeming agreement of followers concerning a given leader’s charisma? Not just notable success. Truman is considered a highly effective and successful president, but he is rarely mentioned as charismatic. Conversely, the charismatic John F. Kennedy was a popular president, but is not considered by historians to have had a great deal of success. This suggests that there are indeed some individual differences that are driving both shared perceptions of charisma and the unique behaviors demonstrated by charismatic leaders. An ongoing line of research has tried to list the behaviors that distinguish charismatic leaders from other types of leaders. Many of these distinguishing characteristics have been identified in the work of Conger and Kanungo (1998), which focuses primarily on charismatic leadership in work organizations. According to Conger and Kanungo, charismatic leaders possess certain qualities and behaviors. These include: sensitivity to the environmental context, sensitivity to followers’ needs and concerns, ability to articulate a compelling, shared vision, unconventional behavior, and personal risk taking. By being sensitive to the environmental context, charismatic leaders look for opportunities to move followers and the organization forward in substantial and often dramatic ways. This can involve moving the group from a period of stagnation or noticing an opportunity for a new endeavor, a course of action, or, in business, a new product or service. In politics, President Kennedy’s exhortation to ‘‘get America moving again’’ is a good example. This is then used as a focal point for the leader to draw followers’ attention and leads to their perception of the leader’s charisma (Conger & Kanungo, 1998). In addition, charismatic leaders are sensitive to followers’ needs and concerns, and these are factored into the process. Charismatic leaders directly communicate their caring and sympathy to followers, both verbally and nonverbally. These leader behaviors help build the strong, emotional bonds between charismatic leaders and followers that were discussed earlier. Research has demonstrated that charismatic/transformational leaders foster higher-quality leader-follower relations than do other types of leaders (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995; Howell & Hall-Merenda, 1999).


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There has long been a connection between charismatic and visionary leadership, with being visionary viewed as a component of charismatic leadership. The ability of charismatic leaders to articulate a compelling vision may appeal to followers because the vision provides some sort of direction or helps to make sense out of an uncertain and often complex social environment. It is a well-known social psychological finding that under conditions of uncertainty, people look to others for cues that help define the situation and provide guidance and direction (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). Given that charismatic leaders stand out (i.e., they are easily able to attract attention due to their unconventionality and some of the expressive qualities that we will discuss later), and by virtue of their abilities to create and communicate an exciting vision, it makes sense that uncertain followers (and followers during times of uncertainty) would be persuaded by the charismatic leader’s compelling vision. Further, by nature of being in a leadership position, leaders also offer authority in times of uncertainty, increasing follower compliance in these kinds of situations (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). Finally, Conger and Kanungo (1998) note the risk-taking behavior associated with charismatic leaders. Risk taking can involve both the new, unconventional direction that the charismatic leader is advocating the group take, as well as the personal sacrifice that the leader makes to show commitment to the course of action, as noted earlier. The leader’s self-sacrifice can serve as a sign to followers that the leader is committed to the group and to the vision and can invoke a sense of reciprocity in followers who become more committed to the group’s direction and goals. Other scholars have noted that charismatic leaders tend to have a ‘‘charismatic delivery style’’ in public speaking (Holladay & Coombs, 1993, 1994). This consists of a speaking style that is viewed as dramatic and dominant, but also friendly, attentive to the audience, and relaxed. Research has demonstrated that charismatic delivery style is related to both perceptions of the speaker’s charisma and to perceptions that the individual will be an effective leader (Bligh, Kohles, & Pillai, 2005). In another study, charismatic U.S. presidents were found to use more metaphors in their speech than noncharismatic presidents, presumably in an effort to make their speeches more dramatic and clearer (Mio, Riggio, Levin, & Reese, 2005). It is interesting to note that although it is popularly believed that charisma has something to do with an individual’s personality, few scholars have explored the role of personality in charisma. Riggio (1987, 1998), however, has argued that charismatic individuals possess highly developed skills in emotional communication and exceptional verbal and social skills. Particularly important is the possession of emotional expressiveness and facility in verbal communication, consistent with the research on delivery style. However, charismatic individuals have also been found to be emotionally

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sensitive and to be sensitive to their social environments. This sensitivity clearly plays a part in developing the strong interpersonal relationships between charismatic leaders and followers that were discussed earlier. Finally, and particularly important for charismatic leaders, there is the ability to play important social roles, what is commonly referred to as ‘‘social competence’’ or ‘‘savoir-faire’’ (Riggio & Reichard, in press). Snyder (1987) has also noted the importance of social role-playing and leadership in his construct of self-monitoring. Leadership itself can be seen as a complex social role. Bass (2002) has argued that the personal qualities associated with charismatic leaders are likely a combination of verbal, emotional, and social intelligences— a point of view that is consistent with the notion that charismatic leaders possess well-developed emotional and social skills.

CONCLUSION Although charismatic leadership has not received much direct attention from social psychologists, our understanding of charisma and charismatic Social Psychological Constructs Involved in Charismatic Leadership and How Each Affects the Leadership Process Social Psychological Construct

Process and Results

Social Identity

Followers join positive groups, enhancing feelings of positive self-esteem

Fundamental Attribution Error

Followers attribute causal influence to the leader, increasing his/her charisma

Discounting

‘‘Idiosyncrasy credits’’ for the leader

Modeling

Leaders model desired behaviors, and demonstrate rewards for desired behaviors

Social Influence

Leaders become increasingly influential under uncertain or threatening conditions

Contrast Effect

Appeal of leaders is enhanced when they follow a particularly poor leader

Identity Formation

Followers become schematic for membership in the group; they behave consistently with their commitment to the group

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Leaders emphasize goals for followers and their abilities to attain them Emotional Contagion

Followers take on the emotions of leaders; leaders read and emulate the emotions of followers

Compliance

Liking of the leader; reciprocation of self-sacrifice; appeal of authority in conditions of uncertainty


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leadership processes can be increased through the application of social psychological theories and constructs. Leadership, and charismatic leadership in particular, is extremely complex. It occurs at multiple levels—the group, the dyad, and at the individual level. The general public has been fascinated with and mystified by charisma and charismatic leadership. Looking at charismatic leadership through the lens of social psychology allows us to see clearly that it is a product of the interplay of the social, interpersonal, cognitive, and emotional processes of human beings.

NOTES 1. Sadly, relatively few women are mentioned initially in lists of charismatic leaders, although this is likely due to relatively few women holding national and international leadership positions until recent years. 2. Negative emotions can also be part of the emotional contagion process as evidenced by Adolf Hitler ’s use of strong negative emotions—anger, outrage, frustration—to build follower commitment and fuel followers’ hatred for scapegoated groups such as Jews, gypsies, and gays.

REFERENCES Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bandura, A. (2000). Exercise of human agency through collective efficacy. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 75–78. Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press. Bass, B. M. (2002). Cognitive, social, and emotional intelligence of transformational leaders. In R. E. Riggio, S. E. Murphy, & F. J. Pirozzolo (Eds.), Multiple intelligences and leadership (pp. 105–118). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Bligh, M. C., Kohles, J. C., & Meindl, J. R. (2004). Charisma under crisis: Presidential leadership, rhetoric, and media responses before and after the September 11th terrorist attacks. Leadership Quarterly, 15, 211–239. Bligh, M. C., Kohles, J. C., & Pillai, R. (2005). Crisis and charisma in the California recall election. Leadership, 1, 323–352. Bono, J. E., & Ilies, R. (2006). Charisma, positive emotions and mood contagion. Leadership Quarterly, 17, 317–334. Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row. Cherulnik, P. D., Donley, K. A., Wiewel, T. R., & Miller, S. (2001). Charisma is contagious: The effect of leaders’ charisma on observers’ affect. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31, 2149–2159. Cialdini, R. B., & Trost, M. R. (1998). Social influence: Social norms, conformity, and compliance. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 3, pp. 151–192). New York: McGraw-Hill.

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House, R. J. (1977). A 1976 theory of charismatic leadership. In J. G. Hunt & L. L. Larson (Eds.), Leadership: The cutting edge (pp. 189–207). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. House, R. J., Spangler, W. D., & Woycke, J. (1991). Personality and charisma in the U.S. presidency: A psychological theory of leader effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 364–396. Howell, J. M., & Hall-Merenda, K. E. (1999). The ties that bind: The impact of leadermember exchange, transformational and transactional leadership, and distance on predicting follower performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 680–694. Jones, E. E., & Nisbett, R. E. (1972). The actor and the observer: Divergent perceptions of the causes of the behavior. In E. E. Jones, D. E. Kanouse, H. H. Kelley, R. E. Nisbett, S. Valins, and B. Weiner (Eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior (pp. 79–94). Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press. Layton, D. (1998). Seductive poison: A Jonestown survivor’s story of life and death in the Peoples Temple. New York: Anchor Books. Lofland, J. (1977). Doomsday cult: A study of conversion, proselytization, and maintenance of faith. New York: Halsted. Lord, C. G., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. (1979). Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 37, 2098–2109. Markus, H. R. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 35, 63–78. McNatt, D. B. (2000). Ancient Pygmalion joins contemporary management: A metaanalysis of the result. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 314–322. Meindl, J. R., Ehrlich, S. B., & Dukerich, J. M. (1985). The romance of leadership. Administrative Science Quarterly, 30, 78-102. Mio, J. S., Riggio, R. E., Levin, S., & Reese, R. (2005). Presidential leadership and charisma: The effects of metaphor. Leadership Quarterly, 16, 287–294. Riggio, R. E. (1987). The charisma quotient. New York: Dodd, Mead. Riggio, R. E. (1998). Charisma. In H. S. Friedman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of mental health (Vol. 1, pp. 387–396). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Riggio, R. E., & Reichard, R. J. (2008). The emotional and social intelligences of effective leadership: An emotional and social skill approach. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23(2), 169–185. Rosenthal, R. (1994). Interpersonal expectancy effects: A 30-year perspective. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 3, 176–179. Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectations and pupils’ intellectual development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 173–240). Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Safire, W. (2004, July 7). The body politic will reject a ‘charisma transplant.’ The New York Times. Shamir, B., House, R. J., & Arthur, M. B. (1993). The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory. Organization Science, 4, 577–594.

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Shamir, B., & Howell, J. M. (1999). Organizational and contextual influences on the emergence and effectiveness of charismatic leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 10, 257–283. Snyder, M. (1987). Public appearances, private realities: The psychology of self-monitoring. New York: W. H. Freeman. Sorenson, T. C. (1965). Kennedy. New York: Harper & Row. Tabor, J. D., & Gallagher, E. V. (1995). Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America. Berkeley: University of California Press. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & W. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7–24). Chicago: Nelson-Hall. van Knippenberg, D., & Hogg, M. A. (2003). A social identity model of leadership effectiveness in organizations. In R. M. Kramer & B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior, Vol. 25 (pp. 243–295). Oxford: Elsevier. Walumbwa, F. O., Wang, P., Lawler, J. J., & Shi, K. (2004). The role of collective efficacy in the relations between transformational leadership and work outcomes. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77, 515–530. Weber, M. (1947). The theory of social and economic organizations (A. M. Henderson & T. Parsons, Trans.). New York: Free Press.

3 Knocking on Heaven’s Door: The Social Psychological Dynamics of Charismatic Leadership SHELDON SOLOMON, FLORETTE COHEN, JEFF GREENBERG, AND TOM PYSZCZYNSKI

Charismatic leaders have a way of appearing in times of great distress. They usually espouse a decidedly radical vision that promises to resolve the crisis . . . a charismatic leader offering a solution, however radical, is particularly welcome in difficult times . . . in the turmoil and anxiety that keep company with crisis, anyone who confidently proposes a solution is likely to be looked upon as charismatic . . . followers’ response to charismatics [is] a devotion born of distress. (Lipman-Blumen, 1996, p. 30) In this chapter we present a social psychological account of charismatic leadership from an existential psychodynamic perspective based on terror management theory and empirical research in support of this conceptual analysis. We start with Max Weber ’s depiction of charismatic leadership as a fundamentally social psychological process consisting of a dynamic interpersonal relationship with a specific kind of leader serving the needs of particular followers in the context of unsettling historical moments. Specifically, a charismatic leader generally arises in times of uncertainty and distress, and proclaims supernatural powers or is imbued with them by her/his followers, who then take psychological solace basking in the reflected heroic glory of the divinely ordained leader ’s effort to identify and eliminate evil. And following Ernest

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Becker, we argue that fear of death is a central determinant of the motivational impetus of a substantial proportion of human behavior and the psychological impetus for the allure of charismatic leadership. In accord with these claims, we describe research demonstrating that reminders of death increase Americans’ support for charismatic leaders in general and for President George W. Bush and his policies in Iraq in particular. Finally, we briefly consider the implications of these ideas for democratic political institutions and future inquiry in leadership studies. The German sociologist Max Weber initiated contemporary scientific analysis of leadership by distinguishing between authority based on tradition (e.g., kings and family patriarchs), rationality (i.e., power legally acquired through existing bureaucratic structures), and charisma. Weber (1922/1947; see also 1925/1968) characterized charisma as ‘‘a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities,’’ and stipulated that charismatic leaders can range from saintly (e.g., Jesus, Mohandas Gandhi, Mother Teresa) to diabolical (e.g., Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson). Weber also posited that charismatic leaders often emerged in times of historical upheaval. In this chapter we present a social psychological account of charismatic leadership from an existential psychodynamic perspective based on terror management theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991).

TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY Terror management theory (TMT) is derived primarily from work by cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker (1962, 1971, 1973, 1975). Becker asserted that although we humans share with all other forms of life a basic biological predisposition toward continued existence in the service of survival and reproduction, we possess cognitive capabilities that enable us to engage in abstract, symbolic thought (Deacon, 1997), rendering us explicitly aware of our own existence and enabling us to ponder the past, imagine possible futures, and conceive of that which does not presently exist and then transform our imaginative conceptions into concrete reality. These remarkable cognitive capabilities, however, also produced problematic consequences, specifically, the awareness of the following: (1) the inevitability of death; (2) the fact that death can occur at any time for unpredictable and uncontrollable reasons; and (3) that humans are, from a biological perspective, transient creatures no more durable or noteworthy than porcupines or paramecia. These disquieting revelations subjected early

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

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humans to potentially debilitating terror that would undermine effective instrumental behavior (Solomon, Greenberg, Schimel, Arndt, & Pyszczynski, 2004a). Becker hypothesized that humans solved the problem of death through the creation and maintenance of cultural worldviews: beliefs about the nature of reality shared by individuals within a group that provide an explanation of the origin of the universe, prescriptions for obtaining a sense of personal significance (self-esteem), and assurances of invulnerability and immortality to those of value—either literally through various conceptions of afterlives common to almost all religions (Burkert, 1996), and/or symbolically by being part of something greater and longer lasting than oneself, such as children, fortunes, works of art or science, and identification with a culture that will persist after one’s own demise. In sum, the juxtaposition of an inclination toward self-preservation with the sophisticated intellectual abilities that make humans aware of death creates the potential for paralyzing terror. One of the most important functions of cultural worldviews is to manage the terror associated with this awareness of death. Effective ‘‘terror management’’ requires two components: (a) faith in a meaningful conception of reality; and (b) belief that one is meeting the standards of value prescribed by that worldview. Because of the protection from the potential for terror afforded by these psychological structures, people are motivated to maintain faith in their cultural worldviews and satisfy the standards of value associated with them. Faith in cultural worldviews, and their effectiveness as buffers against anxiety, is increased when others share one’s worldview and decreased when others hold worldviews different from one’s own. This is one reason why people often feel uncomfortable and even hostile toward those who are different. Additionally, because no symbolic cultural construction can actually overcome the physical reality of death, residual anxiety is unconsciously projected onto other group(s) of individuals as scapegoats: designated diabolical repositories of evil, the eradication of which would make earth as it is in heaven. This leads us to respond to people with different beliefs by berating them, trying to convert them to our system of beliefs, and/or just killing them to show that ‘‘my God is stronger than your God and we’ll kick your ass to prove it.’’ Empirical assessments of TMT. Over 300 experiments by independent researchers in at least 16 countries have produced findings in accord with hypotheses derived from TMT (for recent reviews, see Greenberg, Solomon, & Arndt, 2008; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2004b). This research has shown that: (a) increasing self-esteem reduces anxiety in response to threats (e.g., watching gory death images or anticipating electrical shocks); (b) subtle reminders of mortality lead to more positive reactions to those

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who support one’s worldview, more negative reactions to those who threaten it, and increased striving for self-esteem; (c) threats to self-esteem or one’s worldview increase the accessibility of death-related thoughts, and boosts to self-esteem or faith in one’s worldview reduce the accessibility of deathrelated thoughts; and (d) increasing the plausibility of life after death decreases the effect of reminders of death on self-esteem striving and worldview defense. Because much of our research on the role of terror management processes in the appeal of charismatic leaders has focused largely on the mortality salience hypothesis [described in (b) above], we provide a more thorough review of previous research that has taken this approach. The mortality salience hypothesis states that if cultural worldviews and the personal significance they afford serve a death-denying function, then asking someone to think about their own death (mortality salience [MS]) should increase the need for the protection normally provided by the cultural worldview and the self-worth derived from it, and, accordingly, evoke judgments and behaviors that uphold faith in that worldview and one’s self-worth within the context of that worldview. Participants in a typical study are told that we are investigating personality traits; consequently they will complete some standard personality assessments. Embedded in these personality inventories to obscure the true purpose of the study is what is described as a new projective measure consisting of two open-ended questions to render mortality momentarily salient: ‘‘Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouse in you’’; and ‘‘Jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you as you physically die.’’ Participants in control conditions complete parallel questions about other topics. Participants are then given an opportunity to evaluate others who either share or differ from their cultural worldviews or to assert their self-worth. For example, Greenberg et al. (1990, Study 1) had Christian participants rate Christian and Jewish targets (who were portrayed as quite similar except for religious background) after a mortality salience or control induction. In the control condition there were no differences in participants’ evaluations of the targets; however, a reminder of death in the experimental condition produced increased affection for the fellow Christian target and exaggerated hostility for the Jewish target. Greenberg et al. (1990, Study 3) then exposed American college students to essays supposedly written by an American author who either praised or condemned the American way of life, following a mortality salience or control induction. Participants rated the author of the pro-U.S. essay more favorably than the author of the anti-U.S. essay in the control condition; however, in response to MS this tendency was exaggerated in both directions; specifically, more positive and negative reactions to proand anti-U.S. authors, respectively.


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Ochsmann and Mathy (1994) demonstrated behavioral effects of MS: German university students sat closer to a German confederate and farther away from a Turkish confederate after MS relative to a control condition in which there was no difference in physical distance as a function of the ethnicity of the confederate; McGregor et al. (1998) showed that MS produced greater physical aggression against someone who did not share one’s political orientation; and Greenberg, Simon, Porteus, Pyszczynski, and Solomon (1995) demonstrated that participants were more uncomfortable sifting sand through an American flag or using a crucifix as a hammer following a MS induction. Mortality salience effects have been obtained using a wide variety of operationalizations of MS, e.g., subliminal reminders of death (Arndt, Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1997) or interviews in front of a funeral parlor (Pyszczynski et al., 1996). Additionally, studies have found MS effects to be quite different from reminders of other aversive events, such as uncertainty, failure, intense pain, social exclusion, and paralysis.

FATAL ATTRACTION: THE ALLURE OF CHARISMATIC LEADERS Allegiance to charismatic leaders may be one particularly effective mode of terror management. In Escape from Freedom, Eric Fromm (1941) proposed that loyalty to charismatic leaders results from a defensive need to feel a part of a larger whole, and surrendering one’s freedom to a larger-than-life leader can serve as a source of self-worth and meaning in life. Following Fromm, Becker (1971, 1973) posited that when mainstream worldviews are not serving people’s need for psychological security, concerns about mortality impel people to devote their psychological resources to following charismatic leaders who bolster their self-worth by making them feel like they are valued participants in a great heroic mission, such that ‘‘[group] . . . members do not feel that they are alone with their own smallness and helplessness, as they have the powers of the hero-leaders with whom they are identified’’ (Becker, 1973, p. 133). To test this hypothesis, Cohen, Solomon, Maxfield, Pyszczynski, and Greenberg (2004) had participants read campaign statements purportedly written by three gubernatorial candidates after a MS or control induction. The candidates varied in leadership style, following Yukl’s (1998) distinction between charismatic (visionary), task-oriented (instrumentally effective), and relationship-oriented (emphasizing the need for leaders and followers to work together and accept mutual responsibility) leadership styles. For example, the charismatic leader stated: ‘‘You are not just an ordinary citizen, you are part of a special state and a special nation . . . .’’ The task-oriented leader stated: ‘‘I can accomplish all the goals that I set out to do. I am very

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careful in laying out a detailed blueprint of what needs to be done so that there is no ambiguity.’’ The relationship-oriented leader stated: ‘‘I encourage all citizens to take an active role in improving their state. I know that each individual can make a difference . . . .’’ Participants then selected the candidate they would vote for. The results were striking. In the control condition, only 4 of 95 participants voted for the charismatic candidate, with the rest of the votes split evenly between the task and relationship oriented leaders. However, following MS, there was almost an 800 percent increase in votes for the charismatic leader (31); votes for the task-oriented leader were unaffected, but the relationship-oriented leader’s votes significantly declined (perhaps because MS participants were disinclined to support a leader who asked them to share responsibility for the affairs of state, rather than assuring them that they are special by virtue of merely belonging to it). These findings led us to wonder if President George W. Bush’s tremendous popularity following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center was partially a consequence of the dramatic and ongoing reminder of death and vulnerability provided by that fateful event. Prior to 9/11, Bush’s presidency was viewed as ineffectual and uninspired, even to many of his Republican supporters. Indeed, in a front-page story in the Sunday New York Times published on September 9, 2001, Berke and Sanger wrote: As White House officials move to refocus President Bush’s energies on the precarious economy, they are working to present him as a more commanding leader in what may be the most treacherous stretch of his first year in the White House. The economic and political challenges facing Mr. Bush were underscored earlier this week when his senior adviser, Karl Rove, joined more than a dozen prominent Republicans for a private dinner and heard an unvarnished critique of Mr. Bush’s style and strategy. . .. As Mr. Bush faces narrowing economic options at home and rising challenges abroad, some of his advisers said they feared he still did not project the image of a commanding leader. These advisers cite polls showing that many people still view Mr. Bush not as decisive but as tentative and perhaps overly scripted.

However, within a few weeks of declaring that the nation was at war and warning other nations to join the ‘‘crusade’’ to ‘‘rid the world of the evildoers’’ or face, in Vice President Dick Cheney’s words, the ‘‘full wrath of the United States’’ (Purdum, 2001), President Bush’s approval ratings reached historically unprecedented heights. Summarizing the aggregated findings of over 300 national surveys taken in September and October 2001, Jacobson (2003, pp. 5–6) observed: Americans of all political stripes rallied around the president. Bush’s approval ratings shot up from the 50s to the highest levels ever recorded, topping


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90 percent in some September and October polls. The largest change by far occurred among Democratic identifiers, whose ratings of Bush jumped by more than 50 percentage points, from an average of 30 percent in the period before September 11 to an average of 81 percent in the month following the attacks. Support also rose among Republicans (to 98 percent in polls taken through October) but it was already so high (89 percent) that the Republican contribution to the overall rise could be only modest.

This remarkable transformation of the President from an awkward lame duck in-the-making to a courageous, self-assured, decisive chief executive was described in the cover story in Time Magazine on October 22, 2001 (Carney and Dickerson)—A Work In Progress: Bush is growing—and graying— before our eyes. An inside report on the making of a leader: The President is growing before our eyes . . . . The changing President is the perfect mirror of a changing country. He’s trying to become the leader that America needs right now, just as America is trying to become the nation it needs to be. Though his hair seems grayer since Sept. 11, his face a touch more careworn, Bush has told a number of friends and advisers that he has never known such clarity of purpose, such certainty that he is the right person for the moment. He is buoyed by his faith that God has chosen him to lead the country during this perilous time.

This fits nicely with Weber’s account of the dynamics of charismatic leadership: Bush became a charismatic leader by declaring that God had chosen him to rid the world of evil at a historical moment, when due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, most Americans were experiencing great psychological duress. To determine if President Bush’s popularity and support for his policies in Iraq was influenced by defensive reactions to subtle reminders of death, Landau et al. (2004; Study 1) asked participants to read the following ‘‘Opinion Survey’’ after a MS or aversive control induction: It is essential that our citizens band together and support the President of the United States in his efforts to secure our great Nation against the dangers of terrorism. Personally I endorse the actions of President Bush and the members of his administration who have taken bold action in Iraq. I appreciate our President’s wisdom regarding the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power and his Homeland Security Policy is a source of great comfort to me. It annoys me when I hear other people complain that President Bush is using his war against terrorism as a cover for instituting policies that, in the long run, will be detrimental to this country. We need to stand behind our President and not be distracted by citizens who are less than patriotic. Ever since the attack on our country on September 11, 2001, Mr. Bush has been a source of strength and inspiration to us all. God bless him and God bless America.

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While President Bush and his policies in Iraq were not highly regarded by participants in the control condition, there was a dramatic increase in support for the President and his Iraq policies following a MS induction. In Study 2, participants were exposed to subliminal terrorism primes (the numbers 911 or the letters WTC) or subliminal control primes (numbers and letters of equivalent familiarity), followed by a word stem completion task to assess the accessibility of implicit death-related thoughts; e.g., C O F F _ _ and S K _ _ _ could be completed as coffin and skull rather than coffee and skill. Results indicated greater numbers of death-related words for participants in the subliminal terrorism prime conditions; for Americans then, even nonconscious intimations of the events of 9/11 aroused concerns about mortality. Accordingly, in Study 3 we asked participants to think about death (MS), the events of 9/11 (terrorism prime), or an aversive control topic (an upcoming exam) before reading the same ‘‘Opinion Survey’’ employed in Study 1, and found that both mortality and 9/11 salience produced substantial increases in support for President Bush and his policies in Iraq (results graphically depicted in Figure 3-1). Then in Study 4, whereas participants rated John Kerry more favorably than George Bush in a control condition, Bush was more favorably evaluated than Kerry after a reminder of death. These findings were then replicated and extended by Cohen, Ogilvie, Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski (2005) in a sample of registered voters who intended to vote in a study conducted six weeks before the 2004 presidential election. Whereas control participants

Figure 3-1 Support for President Bush as a function of priming condition


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reported they would be voting for Senator Kerry by a 4:1 margin, President Bush was favored by a 2.5:1 margin after a MS induction. From a TMT perspective, these findings reflect the psychological security afforded by Bush’s self-confident public image, his message of being divinely ordained on the right side in the battle of good versus evil, his high status as President, the psychological insecurity associated with the popularized image of Kerry as an indecisive waffler, or a combination of these factors. Regardless of the specific reasons, Cohen et al. (2005) argued that the 2004 presidential election was decisively influenced by nonconscious defensive reactions to relentless reminders of death and the events of September 11, 2001, by Republican political strategists aided by the release of a video by Osama bin Laden the weekend before the election; from a purely political perspective, death has been very good to President Bush. Indeed, Senator Kerry came to the same conclusion when reflecting on the election on January 30, 2005, observing that: ‘‘the attacks of Sept. 11 were the ‘central deciding thing’ in his contest with President Bush and that the release of an Osama bin Laden videotape the weekend before Election Day had effectively erased any hope he had of victory’’ (Nagourney, 2005). Some (e.g., Jost, 2006) have interpreted the Bush finding as indicating that MS leads people toward political conservatism. However, existing evidence does not support this conclusion. First, in all of the MS-Bush studies, a single item measure of political orientation was included after the MS manipulation and the evaluation of Bush. MS did not shift participants toward conservatism on this self-report measure in any of these studies. This suggests that the Bush effect did not reflect a general shift toward political conservatism, but rather an increased preference for either the current leader of the nation or for a more charismatic candidate. Indeed, Pyszczynski et al. (2006) found that although MS led conservative Americans to advocate more extreme military measures against potentially threatening nations, it had no such effect on moderate or liberal Americans. To more directly determine if MS affects political orientation or the appeal of charismatic candidates, Kosloff, Greenberg, Weise, and Solomon (2008) examined the effects of MS on American liberals’ and conservatives’ evaluations of two gubernatorial candidates. In one condition, candidate A was a charismatic conservative and candidate B was a conflicted liberal. In the other condition, candidate A was a charismatic liberal and candidate B was a conflicted conservative. Following Cohen et al. (2004), the charismatic candidates exuded self-confidence and emphasized the specialness and greatness of the nation. The conflicted candidates expressed concerns and uncertainty about the future and guarded optimism about what s/he could accomplish. The liberal candidates emphasized protecting the environment, freedom of speech, privacy, and civil rights for all. The conservative candidates

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Figure 3-2 Liberal participants’ evaluations of confident liberal, confident conservative, waffling liberal, and waffling conservative candidates, as a function of mortality salience

emphasized secure streets and borders, family values, religious freedom, and the right to bear arms. The results for liberal participants, depicted in Figure 3-2, showed that MS significantly increased the appeal of the charismatic liberal and significantly reduced liking for the conflicted liberal or either conservative candidate. The data for the conservative participants, depicted in Figure 3-3, showed a parallel pattern. MS significantly increased liking for the charismatic conservative and tended to reduce liking for the conflicted conservative

Figure 3-3 Conservative participants’ evaluations of confident liberal, confident conservative, waffling liberal, and waffling conservative candidates, as a function of mortality salience


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and the charismatic liberal, although the latter two simple effects were not significant. MS therefore appears to increase the appeal of charismatic leaders who promote one’s preferred political ideology. There was no hint of an MSinduced shift toward the conservative candidate. In fact, consistent with the idea that reminders of death lead to rejection of those who espouse different worldviews, MS made liberals more negative toward the conservative candidates (and tended to make conservatives a bit more negative toward liberal candidates). TMT research thus indicates that reminders of mortality often lead to increased support for charismatic leaders and their efforts to elevate the ingroup above all others by vanquishing the evil they attribute to particular outgroups. But the picture is complicated. Sometimes these effects are moderated by political orientation (e.g., Kosloff et al., 2008; Pyszczynski et al., 2006), but sometimes they are not (e.g., Cohen et al., 2005; Landau et al., 2004). This has led us to investigate other variables that might determine which aspects of one’s worldview a person gravitates toward when the need for existential protection is increased by reminders of death. Weise et al. (2008) recently integrated insights from attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969) and Lakoff’s (2002) analysis of moral politics to show that both chronic and acute accessibility of attachment representations can play an important role in this process. Based on Lakoff’s (2002) reasoning, we posited that a liberal worldview reflects values congruent with secure attachment, and that values of a conservative worldview reflects less secure attachment patterns. In accord with this notion, Study 1 showed that following MS, securely attached participants increased both self-reported liberalism and support for a Democratic presidential candidate, and less securely attached participants tended to increase self-reported conservatism and support for a Republican presidential candidate. Other recent studies have shown that when the value of compassion is primed, reminders of death lead fundamentalist Americans to reduce their support for violent tactics in the war on terror and fundamentalist Iranians to less negative attitudes toward the United States in particular and the Western world in general (Rothschild, Abdollahi, & Pyszczynski, 2007). Similarly, Motyl et al. (2007) have shown that the effects of MS on implicit antiArab prejudice and anti-immigration attitudes can be reversed or eliminated when a sense of common humanity is activated by means of thoughts of families and childhood. These findings show that although reminders of death often push people to support charismatic leaders and their outgroupderogating policies, this effect is not inevitable and can even be reversed when elements of one’s worldview that counter such tendencies, such as

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secure attachment, compassionate religious values, or a sense of common humanity, are activated.

CONCLUSION All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership. (Galbraith, 1977, p. 330) We concur with Max Weber’s depiction of charismatic leadership as a fundamentally social psychological process involving a dynamic interpersonal relationship with a specific kind of leader serving the needs of particular followers in the context of unsettling historical moments. To Weber’s cogent analysis of charismatic leadership we added Ernest Becker’s insights about denial of death as the underlying motivational impetus for the allure of charismatic leaders; in other words, while Weber describes charismatic leadership, Becker explains it. And terror management theory affords the methodology to provide empirical corroboration of this explanatory account via the mortality salience paradigm. Specifically, our research demonstrated that reminders of death increase support for charismatic leaders in general and President George W. Bush and his policies in Iraq in particular. Subsequent research demonstrated that reminders of death increase devotion to charismatic leaders who share one’s political orientation, and that following a mortality salience induction, securely attached individuals became more liberal and more supportive of a Democratic candidate, while less securely attached individuals became more conservative and more supportive of a Republican candidate. As we have argued elsewhere (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2004c), these findings should be interpreted with caution. We do not mean to argue that all support for charismatic leaders in general, or President Bush and his policies in Iraq in particular, is necessarily the result of mortality salience induced defensive reactions. Many conservatives and Republicans insist that their support for President Bush is based on reasoned agreement with Bush’s policies, and this may certainly be the case. However, social psychologists (not to mention Freud and anyone working in the psychoanalytic tradition) are very much aware that people are very poor accountants of their own higher order mental processes (e.g., Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). So given that people really do not and cannot know why they do what they do when they do it, claims to the effect that support for President Bush or any charismatic leader have a rational basis must be viewed with skepticism. And this is equally true for liberals making comparable claims about the ‘‘rational’’ basis


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of support for their leaders as well as their reflexive disdain for Bush, which may also be partially attributable to defensive reactions to mortality salience. Also important to note is that, following Weber, our analysis of the psychological appeal of charismatic leaders makes no explicit inference about the quality of such leadership. Recall that Weber viewed charismatic leaders on a continuum from heavenly saints to satanic monsters, with benign and/or banal charismatics somewhere in between. Sometimes a fairly unambiguous determination can be made; most people, for example, view Jesus and Gandhi as timely and profoundly positively influential leaders; and Attila the Hun, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Cruel, and Adolf Hitler as good exemplars of evil incarnate. But other leaders are more difficult to characterize and are often viewed in diametrically different ways by their supporters and their detractors. President George W. Bush is such a leader: to his staunch supporters, he is a heroic stalwart in an unwavering heroic quest to rid the world of evil; while to his detractors, Bush is more akin to an inarticulate Hitler in his demagogic ideology, totalitarian predilections, and imperialist genocidal intentions. Obviously, both views of the president are overstated, but the general question of how to distinguish between benevolent and malevolent charismatic leadership is worthy of serious theoretical consideration and empirical research, especially in light of Galbraith’s claim above that all great leaders confront the most urgent anxieties of their followers at particular historical moments. Jean Lipman-Blumen, in The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why We Follow Destructive Bosses and Corrupt Politicians—and How We Can Survive Them (2005), provides a descriptive account of the behavioral and dispositional tendencies of ‘‘toxic’’ leaders. Behaviorally, such leaders are commonly guilty of the following: violating basic standards of human rights; consciously feeding followers illusions to augment their powers and undermine follower’s capacity to act independently; appealing to basest fears of followers; muffling constructive criticism; misleading followers with deliberate falsehoods and misdiagnosis of issues and problems; engaging in unethical, illegal, and criminal acts; building totalitarian or dynastic regimes; targeting scapegoats; ignoring or promoting incompetence, cronyism, and corruption. Personally, such leaders are typically lacking in integrity (specifically, they tend to be cynical, corrupt, hypocritical, or untrustworthy), insatiably ambitious, egotistical in ways that blind him/her to his/her shortcomings, arrogantly unable to recognize mistakes, avaricious, recklessly disregarding of costs of their actions, and unable to understand the nature of relevant problems and to act efficiently and effectively in difficult situations. Regardless of the level of President Bush’s ‘‘toxicity’’ as a leader according to these criteria, future research should be directed to examining the effects of reminders of death on the appeal of charismatic and other types of leaders

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across the ‘‘saint’’ to ‘‘sinner’’ spectrum, granting that there will always be spirited disagreement about where a particular leader might fall along this continuum. Other individual difference variables in addition to attachment style that might moderate the relationship between mortality salience and the appeal of charismatic leadership should also be investigated. Crosscultural inquiry is also surely warranted and essential. Meanwhile, the fact that subtle brief manipulations of psychological conditions—asking people to think about their own death or the events of 9/11— produced such striking differences in political preferences for charismatic leaders in general and President Bush in particular suggests that close elections could be decided as a result of nonrational terror management concerns. This has portentous implications for democratic political institutions. We fervently hope that Americans across the political spectrum could agree that winning elections as a result of nonconscious defensive psychological processes is antithetical to the democratic ideal that voting behavior should be a consequence of rational choice based on an informed understanding of the relevant issues. The best protection against such outcomes may be to monitor and take pains to resist any efforts by candidates to capitalize on fear-mongering. As David Myers so eloquently put it in a 2004 op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times: ‘‘It is perfectly normal to fear purposeful violence from those who hate us. When terrorists strike again, we will all recoil in horror. But smart thinkers also will want to check their intuitive fears against the facts and to resist those who serve their own purposes by cultivating a culture of fear.’’ Additionally as a culture, we should teach our children and encourage our citizens to vote with their ‘‘heads’’ rather than their ‘‘hearts,’’ as we know from prior research that mortality salience effects are eliminated when people are asked to think rationally (Simon et al., 1997). And it may also be helpful to raise awareness of how concerns about death affect human behavior in general in order to inoculate individuals to minimize defensive reactions to mortality salience. Hopefully, such measures will encourage citizens to make electoral choices based on the qualifications and political positions of the candidates rather than on the urge to preserve psychological equanimity in response to intimations of mortality.

REFERENCES Arndt, J., Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1997). Subliminal presentation of death reminders leads to increased defense of the cultural worldview. Psychological Science, 8, 379–385. Becker, E. (1962). The birth and death of meaning. New York: Free Press. Becker, E. (1971). The birth and death of meaning: An interdisciplinary perspective on the problem of man (2nd ed.). New York: Free Press.


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Becker, E. (1973). The denial of death. New York: Free Press. Becker, E. (1975). Escape from evil. New York: Free Press. Berke, R., & Sanger, D. (2001, September 9). Bush’s aides seek to focus efforts on the economy. The New York Times, p. 1A. Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment, Attachment and Loss (Vol. 1). New York: Basic Books. Burkert, W. (1996). Creation of the sacred: Tracks of biology in early religions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carney, J., & Dickerson, J. F. (2001, October 22). A work in progress. Time Magazine. Cohen, F., Ogilvie, D. M., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2005). American roulette: The effect of reminders of death on support for George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 5, 177–187. Cohen, F., Solomon, S., Maxfield, M., Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (2004). Fatal attraction: The effects of mortality salience on preferences for charismatic, taskfocused, and relational leaders. Psychological Science, 15, 846–851. Deacon, T. (1997). The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain. New York: Norton. Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from freedom. New York: Henry Holt. Galbraith, J. K. (1977). The age of uncertainty. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Public self and private self (pp. 189–212). New York: Springer-Verlag. Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon S., Rosenblatt, A., Veeder, M., Kirkland, S., & Lyon, D. (1990). Evidence for terror management theory II: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 308–318. Greenberg, J., Simon, L., Porteus, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1995). Evidence of a terror management function of cultural icons: The effects of mortality salience on the inappropriate use of cherished cultural symbols. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1221–1228. Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Arndt, J. (2008). A basic but uniquely human motivation: Terror management. In J. Y. Shah & W. L. Gardner (Eds.), Handbook of Motivation Science (pp. 114–134). New York: The Guilford Press. Jacobson, G. C. (2003). The Bush presidency and the American electorate. Paper prepared for delivery at the conference on ‘‘The George W. Bush Presidency: An Early Assessment’’ at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, April 25–26, 2003. Retrieved June 18, 2007, from http://www.wws.princeton.edu/bushconf/ JacobsonPaper.pdf Jost, J. T. (2006). The end of ideology. American Psychologist, 61, 651–670. Kosloff, S., Greenberg, J., Weise, D., & Solomon, S. (2008). The effects of mortality salience on political preferences: The roles of charisma and political orientation. Manuscript submitted for publication, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. Lakoff, G. (2002). Moral politics: How liberals and conservatives think (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Landau, M. J., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., Cohen, F., Pyszczynski, T., Arndt, J., Miller, C. H., Ogilvie, D. M., & Cook, A. (2004). Deliver us from evil: The effects of mortality

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salience and reminders of 9/11 on support for president George W. Bush. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1136–1150. Lipman-Blumen, J. (1996). The connective edge: Leading in an interdependent world. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lipman-Blumen, J. (2005). The allure of toxic leaders: Why we follow destructive bosses and corrupt politicians—and how we can survive them. New York: Oxford University Press. McGregor, H. A., Lieberman, J. D., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Simon, L., Arndt, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (1998). Terror management and aggression: Evidence that mortality salience motivates aggression against worldview-threatening others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 590–605. Motyl, M., Pyszczynski, T., Cox, C. Seidel, A., Maxfield, M., Solomon, S., & Greenberg, J. (2007). One big family: The effects of mortality salience and a sense of common humanity on anti-Arab prejudice and attitudes toward immigration. Manuscript submitted for publication, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO. Myers, D. (2004, March 9). Do we fear the right thing? The Los Angeles Times. Nagourney, A. (2005, January 31). Kerry says Bin Laden tape gave Bush a lift. New York Times, p. A21. Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84, 231–259. Ochsmann, R., & Mathy, M. (1994). Depreciating of and distancing from foreigners: Effects of mortality salience. Unpublished manuscript, Universitat Mainz, Mainz, Germany. Purdum, T. S. (2001, September 17). After the attacks: The White House. New York Times, p. A2. Pyszczynski, T., Abdollahi, A., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., Cohen, F., & Weise, D. (2006). Mortality salience, martyrdom, and military might: The Great Satan vs. the Axis of Evil. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 525–537. Pyszczynski, T., Wicklund, R., Floresku, S., Gauch, G., Koch, H., Solomon, S., & Greenberg, J. (1996). Whistling in the dark: Exaggerated consensus estimates in response to incidental reminders of mortality. Psychological Science, 7, 332–336. Rothschild, Z., Abdollahi, A., & Pyszczynski, T. (2007). Does peace have a prayer? Effects of mortality salience, religious fundamentalism, and compassionate values on hostility toward the outgroup in the United States and Iran. Manuscript submitted for publication, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Simon, L., Greenberg, J., Harmon-Jones, E., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., Arndt, J., & Abend, T. (1997). Terror management and cognitive-experiential self-theory: Evidence that terror management occurs in the experiential system. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1132–1146. Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (1991). A terror management theory of social behavior: The psychological functions of self-esteem and cultural worldviews. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 24, pp. 91–159). Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., Schimel, J., Arndt, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2004a). Human awareness of death and the evolution of culture. In M. Schaller and C. Crandal (Eds.),


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The psychological foundations of culture (pp. 15–40). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2004b). The cultural animal: Twenty years of terror management theory and research. In J. Greenberg, S. Koole, & T. Pyszczynski (Eds.), Handbook of existential experimental social psychology (pp. 13–34). New York: The Guilford Press. Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2004c). Fatal Attraction: A new study suggests a relationship between fear of death and political preferences. American Psychological Society Observer, 17, 13–15. Weber, M. (1947). Max Weber: The theory of social and economic organization (A. M. Henderson & T. Parsons, Trans.). New York: The Free Press. (Original work published 1922.) Weber, M. (1968). The types of legitimate domination. In G. Roth & C. Wittich (Eds.), Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (pp. 212–301). New York: Bedminster Press. (Original work published in 1925.) Weise, D. R., Pyszczynski, T., Cox, C. R., Arndt, J., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Kosloff, S. (2008). Interpersonal politics: The role of terror management and attachment processes in shaping political preferences. Psychological Science, 19, 448–455. Yukl, G. (1998). Leadership in organizations (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

4 Social Identity Theory of Leadership MICHAEL A. HOGG

Scientific leadership research increasingly focuses on organizational and corporate leadership and the role of the chief executive officer (CEO). It pays less attention to public leadership, the role of followers, and the way that leaders forge and express people’s identity. Contextualized by a recent resurgence of interest among social psychologists in leadership, this chapter describes the social identity theory of leadership—a theory that pivots on the critical importance of self-definition as a group member (social identity) in processes within and between groups. The more important a group is to one’s sense of self in a particular context, the more that leadership effectiveness rests on followers’ perceptions that the leader embodies the group’s defining or prototypical attributes. Under these conditions prototypical leaders are consensually liked, are able to gain compliance, are the source, not the target, of influence, are trusted to be acting in the group’s best interest, are attributed with charismatic characteristics, are able to be innovative, and are well positioned to manage their prototypicality and the group’s identity. The chapter describes some empirical support for these ideas and closes with a focus on intergroup leadership as a particularly challenging aspect of identity-related leadership. The social identity theory of leadership is championed as contributing to a new agenda for leadership research. Why do we follow leaders, what do they do for us, why do we seem so often to need them, and why is it that groups rarely last long or function effectively without some type of leadership structure? Leaders do many things for us—

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for example, they can coordinate the actions of many to achieve a shared goal. However, it is not coordination that is key—coordination is more management than leadership. It is the shared goal aspect that goes to the heart of leadership. Leaders are able to reflect, clarify, and redefine our own goals, or set entirely new goals that we come to cherish as our own. They are able to transform individual goals into shared or collective goals that transcend individuality, and they are able to motivate us to work selflessly toward the achievement of these goals. Mohandas Gandhi’s role in leading India to independence from Britain in 1947 is an excellent example. He was able to focus and unite a wide array of interests within India around the shared goal of independence, and motivate enormous numbers of people to engage in dangerous nonviolent protests against the British colonial administration and its formidable military apparatus. Because leadership has such an influence on people’s goals and behaviors, and on the structure and functioning of society, it is not only an enduring focus of self-help and ‘‘airport’’ books but also of scientific inquiry—for example, Goethals, Sorenson, and Burns’s (2004) four-volume Encyclopedia of Leadership has 1,927 pages, 1.2 million words, and 373 substantive (1,000– 6,000 word) entries written by 311 scholars. One notable feature of scientific leadership research is that although leadership is a fundamentally social psychological process where an individual has disproportionate influence over a group, the overwhelming majority of leadership research is not conducted by social psychologists, but by organizational and management scientists who focus primarily on business leadership in corporate and organizational contexts (e.g., Yukl, 2006). Such a focus on leadership through the lens of organizational and management concerns necessarily and understandably prioritizes certain agendas over others—for example, there is a heavy emphasis on the behavior of CEOs and on factors such as organizational commitment and turnover. One important aspect of leadership that this approach to and perspective on leadership underemphasizes is its identity dimension. In a great many contexts, particularly public leadership contexts (e.g., national, political, ethnic, or ideological leadership), leaders play a pivotal role in defining our identity: what kind of people we are, what attitudes we should hold, how we should behave, what customs we should adopt, how we should interact with and treat others, and so forth (cf. Gardner, 1995). Because people look to their leaders to define who they are, followers, or rank-and-file group members, play a key role in the identity dynamic of leadership—they pay close attention to and provide parameters for the identity being constructed and promulgated by the leader. In recent years there has been a revival of interest among social psychologists in leadership (e.g., Chemers, 1997; Hogg, 2007, Hogg, in press a; Lord

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& Brown, 2004; Messick & Kramer, 2005; also see Northouse, 2007), which is helping reconfigure the agenda for research. Because this resurgence has been noticeably influenced by the social identity theory of leadership (Hogg, 2001; Hogg & van Knippenberg, 2003), which is an analysis of the identity function of leadership, it has naturally focused attention on the identity dimension of leadership. The social identity theory of leadership also attributes a significant role in effective leadership to the perceptions and behaviors of group members as followers—a focus on followers that resonates in some ways with recent literature on ‘‘followership’’ (e.g., Riggio, Chaleff, & Lipman-Blumen, 2008; Shamir, Pillai, Bligh, & Uhl-Bien, 2006). Another key feature of leadership that is often overlooked is that more often than not leaders need to forge a single group identity out of disparate individual identities or, more usually, disjunctive group identities that describe groups that may have a history of conflict or antipathy—much leadership can be characterized as intergroup leadership (e.g., Pittinsky, in press). In this chapter, I briefly overview social identity theory to lay the groundwork for a full description of the social identity theory of leadership that follows. I also describe what sort of empirical support there is for the various components of the social identity theory of leadership and comment on gaps in the empirical literature. The chapter closes with summary comments, an assessment of social identity theory’s contribution to our understanding of leadership, and a pointer for future research on the important question of intergroup leadership: how do leaders provide unifying leadership to diverse subgroups that often have conflicting identities and agendas, and sometimes a history of hatred and suspicion?

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY Social identity theory is a social psychological theory. It specifies how cognitive, motivational, and social interactive processes interact with knowledge we have about the nature of and relations among social groups and categories in society to construct a self-concept grounded in the groups we belong to, and generate behaviors characteristically associated with people in groups. Originally developed in the early 1970s, social identity theory is now one of social psychology’s most significant theories of group processes, intergroup relations, and collective self (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987; for contemporary overview see Hogg, 2006). One of its key insights, which distinguishes it from other social psychological accounts of group processes and intergroup relations, is its emphasis on the role of social identity.


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Social identity refers to a representation and evaluation of oneself in terms of shared attributes that define the group one belongs to, one’s ingroup. For example, one’s social identity as a member of the Democratic Party in the United States might include some combination of value placed on universal health care, support for immediate action to prevent climate change, support for women’s reproductive rights, and adherence to a more general ideology of social justice. These attributes would to a lesser or greater extent be valued and shared with other Democrats and distinguish one from Republicans. For treatments of social identity theory in the context of organizational science see Ashforth and Mael (1989) and Hogg and Terry (2000), and in the context of sociological social psychology see Hogg, Terry, and White (1995). In order to deal with the incredible diversity of humanity, the mind represents the social world in terms of categories of people (e.g., Italians, men, Hindus, attorneys). The technical social identity term for these representations is prototype—a prototype is a loose or ‘‘fuzzy’’ set of attributes (e.g., attitudes, behaviors, dress, customs) that we believe go together to characterize a group and distinguish it from relevant other groups. Typically, people in one group agree on their prototype of their own group (ingroup) and of relevant other groups (outgroups). They also exaggerate differences between their own group and relevant outgroups and exaggerate how similar members of a specific outgroup are to one another. In situations where, for example, we are involved in a group activity or intergroup encounter, we meet a stranger who we know little about, we feel proud of our own group, or we despise a particular outgroup, group memberships are psychologically salient, and we use people’s category membership to configure our perceptions, program our behavior, anticipate their behavior, and structure our interaction. Under these circumstances we relatively automatically categorize people as group members and assign them the attributes of our prototype of their group—we stereotype them and treat them as embodiments of their group rather than as unique individuals (a process that social identity theorists call depersonalization). For example, on the basis of accent we might categorize someone as Italian and immediately assume and expect them to conform to our stereotype of Italians—that they, like all Italians, are emotionally expressive, use hand gestures, dress with style, and are passionate about soccer. A fundamental tenet of social identity theory is that the process of depersonalization can apply to oneself—we contextually categorize ourselves in precisely the same way as we categorize others, and thus we assign to ourselves the prototypical attributes of our own group. The consequence of this is clear; self-categorization transforms our perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors to conform to the prescriptions of the prototype we have of our group.

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Because prototypes define groups, in group contexts people thirst for prototype-relevant information. Because the ingroup prototype defines and evaluates one’s own group, and thus via self-categorization one’s own self and identity, people are particularly vigilant for information about the ingroup prototype. There are many sources of this information, among which the most immediate and reliable is the behavior of fellow ingroup members who one has already learned are highly prototypical of the group. People rely heavily on the behavior of such people to learn what to think, how to behave, and how to view themselves as group members. To foreshadow the argument below, in many group contexts the group leader is viewed by his or her followers to be just such a highly prototypical member. Social identity theory helps us understand a wide range of group and intergroup phenomena, including prejudice, discrimination, intergroup conflict, stereotyping, conformity, group cohesion, group decision making, and normative deviance; for recent empirical reviews see Abrams, Hogg, Hinkle and Otten (2005), Hogg and Abrams (2007), and Hogg, Abrams, Otten, and Hinkle (2004).

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY OF LEADERSHIP Social identity theory has direct implications for the psychology of leadership, which have recently been formalized as the social identity theory of leadership (Hogg, 2001; Hogg & van Knippenberg, 2003; also see van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003). The key idea is that as group membership becomes increasingly salient and important to members of the group and as members identify more strongly with the group, effective leadership rests increasingly on the leader being considered by followers to possess prototypical properties of the group. In this analysis, group members as followers play a significant role in configuring the characteristics of the group’s leadership or even creating the leadership itself—members are more likely to follow leaders whom they consider most able to construct a group identity that is acceptable to them (Hogg, 2008). As people identify more strongly with a group, they pay more attention to the group prototype and to what and who is more prototypical (research shows that under these circumstances members have good knowledge about the relative prototypicality of group members—e.g., Haslam, Oakes, McGarty, Turner, & Onorato, 1995). As explained above, this is because the prototype defines the group’s membership attributes and thus members’ own self-concept and identity. In these contexts where group membership is psychologically salient, being perceived to be a highly prototypical leader makes one more influential. There are a number of basic social identity and social psychological reasons for this.


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Appearance of Influence First, depersonalization means that people conform to the group prototype—there is good evidence that self-categorization produces conformity, because members of a group typically share the same ingroup prototype and each member assigns this same prototype to oneself via selfcategorization (e.g., Abrams, Wetherell, Cochrane, Hogg, & Turner, 1990). Thus, members appear to be influenced by the prototype and, therefore, by those members who are actually more group prototypical. Prototypical members are perceived to have disproportionate influence over the rest of the members of the group. Prototypical leaders appear to be more effective sources of influence.

Prototype-Based Popularity Second, prototypical group members are liked, as group members, more than less prototypical members, and, because there is usually significant agreement on the prototype, the group as a whole likes prototypical members—they are consensually popular in group terms. Research shows that identification and group salience produce relatively consensual liking for more prototypical group members over less prototypical members (e.g., Hogg, 1993). Such popularity facilitates influence—research shows we are significantly more likely to comply with requests from people we like (Berscheid & Reis, 1998). Thus, prototypical leaders are popular in the eyes of their followers and are readily able to gain compliance with their ideas—they can exercise effective leadership. Furthermore, this popularity instantiates an evaluative status difference between the consensually popular leader and his or her followers. Where there is a leadership clique rather than a solo leader, as is often the case, this status differential may become a genuine intergroup status differential within the group, in which case the seeds of destructive leader-follower conflict may be sown.

Legitimacy, Trust, and Innovation Third, prototypical members find the group more central and important to self-definition, and, therefore, identify more strongly with it. They have a greater investment in the group and, thus, are more likely to behave in group-serving ways. They embody group norms more precisely, and they are more likely to favor the ingroup over outgroups, to treat ingroup members fairly, and to act in ways that promote the ingroup. Research confirms that enhanced identification is associated with greater conformity to norms and stronger ingroup favoritism (e.g., see Hogg & Abrams, 2007) and with

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fairer treatment of fellow ingroup members and more pronounced promotion of the group’s goals and welfare (e.g., see Tyler, 1997). These behaviors confirm members’ prototypicality and membership credentials, and encourage other members of the group to trust them to be acting in the best interest of the group even when it may not appear that they are—they are furnished with legitimacy (Tyler, 1997; Tyler & Lind, 1992; see Platow, Reid, & Andrew, 1998; Platow & van Knippenberg, 2001). Thus, followers invest their trust in prototypical leaders, which paradoxically allows such leaders to diverge from group norms and be less conformist and more innovative and transformational than non- or less prototypical leaders (cf. Hollander, 1958). Innovation and transformation are, of course, key components of effective leadership (e.g., Avolio & Yammarino, 2003).

Social Construction of Charisma Finally, because the prototype is so central to group life, information related to the prototype subjectively stands out against the background of other information in the group. Prototypical leaders are probably the most direct source of prototype information, and so prototypical leaders are figural against the background of the group. Members pay close attention to their leaders and, as in other areas of social perception and inference, attribute their behavior to invariant underlying personality attributes or ‘‘essences’’ (e.g., Gilbert & Malone, 1995; Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 1998). In the context of leadership this causes followers to construct a charismatic leadership personality for their leader—after all, the general class of behaviors that is being attributed to personality include being the source of influence, being able to gain compliance from others, being popular, having higher status, being innovative, and being trusted. In this way charisma, which plays an important role in transformational leadership (e.g., Avolio & Yammarino, 2003), is constructed by group processes (see Haslam & Platow, 2001) rather than being a static personality attribute that is brought by individuals to the group. The perception of charisma further facilitates effective and innovative leadership on the part of a prototypical leader. For example, a new departmental chair promoted from the ranks might initially seem just like the rest of us, but if members identified strongly with the department and he happened to be highly prototypical then we might gradually attribute his influence over us to his charismatic personality rather than his prototypicality.

Leaders as Entrepreneurs of Identity These social identity leadership processes extend considerable power to leaders to maintain their leadership position. Because they are trusted, given


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latitude to be innovative, and invested with status and charisma, prototypical leaders are very effective prototype managers, or entrepreneurs of identity (Reicher & Hopkins, 2003). They can define what the group stands for and what the social identity of its members is, by consolidating an existing prototype, modifying it, or dramatically reconstructing it. One of the key attributes of effective leadership is precisely this visionary and transformational activity in which leaders are able to change what the group sees itself as being. For example, during the 1980s the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, constructed a new more imperially assertive and proud British identity around an iconic image of herself as Boadecia—a first century British Queen who led a British uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire. There are many strategies that prototypical leaders can employ to manage their prototypicality and shape their group’s identity. There is evidence that they can talk up their own prototypicality and/or talk down aspects of their own behavior that are nonprototypical; identify deviants or marginal members to highlight their own prototypicality or to construct a particular prototype for the group that enhances their own prototypicality; secure their own leadership position by vilifying contenders for leadership and casting the latter as nonprototypical; and identify as relevant comparison outgroups, those outgroups that are most favorable to their own prototypicality (e.g., Reicher & Hopkins, 1996, 2003). Leaders can also engage in a discourse that raises or lowers salience. If you are highly prototypical, then raising salience and strengthening members’ identification with the group will provide you with the leadership benefits of high prototypicality; if you are not very prototypical, then lowering salience and weakening members identification will protect you from the leadership pitfalls of not being very prototypical. Generally, leaders who feel they are not, or are no longer, prototypical strategically engage in a range of group-oriented behaviors to strengthen their membership credentials (e.g., Platow & van Knippenberg, 2001). In concluding this description of the social identity theory of leadership, there is one important caveat to bear in mind. Social identity leadership processes only, or more strongly, occur in groups that members identify more strongly with. As the group’s salience or members’ strength of identification with the group weakens, social identity leadership processes also weaken. Leadership becomes less strongly based on how prototypical the leader is of the group, and more strongly based on other factors, such as how charismatic they are, and how well they match people’s general or more specific schemas of the properties a leader should possess to fulfill a particular group function.

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EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE Overall, the social identity theory of leadership, although a relative newcomer to the leadership scene, has already attracted solid empirical support from laboratory experiments and more naturalistic studies and surveys. I have mentioned some of this support above; for detailed summaries of empirical work, see Ellemers, de Gilder, & Haslam, 2004; Hogg, 2001; Hogg & van Knippenberg, 2003; van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003; van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, De Cremer, & Hogg, 2004. Perhaps the most critical body of evidence comes from studies showing that, as people identify more strongly with their group, prototypical members are more likely to be (effective) leaders and more prototypical leaders are more effective than less prototypical leaders. For example, Hains, Hogg, and Duck (1997) conducted a laboratory experiment in which participants (N = 184) who anticipated joining a small group for a discussion were given some controlled information about the group. To manipulate strength of identification, the psychological salience of the group was varied—information referred to groups or to loose aggregates of individuals, to the existence of commonalities or differences among people in the group, and to participants in group terms or individual terms. Participants were also told that one of them had been randomly selected as leader and were given information ostensibly about that person—the person’s attributes were a close match to the group’s attributes (high prototypicality leader) or a poor match (low prototypicality leader). Before joining the group they rated the leaders on 10 general leadership effectiveness items (α = .88). Hains and colleagues found, as predicted, that under high salience the prototypical leader was significantly more strongly endorsed than the less prototypical leader (see Figure 4-1). Fielding and Hogg (1997) replicated this finding in a naturalistic measurement-based field study of ‘‘outward bound’’ groups, and Hogg, Fielding, Johnson, Masser, Russell, and Svensson (2006) found the same thing in a laboratory study with gender groups in which salience was manipulated in a similar way to Hains et al. (1997) and the leader’s group prototypicality was operationalized as the extent to which the participant’s (N = 257) gender stereotypical assumptions about the leader matched the group’s agentic (male stereotypic) or communal (female stereotypic) norm. Under high salience the prototypical leader was significantly more strongly endorsed (16-item leadership effectiveness scale, α = .92), than the less prototypical leader (see Figure 4-2). In a similar vein to these studies, studies by Duck and Fielding (1999, 2003) and Van Vugt and De Cremer (1999) have found that as identification strengthens ingroup leaders (more ingroup prototypical) are endorsed more strongly than outgroup leaders (less ingroup prototypical). Other studies


Figure 4-1 Leadership effectiveness as a function of group salience and group prototypicality of the leader (Hains, Hogg, & Duck, 1997)

Figure 4-2 Leadership effectiveness as a function of group salience and group prototypicality of the leader (Hogg, Fielding, Johnson, Masser, Russell, & Svensson, 2006)

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have shown that as identification increases leaders are more strongly endorsed if they favor their ingroup over outgroups (Platow, Hoar, Reid, Harley, & Morrison, 1997), express strong commitment to the group (De Cremer & Van Vugt (2002), and treat group members as a group rather than individualizing them as separate from the group (Hogg, Martin, Epitropaki, Mankad, Svensson, & Weeden, 2005). In support of the role of trust in social identity related leadership, Platow and van Knippenberg (2001) report a study showing that as people identify more with their group they are more likely to provide unqualified endorsement of their leader to the extent that the leader is highly prototypical of the group.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS Scientific leadership research has increasingly tended to focus on organizational and corporate contexts and the role of the CEO. Other contexts of leadership, such as public leadership, and other aspects of leadership, such as the role of followers and the identity dimension of leadership, have a lower profile in the leadership literature and are less well explored. However, in recent years there has been a resurgence of interest among social psychologists in leadership; a resurgence built partly on what we now know about social cognition (how people mentally process, represent, and use information about other people), but also very significantly on the social identity analysis of group processes and intergroup relations. In this chapter I argue that identity management is a key function of leadership—people derive a sense of who they are from the groups they belong to, and they overwhelmingly look to their leaders to define their group’s attributes (its attitudes, values, and customs) and thus their identity in society. National leadership campaigns are a good example of this process—there is a dynamic in which the electorate seeks an image of what the nation stands for, what its true identity is, and presidential and prime ministerial contenders vie to provide this identity and to show how they best embody its attributes. Drawing on social identity theory, which focuses on the generative role of group belongingness and social identity in group behaviors, I described the social identity theory of leadership. The most fundamental premise of the social identity theory of leadership is that when a group is psychologically important to your sense of self you pay close attention to and are influenced by those people who you consider to best embody the group’s prototype. Thus, prototypical members are more influential than nonprototypical members (they are effectively leaders) and prototypical leaders are more influential than nonprototypical leaders.


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In newly formed salient groups or groups that have a leadership vacuum, members probably evaluate leadership somewhat exclusively against their perception of the prototype. However, in groups with established or incumbent leaders a variety of social identity related processes provide leaders with the ability to take the lead in defining the prototype themselves and, thus, their own prototypicality. I described how prototypicality can be associated with consensual positive regard, status, and the process of compliance; unqualified trust and the potential to be innovative; the construction of a charismatic personality; and the power to use a variety of strategies to protect and promote prototypicality and function as an entrepreneur of identity. Evidence in support of the social identity theory of leadership was briefly touched on to show that there is already relatively good support for the main features of the theory. To conclude, let me discuss one area where more research is needed. From a social identity point of view one challenge faced by leaders is that to be effective they need to be considered prototypical, and yet in many leadership situations they need to appeal to diverse groups that in many cases simply do not get on and have very different views of the superordinate category prototype. More often than not the great challenge of leadership is being an effective intergroup leader—being able to provide effective leadership across multiple groups (Hogg, in press b). The challenge here is in making multiple groups consider themselves a single group or to have a single identity, but at the same time not to feel that their existing identities have been devalued or erased. For example, the current (2008) presidential race in the United States is to some extent an exercise in persuading polarized political groups to have a shared prototype of being American—a prototype that one candidate can claim to represent better than other candidates (Hohman, Hogg, & Bligh, in press). In Iraq the issue is more dramatic: how can a single leader appear prototypical to warring factions hell-bent on each other’s annihilation? The question here is part of the wider issue of building social harmony and common identities from conflict. Social psychologists invest a great deal of research effort on the questions of reducing conflict and building harmony —for example, they study the dynamics of schisms (e.g., Sani & Reicher, 1998), organizational mergers and acquisitions (e.g., Terry, Carey, & Callan, 2001), cultural pluralism (e.g., Moghaddam, 2008; Verkuyten, 2006), and the construction of common ingroup identities (e.g., Hewstone, 1996). However, the key role of leaders and leadership is rarely mentioned—one exception is in the study of social dilemmas where identity-based leadership has been studied as an effective solution to some dilemmas (e.g., De Cremer & Van Vugt, 2002). The role of leaders in building common identities that bridge deep cultural divides remains to be fully explored and is, of course, a critical issue for society.

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In this chapter I hope that I have not only shown how the social identity theory of leadership contributes to our understanding of leadership, but also how it helps reconfigure the agenda for leadership research, allowing us to ask different questions and focus on different aspects and contexts of leadership—specifically the identity function of leadership.

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5 Emotional Intelligence and Leadership: Implications for Leader Development PAULO N. LOPES AND PETER SALOVEY

We view emotional intelligence as a set of abilities that encompass perceiving, expressing, understanding, using, and managing emotions. Leaders’ ability to influence others depends on their capacity to generate enthusiasm for a collective mission and establish sound communication with followers, among other factors. Because emotions are linked to motivation, influence the way people think, and facilitate communication, leaders need to attend to and manage their own and others’ emotions. We review some of the ample research evidence highlighting the role of emotions in decision making, communication, and interpersonal relationships. Perhaps because it is difficult to measure emotional intelligence as a set of emotional information processing skills, there are not yet clear research findings linking ability measures of emotional intelligence to leadership effectiveness. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that it is possible to develop emotional skills, and we discuss how emotional skills training can be used to enhance leadership development. Interest in emotional intelligence has continued to grow in business, education, and other circles. Salovey and Mayer first proposed a theory of emotional intelligence in 1990. They argued that the capacity to perceive, understand, use, and manage emotions can be viewed as an interrelated set of abilities that help people to attain adaptive goals in life and, generally, are distinct from IQ. Their theory was inspired by an expanding body of research on emotion,

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

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indicating that emotions serve adaptive functions, that IQ does not tap all the skills that contribute to intelligent behavior and adaptation in life, and that there are meaningful individual differences in the way that people deal with emotions and process emotional information (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Popularized in a 1995 bestselling book by Goleman, this idea seemed intuitively appealing to many readers because it resonated with their life experiences. It reinforced the notion that it is emotions that make people tick, that IQ is only part of the story of why some people are more successful than others, and that emotional and interpersonal competencies have been neglected in school and other settings. In casual conversation, the topic often generates compelling stories of individuals who excelled in school but whose career progress was undermined by difficulties with self-regulation and social relationships. Why should leaders care about emotions? Because emotions influence the way people think and behave, and influencing behavior is what leadership is all about. Several authors have proposed that emotions and emotional intelligence play a central role in the leadership process (e.g., George, 2000; Kets de Vries, 2001). Yet, the implications for assessment and training are less obvious. Popular interest in emotional intelligence has outpaced sound research in this area, although recent years have seen the publication of scientific articles supporting the validity and utility of the concept. One can now find different perspectives on emotional intelligence and the best way to measure it (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2000), so the term ‘‘emotional intelligence’’ is used to designate many different things. In this chapter, we help readers to make sense of theory and research in this area, and explore implications for assessment and training. Is there strong evidence (yet) that emotional intelligence contributes to leader effectiveness? Not really—perhaps because emotional intelligence is difficult to measure. Nevertheless, can emotional abilities contribute to leader effectiveness, and should these abilities be addressed in leader development programs? Yes—and we will discuss how. Our analysis is largely based on an ability model of emotional intelligence (Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Salovey & Grewal, 2005) because abilities can be viewed as a form of developing expertise (Sternberg, 1999), and therefore this model offers a useful theoretical framework for leader development. We focus on leadership in organizational settings because the topic of emotional intelligence has aroused widespread interest in the business world, although most of the ideas discussed in this chapter could be applied to other realms of leadership as well. We emphasize implications for leader development to help managers interested in their professional development and faculty involved in executive education to make sense of the research on emotional intelligence. As a starting point, we synthesize a large body of research

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linking emotional processes to motivation, interpersonal interaction, cognition, and decision making. Afterward, we outline different models of emotional intelligence and ways to measure it. Then we map the links between the ability model and leadership theory. Finally, we discuss implications for leader development, the main focus of this chapter.

WHY SHOULD LEADERS ATTEND TO EMOTIONS? Emotions and feelings1 can signal important information about the environment (Lazarus, 1991; Schwarz, 1990), telling us whether it is safe or unsafe to explore, for example. They can elicit approach or avoidance tendencies, and activate goals and goal-driven behavior (Frijda, 1988). People usually seek to repeat experiences that made them feel good in the past and tend to stay away from activities, individuals, and places that have made them anxious or upset in the past. Emotions can boost physiological arousal to alert the brain and energize the body for emergency responses (Sapolsky, 2000), or dampen arousal to conserve resources. Thus, emotions are intimately linked to motivational states (Frijda, 1988) and one of leaders’ functions is to motivate others. Emotions also help people to communicate and interact with others (Keltner & Haidt, 1999). A look of fear or a smirk of contempt on someone’s face can be telling because emotional expressions convey information about a person’s thoughts and intentions (Ekman, 2003). Therefore, the ability to decode nonverbal cues of emotion can help people to understand and influence others (Elfenbein, Marsh, & Ambady, 2002). The capacity to express emotions can also facilitate communication (Snodgrass, Hecht, & Ploutz-Snyder, 1998) and induce liking (e.g., Friedman, Riggio, & Casella, 1988) or trust. Emotions also are contagious (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994). A leader’s enthusiasm can spread to the rest of the team because people tend to catch others’ emotions through nonconscious mimicry and other forms of entrainment. This contributes to empathy and rapport, and may facilitate identification with a leader or induce a similar mind-set in a group. Thus, emotions help to coordinate social encounters and group behavior. Moreover, emotions can strengthen or disrupt social bonds. People are usually drawn to individuals who exude good spirits and tend to avoid those who are persistently negative or down (Argyle & Lu, 1990; Furr & Funder, 1998). The bonds established through rewarding experiences and positive emotions can help a team to overcome rough times and friction later. By signaling like and dislike, emotions can also facilitate identification with a group and demarcate an outgroup (Devos, Silver, Mackie, & Smith, 2002).


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Furthermore, emotions direct attention and influence the way people think. For example, negative emotions can interrupt an ongoing train of thought to make an individual attend to more pressing concerns (Simon, 1967). They can focus attention on the problem at hand and induce people to scrutinize relevant information carefully and systematically (Schwarz, 1990, 2002). In contrast, positive emotions can broaden the focus of attention and facilitate free association, divergent thinking, and creative problem solving (Fredrickson, 1998; Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987). Thus, leaders can instill positive spirits in a group to enhance creativity in a brainstorming session, or instill fear to focus people on a problem and generate a sense of urgency about change (Huy, 1999). Emotions can also facilitate problem solving by activating memories and knowledge of situations that were associated with similar emotional experiences in the past (Bower, 1981; Singer & Salovey, 1988). Emotions also facilitate learning from experience by focusing people’s attention on and making them think about negative events (Baumeister, Vohs, DeWall, & Zhang, 2007). Furthermore, emotions influence decision making by signaling preferences and attitudes that may have been neglected in conscious analysis or by influencing the way that we think about past, present, and future events (Loewenstein & Lerner, 2003). Leaders’ understanding and awareness of the influence of emotion on their thinking can give them a heightened capacity to manage themselves and others.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE THEORY AND RESEARCH Salovey and Mayer (1990; Mayer & Salovey, 1997) proposed a definition of emotional intelligence focused on emotional information processing. Their model encompassed the ability to perceive emotions in self and others; to understand how emotions blend, unfold, and influence cognition and behavior; to use emotions to facilitate thinking; and to manage emotions in self and others. These abilities are thought to be interrelated because they all rely on emotional information processing and one ability can support another. For example, recognizing inner cues of emotional arousal (e.g., heart beating faster, sweating, loud voice) and understanding how anger can lead to rash decisions can inform and facilitate emotion regulation. Mayer and Salovey (1997) sought to distinguish emotional intelligence from other constructs such as personality (Mayer et al., 2000). They also argued that emotional intelligence should be assessed by asking people to solve problems involving emotional information, rather than asking people whether they consider themselves emotionally intelligent. Self-judgments tend to be biased because people like to think well of themselves (Codol, 1975; Greenwald, 1980; Taylor, 1986). The majority of respondents consider

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themselves above average on a wide range of positive traits and abilities, including emotional intelligence (Brackett, Rivers, Shiffman, Lerner, & Salovey, 2006). Moreover, people may lack information to evaluate their emotional abilities accurately because they seldom receive clear or reliable feedback in this domain. As an alternative to questionnaires, respondents can be asked to decode facial expressions of emotion, identify how emotions are likely to evolve in a particular scenario, or rate the effectiveness of different responses to an emotionally challenging situation, for example. The Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002) uses this approach to assess the four dimensions of the ability model. Research using ability measures (mostly the MSCEIT) has yielded some evidence that emotional abilities are interrelated, distinct from personality and IQ, and associated with important outcomes—even after controlling statistically for the effect of potential confounds. A confirmatory factor analysis of MSCEIT scores found support for four distinct emotional abilities underlying a higher-order factor of emotional intelligence (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, & Sitarenios, 2003). Several studies indicate that MSCEIT scores are associated with the quality of social relationships and interpersonal interaction, as rated by multiple informants—even after controlling for demographic factors, personality traits, and indicators of IQ (e.g., Brackett et al., 2006; Lopes, Brackett, Nezlek, Schu¨tz, Sellin, & Salovey, 2004; Lopes, Salovey, Coˆte´, & Beers, 2005). This evidence seems to be most consistent for the emotion regulation branch. There is also evidence that some emotional abilities are associated with positive workplace and negotiation outcomes (for a review, see Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, 2008). For example, a meta-analysis aggregating numerous studies suggested that emotion perception accuracy was associated with modestly higher indicators of workplace effectiveness in professions as diverse as physicians, human service workers, schoolteachers and principals, and business managers (Elfenbein, Foo, White, Tan, & Aik, 2007). In a study of 175 university employees, MSCEIT emotional intelligence scores were associated with supervisor ratings of job performance after controlling for cognitive ability, personality traits, and other confounds (Coˆte´ & Miners, 2006). In a study of 44 analysts and clerical employees of a health insurance company, MSCEIT scores were associated with higher company rank, merit increases, and peer and/or supervisor ratings of interpersonal facilitation and stress tolerance (Lopes, Grewal, Kadis, Gall, & Salovey, 2006). Further research is needed to link emotional abilities and objective indicators of work performance. Broader views of emotional intelligence. Other authors have proposed far broader views of emotional intelligence, encompassing emotional and social skills, personality traits, and motivational and other characteristics (e.g.,


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Bar-On, 2000; Goleman, 1995, 1998; Petrides & Furnham, 2003). These conceptions may be appealing precisely because they are more encompassing. Broad measures based on these conceptions can be useful for 360-degree assessments if organizations wish to assess a wide array of adaptive characteristics and competencies with a single questionnaire. These broad conceptions also avoid the difficulty of carving boundaries between partially overlapping constructs, such as emotional and social skills. Nonetheless, there are drawbacks to this approach. For research purposes, the benefit of integrating a wide range of traits and competencies into one theoretical framework, rather than studying them separately, is generally unclear. If we lump many desirable traits and competencies into one score, we might end up with a rough indicator of perceived global adjustment (or core self-evaluation; Bono & Judge, 2003), but we do not know exactly what it measures. Research linking these overall scores to workplace outcomes is often not really informative. It is no wonder that a measure of global adjustment is associated with positive outcomes. To date, few studies examining the predictive validity of these broad measures have controlled simultaneously for the most relevant confounds, including IQ, personality, motivation, and self-enhancement. Furthermore, several measures based on broad models of emotional intelligence share substantial overlap with the Big Five personality traits (e.g., Brackett & Mayer, 2003), which also tap into emotional reactivity and self-regulation (Larsen, 2000). For the purpose of assessment and leader development, it is far more useful to consider an individual’s detailed profile of strengths and weaknesses than to aggregate this information into a single score for emotional intelligence. It is also useful to distinguish broad personality traits that tend to be difficult to change from skills that may be more amenable to training. For assessment purposes, the usefulness of questionnaire measures is limited by the fact that self-reports are biased by self-enhancement and faking, and informant ratings are prone to halo effects (people who like and admire their leaders tend to rate the leaders highly on most dimensions). In both the cognitive and emotional realms, ability tests and self-report measures correlate only weakly and thus seem to measure different things (Brackett et al., 2006; Mabe & West, 1982). For all these reasons, we focus on the ability model of emotional intelligence in this chapter and in our empirical work. Limitations and implications of the ability model. Research focused on abilities and skills can potentially contribute to an in-depth understanding of the processes and strategies underlying emotionally intelligent behavior, and thereby help to design better leader development programs. For assessment, scores on ability measures that ask respondents to solve problems are less likely to be distorted by self-enhancement and deliberate faking than scores on self-report measures that tap into perceived self-efficacy (Brackett et al.,

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2006). Yet, it is also important to consider the limitations of the ability model of emotional intelligence and the research that supports it, namely because it may help readers to devise effective training programs and use balanced assessment strategies. In its original formulation, this model provided an integrative theoretical framework that mapped emotional abilities and made few detailed predictions. One of the advantages of this model is that it is narrowly focused on emotional abilities. As a conceptual map, however, one of its limitations is that it does not clearly chart the boundaries and overlap between emotional abilities, on the one hand, and social abilities or personality, on the other. In practice, it may be difficult to disentangle emotional abilities from personality traits that are strongly influenced by innate emotional dispositions, such as emotional stability. For example, the capacity for effective emotion regulation reflects the combined effects of innate temperamental dispositions (the foundation of personality) and emotion regulation skills acquired over the life span. The implication for assessment is that using tests of emotional abilities in combination with personality measures and 360-degree feedback may yield a better picture of an individual’s emotional functioning than relying on a single assessment strategy. The implication for training is that developing emotion regulation skills may entail overcoming deeply engraved habits and dispositions, and therefore require opportunities for repeated practice and feedback as well as booster sessions. It is difficult to disentangle emotional and social skills because emotions serve social and communicative functions and social interaction involves emotional communication. Managing emotions in interpersonal situations involves both emotion-focused and problem-focused strategies, tapping into emotional and social skills. For example, one way to regulate one’s emotions is to cognitively reappraise the situation. In managing emotionally challenging interpersonal situations, effective reappraisal may draw on perspectivetaking, social, communication, and negotiation skills (to elicit the other person’s views and see the problem from his or her perspective, for example). Thus, it is difficult to demarcate the realm of emotional abilities clearly and disentangle it from the realms of personality and social skills. This means that, for training purposes, it may be useful to integrate emotional and interpersonal skills training, and help participants to understand that personality is also malleable to some extent (Heatherton & Weinberger, 1994). Much of the evidence in support of the ability model (examining emotional intelligence as an integrated set of abilities) has relied on a single measure, the MSCEIT. The theory of emotional intelligence proposes that emotional abilities are interrelated and represent a distinct form of intelligence (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, & Sitarenios, 2001). Yet, some of the evidence in support of this claim is limited because correlations among the four abilities could be


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inflated by common method bias associated with the use of a single measure and a particular type of scoring, for example. Measures of nonverbal decoding skills tapping into different channels of nonverbal communication (e.g., facial expression of emotion versus body language or multiple channels) correlate weakly, suggesting that they do not represent a cohesive domain of ability (see Hall & Bernieri, 2001). Accordingly, assessing emotion decoding skills rigorously may require a more extensive battery of tests than time usually allows. For leader development programs, it may be useful to adapt existing measures of nonverbal decoding skills and use them as dynamic tests, combining assessment and training, and providing participants immediate feedback (e.g., right or wrong) after each item. Because time constraints preclude training all the skills underlying emotional intelligence through explicit classroom instruction, it is especially important to help participants to learn from experience. This could be achieved by incorporating principles of action science and reflective practice (e.g., Argyris, Putnam, & Smith, 1990; Scho¨n, 1987) as well as individualized coaching in leader development programs. It is also important to keep in mind that existing tests of emotional intelligence do not assess all the skills that underlie emotionally intelligent behavior. For example, with regard to emotion regulation, a test such as the MSCEIT measures knowledge of effective strategies for handling emotionally challenging situations more than the capacity to implement these strategies effectively in real life. Thus, scores on existing tests should be interpreted with great caution because they might not provide a full or balanced picture of a person’s emotional competencies. Further validation and perhaps test development are needed before these measures can be used reliably for selection purposes. A balanced assessment strategy should rely on multiple measures, including multirater feedback, personality questionnaires, and observations, for example. Observing how individuals manage emotionally challenging group work can be useful for both assessment and training purposes because it brings to the surface issues that can then be discussed in the classroom.

EMOTIONAL ABILITIES AND LEADERSHIP Theories of transformational leadership and leader-member exchange, which are associated with leadership effectiveness (see meta-analyses by Gerstner & Day, 1997; Judge & Piccolo, 2004; Lowe, Galen Kroeck, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996), suggest important links between emotional abilities and leadership. We review these theoretical links briefly before considering the research evidence.

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The full range leadership model (Bass & Avolio, 1994) maps leadership styles from laissez-faire management to transactional and transformational leadership, ranked from least to most effective. Laissez-faire management amounts to an absence of leadership. Transactional leadership involves influencing others by rewarding desired behavior and the fulfillment of contractual obligations, planning for the attainment of organizational goals, and intervening when things go wrong. Transformational leadership involves motivating and inspiring members to go beyond contractual obligations, deliver exceptional performance, and attain their full potential. Insofar as transactional leaders rely on the capacity to dispense rewards associated with a formal position of power and a rigid command-and-control structure, they may not be concerned about developing emotional abilities. Nonetheless, the effective use of emotional rewards involving encouragement, praise, and support for employees’ feelings of self-worth may draw on emotional abilities and dispositions to some extent. Transformational leadership includes the dimensions of idealized influence (charisma), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration (Bass, 1985; Bass & Avolio, 1994). Whereas intellectual stimulation may rely to a large extent on cold cognition, the other dimensions of transformational leadership are likely to involve an emotional substrate related to emotional communication and identification (e.g., empathy), and the orchestration of emotions (including the arousal of positive attitudes and positive emotions toward a collective mission or goal). The dimension of individualized consideration, in particular, highlights the importance of understanding members’ needs, hopes, and fears, in order to coach them effectively and help them develop. Conger and Kanungo’s (1998) work on charismatic leadership, which is closely linked to transformational leadership (Rowold & Heinitz, 2007), outlines three stages of the leadership process. First, leaders need to assess the environment and evaluate followers’ needs. Second, they must generate a strategic vision and communicate it in a way that inspires others. Third, they must act as role models by defying conventional wisdom, taking risks, revealing integrity, and devoting full effort to the attainment of a collective mission. It can be argued that emotional abilities facilitate these three tasks and contribute to most of the capacities outlined in accounts of transformational and transactional leadership. In particular, emotional abilities can help leaders to understand others’ motivations and concerns, enabling effective analysis, decision making, communication, and influence. From the perspective of the leader-member exchange theory (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995), a leader’s influence is enhanced by developing a high quality working relationship or true partnership with followers, involving mutual trust, open communication, and coaching. By stressing the quality of the


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relationship between leader and follower, leader-member exchange theory suggests that emotional abilities facilitate leadership insofar as they contribute to positive interpersonal interactions. As discussed above, there is empirical evidence from several studies linking emotional abilities (in particular emotion regulation ability) and the quality of interpersonal interaction. The emotional intelligence framework fits well into the skills approach to the study of leadership. Early writings on leadership skills emphasized the distinction between technical, conceptual, and people skills (see Katz, 1955), just as early research on leadership styles focused on task-oriented versus relationship-oriented behavior. Viewing leadership as an interpersonal phenomenon suggests that effective leadership depends upon the leader’s ability to solve the complex social problems that arise in organizations, and this entails creative problem solving, social judgment, and knowledge (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000). Once again, emotional abilities should contribute to social judgment skills. Also relevant to our discussion is the basic principle of the situational approach to leadership: to be effective, leaders must adapt their style and behavior to the demands of different situations. This idea is in line with one of the basic principles of social psychology, that people’s behavior and responses to any event are influenced by the social situation to a greater extent than is usually recognized (Ross & Nisbett, 1991). The importance of individualized consideration and sensitivity to members’ needs highlighted in accounts of transformational and charismatic leadership, and leadermember exchange theory, suggests that leaders must interact differently with each follower in order to build effective working relationships. This requires flexibility, adaptability, and attunement to people and to the situation (Hooijberg, Hunt, & Dodge, 1997). The ability to process emotional information is likely to contribute to this interpersonal attunement and flexibility. Several authors have discussed theoretical links between emotional intelligence and leadership in greater depth than we can do here. For example, George (2000) argued that moods and emotions play a central role in the leadership process. She further proposed that emotional intelligence contributes to effective leadership in several ways, including the development of collective goals and a meaningful identity for an organization, communication and persuasion, the enhancement of enthusiasm, confidence, optimism, cooperation, and trust, sound decision making, and the implementation of organizational change. Huy (1999) argued that building motivation for organizational change requires balancing negative and positive emotions skillfully because it is often necessary to induce a sense of urgency and focus people on a better future so as to energize people rather than paralyze them with fear.

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Research. Theoretically, then, there are strong reasons to expect emotional abilities to contribute to leadership effectiveness. At present, however, the empirical evidence for this link is still limited. Few studies have been published in peer-reviewed journals showing significant associations between ability measures of emotional intelligence and indicators of leadership effectiveness, controlling for possible confounds. Moreover, we do not know of any rigorous studies examining the causal effect of emotional intelligence training on leadership effectiveness, although studies of this kind may be in the works. A few studies provide suggestive and preliminary evidence for the link between emotional abilities and leadership but should be viewed with caution until the findings are replicated and extended. For example, in a study of 145 managers of a biotechnology/agricultural company, managers’ ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion in photographs was associated with subordinate ratings of transformational leadership (Rubin, Munz, & Bommer, 2005). Two studies indicated that total emotional intelligence scores on the MSCEIT were associated with leader emergence in undergraduate work groups—controlling for gender, personality, and IQ (Coˆ te´ , Lopes, Salovey, & Miners, 2008; still under review at the time of writing). In a study of 41 executives from a large Australian public service organization, emotional intelligence scores on the MSCEIT were associated with positive multirater feedback on some dimensions (e.g., ‘‘cultivates productive working relationships,’’ but not with supervisor ratings of goal achievement; Rosete & Ciarrochi, 2005). There is evidence linking self-report measures of emotional intelligence and leadership. This research is often less informative than we would wish for the reasons discussed above (e.g., self-enhancement bias, confounds with personality and motivation, halo effects, and conceptual overlap between predictor and outcomes). Nonetheless, some studies using questionnaire measures have yielded interesting findings. For example, a study conducted in four countries indicated that subordinates’ ratings of their managers’ empathy were associated with different subordinates’ ratings of the same managers’ leadership effectiveness (Rahim & Psenicka, 2005). Some qualitative studies have also generated provocative findings. For example, a case study tracked 104 middle managers in an information technology service company that was adapting to global competition after deregulation. The analysis highlighted the importance of managers’ attending to employees’ emotions and personally committing to change projects in order to balance continuity and change, and keep employees motivated (Huy, 2002). Despite these suggestive findings, rigorous evidence linking scores on ability measures of emotional intelligence and leader effectiveness is still scarce in peer-reviewed journals.2 Based on a review of meta-analyses, an American


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Psychological Association task force concluded that researchers studying complex human behavior should be satisfied with small effects (e.g., accounting for 1 percent to 4 percent of the variance in outcome measures; Meyer et al., 2001). However, most studies rely on samples that are too small to detect weak effects. There are several reasons why emotional abilities might be only weakly related to leadership effectiveness (see also Antonakis, 2003). Many factors beyond a leader’s control influence his or her effectiveness as a leader. The list of skills that contribute to effective leadership is very large, and it is possible to be an effective leader by capitalizing on different skills. Leaders can also recruit people with complementary skills and develop emotional capabilities at the group or organizational levels to compensate for their own personal deficits (Druskat & Wolff, 2003; Huy, 1999). The interpretation of research findings is further complicated by the fact that individuals may develop emotional skills to compensate for traits that might hinder their emergence as leaders (for example, developing interpersonal sensitivity to compensate for social anxiety or low social dominance). Moreover, emotional abilities are difficult to measure and existing ability measures only capture some of the skills that contribute to emotionally intelligent behavior. For all these reasons, we should expect statistical associations between any one ability and leadership effectiveness to be weak, and future research should use larger samples to detect such weak effects. Weak effects should not be neglected when the outcomes are important, as is the case of leadership. A small change in some leaders’ behavior could make a difference to millions of people.

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR LEADER DEVELOPMENT It is difficult to study broad and complex phenomena such as leadership and emotional intelligence through the traditional scientific paradigm of isolating different aspects of the problem and examining these with high precision and reliability. Therefore leader development programs cannot rely exclusively on available research findings. Although there is little direct evidence that emotional abilities contribute to leader effectiveness, there is abundant evidence that effective problem solving, decision making, interpersonal interaction, and communication draw on emotional processes involving the perception, understanding, use, and regulation of emotion. Therefore, it makes sense to integrate emotional skills training in leader development programs. People will not make a real effort to learn unless they are convinced that learning is possible. Is there evidence that emotional skills can be trained? Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System or Micro Expression Training Tool

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has been used to train people to recognize basic, universal facial expressions and more complex blends of emotion (Ekman, 2003). Decoding nonverbal communication in ongoing social interaction entails not only knowing how to interpret the cues but also attending to these cues. The type of training that Ekman proposes may also help to develop a habit of attending to others’ emotions. The ability to understand emotions relies largely on knowledge (about emotional dynamics and display rules, for example). This knowledge can be acquired through explicit instruction or through discussions of emotionally loaded personal experiences, for example (see Caruso & Salovey, 2004, for other training ideas). There is some evidence that programs of social and emotional learning for school children and adolescents can have beneficial effects (e.g., Greenberg, Kusche´, Cook, & Quamma, 1995; Hawkins, Catalano, Kosterman, Abbott, & Hill, 1999; Weissberg & Greenberg, 1998). Adults often seek psychotherapy because of difficulties with emotion regulation, and outcome studies indicate that several forms of psychotherapy and emotion regulation training can be effective (Bergin & Garfield, 1994; Deffenbacher, Oetting, Huff, & Thwaites, 1995; Seligman, 1995). Although emotion-based personality traits are fairly stable over time, there is more room for change in adulthood than people commonly recognize (see Heatherton & Weinberger, 1994). The fact that people usually do not change much does not mean that one cannot change if there is a good enough reason to change. There is evidence from metaanalyses aggregating a large number of studies that training can be effective in several realms related to emotional abilities, including stress inoculation training, sensitivity and self-awareness training, management education, and cross-cultural training (Burke & Day, 1986; Deshpande & Viswesvaran, 1992; Faith, Wong, & Carpenter, 1995; Niemiec, Sikorski, Clark, & Walberg, 1992; Saunders, Driskell, Johnston, & Salas, 1996). A few field experiments also suggest that people can be trained to act as transformational leaders with a positive impact on followers (e.g., Barling, Weber, & Kelloway, 1996; Dvir, Eden, Avolio, & Shamir, 2002). In sum, there is evidence from several lines of research that emotional skills and skills related to emotional intelligence can be learned. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize the challenges of helping people to develop emotional abilities and to consider the implications for training. The challenges are especially noteworthy with regard to emotion regulation. Characteristics such as the propensity to experience positive and negative emotions seem to be driven in large part by one’s genetic endowment and are fairly stable over time (Watson, 2000). Some emotional reactions have been deeply engraved through traumatic or quasi-traumatic experiences or countless reenactments, to the point that they have become automatic and habitual, and are therefore difficult to change. Individual differences in the


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tendency to attend to one’s own and others’ feelings, which may be associated with nonconscious defense mechanisms or emotion regulation strategies (Singer & Sincoff, 1990; Vaillant, 1977), can preclude the full use of emotional information. In adulthood, people seldom receive clear feedback about their emotional behavior, and thus often lack the awareness and motivation required to develop skills in this realm. All this suggests that it is difficult to bring about change through short training programs and that overselling the benefits of emotional skills training can backfire. Providing individualized coaching, incorporating repeated opportunities for practice within formal training sessions, or spacing out sessions over time to allow participants to practice new strategies between sessions, can facilitate change. Considering that it may be difficult to develop some emotional skills and that leaders can capitalize on their strengths to compensate for some deficits, leader development programs should avoid overly preoccupying participants with correcting mild deficits in emotional skills. The existing research base does not tell us how emotional skills should be integrated into leader development programs. It is possible to devise specific activities and exercises to train the skills mapped by the ability model of emotional intelligence (see Caruso & Salovey, 2004; Lopes, Coˆte´, & Salovey, 2005). The emotional intelligence framework may also be useful for leader development programs that emphasize self-awareness and self-regulation as the foundations for self-development (e.g., Avolio, 2004). For example, developing the ability to recognize one’s own and others’ emotions can enhance self-awareness. Developing the ability to manage emotions can facilitate other forms of self-regulation and give people the strength and resilience to take on new challenges and experiment with different behaviors, which are crucial steps for leader development. Many executives are action-oriented and have little patience for theory or training that they do not perceive to be of real practical benefit. Because people seldom receive feedback about their emotional skills, and are usually not aware of their strengths and weaknesses in this realm, intensive feedback from 360-degree assessments and observations of group work can be used to develop self-awareness and generate buy-in for emotional skills training. Interest and motivation can also be enhanced by letting participants opt into a workshop on emotional intelligence after receiving 360-degree feedback, and by tailoring content and methods to address participants’ concerns. People often find it difficult to recognize or talk about how they are processing emotional cues or managing emotions. Using challenging group work or other experiential learning exercises to stir up emotions in the classroom can help to surface relevant issues and make ideas easier to grasp. Considering the links between emotion, cognition, and social interaction, it is possible to discuss emotions while addressing a range of topics relevant to

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leader development (such as organizational change, communication, negotiation, or teamwork), instead of offering workshops devoted exclusively to emotion and emotional intelligence. However, instructors need expertise on emotion and practice dealing with emotions in the classroom. It is probably impossible to train all of the skills that contribute to emotionally intelligent behavior through explicit classroom instruction within a reasonable time frame. Thus, helping participants to learn from experience is likely to maximize the benefits of training and ensure lasting impact. For this purpose, leader development programs should prepare participants to attend to others’ emotional reactions, try different strategies, seek formal and informal feedback often, and reflect on their experiences and the impact of their own behavior. Leader development can be viewed as a form of personal development that requires the ability and willingness to learn from experience (Van Velsor & McCauley, 2004), and the basic principles of action science can enhance this capacity (Argyris et al., 1990; Scho¨n, 1987). Developing emotional abilities can enrich one’s professional and personal life, and contribute to one’s continuing personal development. Even if the effects are small, the cumulative benefits could be huge over the life span. When people consider whether changing a counterproductive pattern of behavior is worth the effort, they should keep in mind that this initial effort could benefit them for the rest of their lives. Yet, when people receive multirater feedback for the first time, highlighting deficits that they were not aware of, they often feel threatened or pressured to change against their will. That is particularly likely if the deficits relate to emotional characteristics that they perceive to be part of their personality or sense of self. Several authors have argued that people should strive to build on their strengths rather than correct mild deficits, because the latter strategy can take a lot of effort and yield only modest improvement (e.g., Zenger & Folkman, 2002). Although this idea makes sense, it might also lead people to underestimate their tremendous capacity for learning and growth. Leader development programs should help participants to view learning and change as part of an ongoing process of selfmotivated personal development. In this context, the idea of emotional intelligence offers an appealing and useful framework to get people to think about using and managing emotions and emotional information more intelligently in their personal and professional lives.

NOTES The authors thank Jochen Menges and Nicholas Emler for their comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. 1. In the psychological literature, ‘‘emotion’’ refers to a rather short-lived and intense organized response integrating physiological, behavioral, and cognitive


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dimensions, which is triggered by an event perceived to influence one’s well-being and is accompanied by a conscious feeling. ‘‘Affect’’ is a broader term that encompasses emotions, more subtle feelings, and more diffuse and long-lasting moods that are not associated with a specific event. For the sake of simplicity and to avoid jargon, in this chapter we use the term ‘‘emotion’’ to designate affect. 2. This is a concern, especially considering how much interest this topic has generated. It is possible that a number of studies have not been published because the results did not conform to expectations and nonsignificant findings are difficult to publish in peer-reviewed journals. For this chapter we were unable to review unpublished research, but future literature reviews should consider it.

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PART II

PERCEIVING LEADERS


6 Social Cognitive Perspectives on Leadership TIANE L. LEE AND SUSAN T. FISKE

Leadership perception comprises various forms of mental representation, or the structure of how people remember and think of their leaders. These representations include schemas, prototypes, and exemplars. A schema is a general representation that specifies necessary and sufficient attributes for who qualifies as a leader. Another summary representation, a prototype, is constructed from leader-typical traits abstracted from previously encountered leaders. Unlike a schema, a prototype provides a comparison standard by which perceivers judge the degree of typicality of each encountered leader. Exemplars, on the other hand, are a set of concrete examples in the perceiver ’s memory. Across these structures, leader images contain similar content: warmth and competence are two core dimensions with which perceivers are concerned. Leadership perception is context sensitive—culture and gender are main moderators—but a social cognitive approach makes sense of and organizes what at first glance are idiosyncratic leader images. Traits expected of leaders can be organized into a dimensional framework of warmth and competence. Contingency research also highlights their central role: leaders who demonstrate competence and trustworthiness gain ‘‘idiosyncrasy credits,’’ and a leader ’s primary concern, either task accomplishment (competence) or interpersonal relations (warmth), interacts with degree of control to determine effective performance. People expect certain things of their leaders. When their leaders deliver on those expectations—or do not—those follower beliefs have consequences.

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Presidents get reelected or not; CEOs rise and fall; juries reach verdicts or hang; teams win or lose. Social cognitive perspectives focus on beliefs, especially followers’ beliefs, but also on societal and cultural beliefs, about who leaders are and who they should be. Social cognitive approaches rely on concepts of mental representation. The first section reviews three major psychological frameworks that explain how people categorize and remember others: schemas, prototypes, and exemplars. Each of these representations contains the images people have of what a leader is like. We explain the theoretical structure of leader images within each viewpoint, but we also describe the general content of leader images, which these perspectives all share—it turns out that two dimensions underlie the characteristics that leaders are expected to exemplify. Finally, we provide an overview of two types of leadership research, trait studies and contingency research, showing that leader images contain these two core dimensions. Social cognitive principles reconcile and organize various research findings on leader images.

MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS Leader images are a type of mental representation or knowledge structure, which is information encoded and constructed by individuals, later accessed and used in various ways—including to evaluate or interpret the target stimulus (Smith, 1998). Schemas are one type of mental representation. They are cognitive structures—organized prior knowledge—representing abstract understanding of a complex concept or type of stimulus (Fiske & Taylor, 2008). The schema concept is derived from Gestalt psychology (Koffka, 1935), which recognizes perception as holistic and treats concepts as coherent wholes (rather than the sum of their parts). Likewise, the information represented in schemas includes general knowledge, extracted from one’s own previous experiences or from societal beliefs, and organized into an integrated whole. As such, schemas are lay theories, or individuals’ understanding about how their world works, that help people simplify their environment (Markus & Zajonc, 1985). Schemas allow people to fill in missing details and remember highlights. They facilitate top-down cognitive processes, a way to understand and experience complex stimuli through relying on more general knowledge. Schemas both facilitate the perception of expectancy-consistent information and make people attend to schema-inconsistent information, in an effort to understand and explain it. For example, people expect presidents to be dignified, so it is easy for them to encode a president acting formal at a diplomatic dinner, whereas a president who appears in a clown suit requires explanation. People may recall exceptions like this, but when they have to guess or

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estimate under uncertainty, they tend to fall back on their schematic expectations. People tend to interpret ambiguous information as fitting their schematic expectations, thereby maintaining their schemas. For example, the president who cracks a joke at a state dinner is putting people at ease, not forfeiting his or her dignity. Leader schemas are a type of role schema; examples of other role schemas are the group helper and the group watchdog. A leader schema specifies leaders’ expected traits, attributes, and appropriate behaviors. People apply schemas to instances that they have classified as category members. That is, people must first recognize an individual as a leader before applying a leader schema to that person. (The categorization is based on prototypes or exemplars, described below.) Thus, if a perceiver considers a leader to be someone who initiates meetings and makes decisions, then he or she will classify a person exhibiting those behaviors as a leader. The perceiver then may have other knowledge in his or her leader schema (e.g., leaders like to be respected), which they also apply to help them understand the person. A schema is a unitized representation, in that the represented information is activated as all or nothing. So if a perceiver has a leader schema that depicts a leader as someone who likes to be respected and who is a top-notch multitasker, both of these expectations are applied to individuals the perceiver classifies as a leader. Schemas share many properties with prototypes, which are another form of person representation. Prototypes are similar to schemas in that they contain expectations (traits and attributes) about a concept (leader). However, unlike schemas, which specify necessary and sufficient attributes for what constitutes a category member, prototypes do not have such hard set guidelines for categories. Rather, perceivers interpret targets by the extent to which they are typical or atypical category members. For example, a person who (1) initiates meetings and (2) makes decisions may be a more typical leader than one who (3) is a top-notch multitasker. These three characteristics range in the degree to which they are typical of leader qualities. Similar to a schema, a prototype contains features abstracted from societal beliefs, or from previous encounters with category members. So a person’s prototypical leader is constructed from encounters with different types of leaders: politicians, business owners, community activists. The result is a prototypical leader with traits abstracted from across those various leaders (e.g., charismatic, in the public eye). Although a prototype is generally understood to be the most representative member (Cantor & Mischel, 1979), a prototype can also be an extreme ideal category member (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). As a result, leader prototypes may represent more typical examples (e.g., chief executive officer [CEO] of a company), or they may resemble more extreme examples (e.g., president of a country).

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Because prototypical features are abstracted from category members and then compiled into a prototype, two characteristics are noteworthy. First, perceivers do not need to have encountered a prototypical category member in order to construct a prototype (Posner & Keele, 1968). In fact, no actual category member may be a perfect prototype; instead, each instance contains some typical features that contribute to the construction of the prototypical category member. Second, a prototype may include features that are not diagnostic of category membership. For example, it is not necessary that leaders be male, and being male is not sufficient to be a leader. Yet for some perceivers the prototypical leader may embody the image of a man. In addition, some prototypical features may not exist at all in some category members. For example, being Protestant may be prototypical of American presidents, but not all presidents have been Protestant. This is a major difference between prototypes and schemas: prototypes are average or idealized instances with all attributes filled in, including category-irrelevant features (e.g., male, Protestant), whereas schemas contain only the focal, category-relevant features. Consequently, prototypes may refer to more detailed (yet, less organized and fuzzier) images while schemas are internally coherent. Still another social cognitive view depicts person representation as a set of exemplars. Recall that schemas and prototypes are generalized representations; while they are constructed from specific instances, they do not represent specific instances. Exemplars are the specific instances and are, therefore, context sensitive. The exemplar view holds that people judge each target based on its similarity to specific, previously encountered examples. Rather than summary representations such as a generalized image (schemas), or averaged or idealized prototypes, exemplars emphasize the role of concrete examples and specific previous experiences of the perceiver. This idea is best represented by norm theory (Kahneman & Miller, 1986), in which each new instance or experience activates the most relevant and similar exemplars to that experience, and against which perceivers judge the new instance. The degree of similarity to the activated exemplars reflects how normal or unusual the new instance is. The exemplar view highlights aspects of social cognitive evidence that neither the schema nor the prototype view emphasizes. First, it supports the observation that people refer to specific examples (rather than the category itself) to make judgments about another category member. For example, a person curious to know whether Bill Clinton was the youngest American president would have to recall at least one of two specific presidents (Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy) to realize that he was not. To be sure, the prototype view acknowledges that people remember specific instances but does not give specific instances much more consideration, whereas the exemplar view gives them a central role in person perception


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because it holds that new instances are compared against these remembered instances. In addition, the exemplar view accounts for people’s knowledge of withincategory variation because they are aware of specific instances. People know that most American presidents were elected into office but that only a handful became president by default: Andrew Johnson after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and Lyndon B. Johnson after John F. Kennedy’s, etc. Again, the prototype view acknowledges that people know of variability when it comes to presidents but posits that people gloss over this variability to form a prototype of the presidency as an elected office. People’s understanding of withincategory variability allows them to appreciate the correlation between certain features in a category. For example, they are aware that presidents who were not popularly elected into office tended to have been vice presidents. For our purposes, leader images, whether they come from prototypes and schemas, or constitute a set of exemplars, will appear together for the remainder of the chapter; their dissimilarities matter less than what they have in common. These mental representations demonstrate the perceiver as an active observer, who makes sense of, constructs impressions of, and evaluates leaders. People use prototypes or exemplars as comparison standards against which new instances are contrasted and possibly classified as category members, activating schematic representations of that category. Subsequently, they rely on the activated schema to make inferences about the stimulus: filling in missing details with schema-consistent information; interpreting ambiguous information as schema-consistent; and directing attention to schemainconsistent information, in order to dedicate special processing, for example. These attentional, interpretational, and retrieval processes usually take place without conscious effort by the perceiver. In person perception, people employ some combination of these representations (Smith & Medin, 1981), and leader perception is one example. Applied to leadership, implicit leader theories draw on these stored concepts. People hold implicit leadership theories (ILTs; Calder, 1977; Kenney, Schwartz-Kenney, & Blascovich, 1996; Offermann, Kennedy, & Wirtz, 1994; Phillips & Lord, 1981), which specify the characteristics and behaviors that leaders should exhibit. Leadership categorization theory (Lord, Foti, & Phillips, 1982; Lord, Foti, & de Vader, 1984) examines recognition-based leadership perceptual processes in which ILTs are used to categorize targets as leaders. When a perceiver encounters an individual in a leadership position or a target individual who displays schema-consistent or prototypical qualities of a leader, these leader images are activated and affect the perceiver’s further expectations of the target as well as the subjective experience of the interaction (Foti & Lord, 1987; Kenney et al., 1996; Rush & Russell, 1988). Thus, leaders are recognized based on how well they fit into perceivers’

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expectations of a leader. Once perceivers recognize a leader’s prototypical traits and categorize the target as a leader, categorization affects attention, encoding, and retrieval of schema-consistent information such that it biases subsequent behavioral expectations and responsibility attributions, even if they are inaccurate (Foti & Lord, 1987; Lord et al., 1984). Another commonality among these representations is their twodimensional content, not always self-evident but extractable. We apply social cognitive findings on person perception to leader images in prototypical trait studies and contingency studies, both of which reveal two underlying dimensions. We now turn to the content of these leader representations.

CORE DIMENSIONS IN PERSON PERCEPTION If people have prior knowledge—and therefore expectations—about leaders, what exactly are their expectations? To answer this question, we look at person perception more generally, as we did with leader images. In the latter half of the twentieth century, across a wide variety of different social science disciplines and research groups, a similar pair of dimensions recurred: one revolving around the theme of competence (e.g., ability, intelligence) and another revolving around warmth (e.g., trustworthiness, sociability). In early person perception research, warm-cold emerged as a primary dimension (Asch, 1946), and contrasted with competence-related adjectives (Hamilton & Fallot, 1974); multidimensional scaling of trait descriptions replicated these dimensions (Rosenberg, Nelson, & Vivekananthan, 1968). Group research discovered the same two dimensions—labeled task and social—in describing small group interactions, although they added a third, non-trait-based dimension: sheer amount of interpersonal interaction (Bales, 1970). Likewise, personality psychology discovered two modes of being in the world, agency and communion (Bakan, 1956), which soon appeared in gender research as masculine and feminine, respectively (Carlson, 1971; Spence, Helmreich, & Holahan, 1979). Subsequent work built on Bakan’s research to identify comparable dimensions of self-profitability (e.g., confident, ambitious) and other-profitability (e.g., tolerant, trustworthy) (Peeters, 1983), which appear in both interpersonal perception (Vonk, 1999; Wojciszke, 1997) and intergroup perception (Phalet & Poppe, 1997). These two dimensions again appear prominently in the Stereotype Content Model (SCM; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick & Xu, 2002; Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007). In the SCM, social perception immediately answers two key questions. The first reveals concern about the target’s warmth: Are the other’s intentions good or bad toward me (and my group)? The second question reveals another primary concern about the target’s competence: Is the person able or unable to enact these intentions? The answers to these questions result in four general


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images of the target: warm and competent; warm and incompetent; not trustworthy and competent; neither trustworthy nor competent. The model further posits that the target’s status strongly predicts competence assessments; a similar element appears in leader images (see below). And, perceived cooperation predicts warmth assessments; leaders who cooperate and do not exploit their subordinates are also seen as warm. In a series of experiments, manipulating interpersonal status and cooperation within a team led, respectively, to perceived competence and warmth (Russell & Fiske, in press). Useful in various instances of intergroup perception (Clausell & Fiske, 2005; Cuddy, Norton, & Fiske, 2005; Eckes, 2002; Lee & Fiske, 2006), the SCM also applies to leader images, which (1) reveal these two recurring dimensions, and (2) involve factors (cooperation, power, status) that also closely relate to attributions of warmth and competence. We suggest that the SCM provides one way to organize the various findings from leadership research into a manageable framework. Many of these findings fit into a two-dimensional structure, one dimension akin to warmth, and one akin to competence.

CONTROVERSY: NO UNIVERSAL LEADER IMAGE IN THE FACE OF CONTEXT SENSITIVITY? Researchers have noted many mixed and unclear results in leadership research, rendering it difficult to find consensus in leader images (Chemers, 2000). In addition, it remains unclear how perceivers account for the range of contextual factors when they think about leadership, which suggests that no prototypical leader image exists (Lord, Brown, Harvey, & Hall, 2001). One theory argues that the individual perceived to be most prototypical of a particular group, as opposed to one who resembles a generic prototypical leader image, is attributed, ascribed, or conferred leadership (see social identity theory of leadership; Hogg, 2001). The implication is that leader images are group-specific and that single-prototype-based leadership research may leave some gaps. Further, other studies suggest people’s prototypes differ based on, and as a result of, their specific experiences with leaders (Nye & Simonetta, 1996). That people’s own experiences provide the meaning of leadership and expectations about leaders implies that, indeed, there is no consensus of a prototypical leader. This is not surprising given the context-sensitive nature of leadership. Certainly, some factors moderate leader images, of which culture and gender are two of the most common and influential (Chemers, 2000). For the purpose of understanding the underlying patterns in leader

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image content despite these moderators, we briefly explore the impact of culture and gender. Cross-national studies show that leader prototypic traits vary systematically at societal, organizational, and task levels (Bayazit, 2004). While particular prototypical traits may be unique, one can extract a general pattern of warmth-related and competence-related dimensions. For example, a traditional Latin American leader prototype is a leader who is autocratic, directive, relationship-oriented, assertive, and aggressive; seldom delegates work or uses teams; prefers formal top-down communication; and avoids conflict (Romero, 2004). We emphasize two general themes across these traits: showing relationship concerns and avoiding conflict compose an interpersonally oriented dimension, and being autocratic, directive, and assertive compose a task-oriented dimension, similar to competence. Gender also moderates leader images. Lay theories of leadership and stereotypes about leaders include characteristics and behaviors that resemble stereotypically masculine traits (Miner, 1993; Powell, 1988). Descriptive (what men are like) and prescriptive (what men should be like) stereotypes of men depict them as assertive, confident, aggressive, agentic, and possessing selfdirection (e.g., Williams & Best, 1990). Overall, men are, and should be, competent, as are leaders, revealing a perceived fit between stereotypical male attributes and expected leadership qualities (Heilman, 2001). In addition, two major differences expected of men and women leaders align with gender stereotypes (for a review, see Eagly & Johnson, 1990). First, people expect men to be task-oriented (or higher on the Initiating Structure; see below) and women to be relationship-oriented (or higher on the Consideration Structure; see below). Second, they expect men to lead autocratically, and women, democratically. But contrary to perceivers’ expectations for male versus female leaders, there is no gender difference in task versus relationship orientations in organizational studies, although there is a gender difference in survey and laboratory studies—women are more relationally oriented and democratic in their approach to leadership. The findings are again mixed, depending on the type of setting. But one way to interpret these findings is to see the pattern (warmth and competence) in how images interact with context. The two dimensions persist across the different studies. The net effect is that the gender of the leader creates unique contingencies in the perception of the leader, along warmth and competence dimensions. In gender stereotypes, the counterpart to the stereotypic competent male is a stereotypically warm female: descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes of women reveal that people expect and prefer women to be nice, kind, sensitive, and nurturing, among other things (e.g., Heilman, 2001; Prentice & Carranza, 2002). Again, we see warmth and competence. For the remainder of the chapter, we focus on these two dimensions across various


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examples of two types of leadership research: trait studies and contingency research.

LEADER IMAGES IN TRAIT STUDIES PARALLEL PERSON PERCEPTION’S PRIMARY DIMENSIONS Studies of actual leaders produce a competence theme and a warmth theme. Early studies of emergent leadership show that people with different personalities take on one of two leadership roles: task leader and socioemotional leader (Bales, 1958), fitting the competence-warmth dimensions of social cognition research. In a study on one specific political figure, Polish respondents ascribed various personality traits to their current president (Wojciszke & Klusek, 1996). These ratings produced three factors: competence, morality, and likability. A competence factor consisted of traits such as ingenious and clever. One can see that the other two factors, morality and likability, estimate a warm person. Traits that made up the morality factor were fair, honest, sincere, righteous, and unselfish. Traits that made up the likable factor were good-looking and pleasant. There were also overlaps between these two factors: modest and likable were related to both. For ideal leader traits, Americans also hold a prototypic image (competent and trustworthy) of a president (Kinder, Peters, Abelson, & Fiske, 1980). In this study, people chose the six most important attributes for an ideal president from a list of 32 traits (16 good, 16 bad) and 32 behaviors (16 good, 16 bad). Selected items referred to success and competence-related traits (e.g., smart, not unstable) and behaviors (e.g., provide strong leadership; not get into unnecessary wars), and political trustworthiness, exemplified through traits (e.g., warm, not power-hungry) and behaviors (e.g., communicate openly with the people, not use office for personal gain). In work teams, organizational researchers identify Initiating Structure and Consideration as the two predominant dimensions in describing leader behavior (Fleishman, 1953; Halpin & Winer, 1957). These two dimensions interact with work outcomes: a leader’s provision of task-related guidance and socioemotional support impact subordinate motivation and performance (see path-goal theory of leader effectiveness; House, 1971). (For more contingency theories, see next section.) If we examine these two dimensions, we see that they approximate competence and warmth dimensions. Initiation is equivalent to the competence dimension in person perception. It refers to a leader who uses standard operating procedures, criticizes poor work, and emphasizes high levels of performance. These behaviors are related to leaders’ focus on building a structure for task accomplishment, being directive, and assigning tasks (specifying procedures to be followed, clarifying expectations of subordinates, and

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scheduling work to be done). This dimension includes planning, organizing, directing, and controlling. Consideration fits the warmth dimension. It entails leaders showing concern for feelings of subordinates, making sure that minority viewpoints are considered in decision making, and attempting to reduce conflict in the work environment. These behaviors relate to a concern with positive group morale and follower satisfaction: being supportive and helpful, and generally creating an environment of warmth by doing such things as being friendly and approachable, looking out for the personal welfare of the group, and doing little things for subordinates. To be sure, some theories of leader images analyze more than these two primary dimensions. A literature review of early studies on leadership traits found that leadership was associated with six general factors: capacity, achievement, responsibility, participation, status, and situation (Stogdill, 1948). Three of the factors—capacity, achievement, and responsibility—may relate to competence traits. Capacity refers to traits such as intelligence, alertness, and originality; achievement refers to a leader’s scholarship and knowledge; responsibility includes demonstration of dependability, initiative, and persistence. Thus, these three factors consist of characteristics that researchers have found to constitute competence. Status also typically relates to competence. Other characteristics could compose warmth. Participation refers to sociability, cooperation, and adaptability, while situation refers to a leader’s interaction with followers’ skills, needs, and interests. In a more recent study, six factors represented leader prototypic traits. Again, some relate most to competence. Intelligence (e.g., intelligent, clever), dedication (e.g., dedicated, disciplined), and strength (e.g., strong, forceful) are prototypic, whereas tyranny (e.g., domineering, power-hungry) and masculinity (e.g., male, masculine) were deemed unprototypical. Other factors relate to warmth such as sensitivity (e.g., sympathetic, sensitive), attractiveness (e.g., attractive, classy), and charisma (e.g., charismatic, inspiring; Offermann et al., 1994). Thus, one could summarize leader prototype traits as following the same dimensions as the vast majority of person perception and group perception research.

SITUATION-CONTINGENT (OR PROCESS-ORIENTED) LEADERSHIP RESEARCH CORROBORATES SOCIAL COGNITION RESEARCH FINDINGS Leadership operates in the context of situational parameters such as specific groups, genders, and cultures. But the contingency models that follow show that the two core social cognition dimensions are important, in


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concordance with the leader image studies above. These two dimensions are the ones that interact with follower or situational characteristics. One contingency theory looks at how these dimensions contribute to leadership legitimacy in the eyes of followers. The ‘‘idiosyncrasy credit’’ model of innovative leadership (Hollander, 1958) argues that competence and trustworthiness (through demonstrating loyalty to group values) help an individual gain status in his or her group. A social exchange concept, the theory points to the key role of these two dimensions in helping the leader earn ‘‘idiosyncrasy credits,’’ which can then be accumulated and exchanged for innovative actions down the road. An individual who demonstrates competence and trustworthiness early on reaps the rewards of receiving legitimacy as the leader. Still another contingency theory emphasizes the role of task-related competence and warmth. According to the Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness, the interaction between the leader ’s primary concern (task accomplishments or interpersonal relations) and the degree of leader situational control determines effective performance. Effective performance results from task-motivated leaders in situations with either very low or very high control, or from relationship-oriented leaders in situations with moderate control (Fiedler, 1993). The leader’s task and interpersonal motivations are measured through the Least Preferred Co-worker Scale (LPC), which assesses the leader’s view of his or her least favorite co-worker (‘‘the one person with whom you have had the most difficulty in getting the job done’’) on 18 bipolar scales of personality traits (e.g., friendly–unfriendly) (Fiedler, 1964). People with low LPC scores are task-motivated; they show concern for getting the job done. They tell people what to do, are punitive, and are not too concerned about others’ feelings. These leaders emphasize effective and competent task performance. People with high LPC scores, on the other hand, tend to be considerate, provide rewards, are nondirective, and invite subordinate participation. These leaders show greater concern with interpersonal relationships.

CONCLUSION People’s leader images are both generic—what they expect of leaders in general—and contingent—what they expect of particular leaders in particular settings as a result of culture, gender, and social group, among other contextual variables. Leadership, from a social cognition perspective, entails the interplay among a variety of expectations, but some core principles apply, such as the recurring dimensions of competence and warmth expectations. Although the leader image literature may appear incoherent and limit the idea of universal leader images, we stress two points: that prototypes and

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exemplars are context sensitive, and that two main dimensions appear in most of these representations.

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7 Seeing and Being a Leader: The Perceptual, Cognitive, and Interpersonal Roots of Conferred Influence DONELSON R. FORSYTH AND JUDITH L. NYE

Are leaders intelligent or unintelligent, outgoing or introverted, understanding or insensitive, cooperative or inflexible, strict or undisciplined? Group members answer these questions by drawing on their beliefs about leaders. These implicit leadership theories, or ILTs, are intuitive assumptions about the naturally occurring relationships among various traits, behaviors, and characteristics associated with leadership, and evidence suggests that they often influence who emerges as a leader and how that leader is perceived and evaluated. Each person’s ILT, depending on past experiences and cultural background, may include some idiosyncratic elements, but most people expect leaders to be dynamic, conscientious people with superior intellectual, social, and motivational skills. ILTs generally help followers process information efficiently, but ILTs can distort perceptions and interfere with identification of the best leader for a given situation. Biases against leaders who are women, for example, may be rooted in followers’ implicit assumptions about men, women, and leadership. Because leaders’ endorsement by followers depends on how followers perceive them, skilled leaders tailor their self-presentations to match their followers’ ILT-based expectations. In 1968 Henry Kissinger did not think that Richard M. Nixon, the newly elected U.S. president, could ever succeed as a world leader. Kissinger was

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confident that he knew what it took to be a good leader, and those preconceptions did not mesh with what he knew about Nixon’s intellect, skill, and personality (Kissinger, 1979). But when they met in a private conference, Nixon disconfirmed Kissinger’s long-held expectations. They discussed trade relations, nuclear weapons, and the war in Vietnam, and by the end of the conference, Kissinger changed the way he thought of Nixon: ‘‘I was struck by his perceptiveness and knowledge so at variance with my previous image of him’’ (1979, p. 12). Later Kissinger would agree to join his staff when Nixon asked him. This historic encounter highlights the cognitive side of leadership. Leadership is a profoundly interpersonal process whereby cooperating individuals influence and motivate others to promote the attainment of group and individual goals, but perceptual and cognitive processes sustain these social outcomes. A cognitive approach to leadership recognizes that people are active processors of information about the social situations they face. When people meet for the first time, they quickly appraise each others’ potential as leaders, and within the first few minutes those with more potential are permitted to exert more influence over the group than others. When viewers watch politicians engage in debate before elections, they intuitively appraise each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. In corporate settings employees take note of their bosses’ words and deeds, and over time come to a relatively stable conclusion about their strengths and weaknesses. Few of us ever have the chance to meet a president-elect, but all of us actively seek, process, and store information about the leaders who surround us. What mental processes lie at the core of people’s perceptions of leaders? We explore this question here, with a particular focus on the cognitive mechanisms that perceivers rely on as they formulate their impressions of each leader and potential leader they encounter. As sages have long realized and researchers have recently confirmed empirically, people do not passively absorb information from each new situation they face. They are, instead, mentally prepared for the task of social perception, with each new experience observed and interpreted within a context provided by preexisting expectations, goals, plans, preconceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and so on. Kissinger, for example, gathered information about the president-elect during their conversation, but his previous experiences with leaders had written deeply on his mind’s model of leaders and leadership. Here we briefly review the way that intuitive mental models about leaders and leadership work to shape both the way people perceive those who influence them and the way leaders present themselves to those they lead (see, too, Schyns & Meindl, 2005).

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SEEING LEADERS: IMPLICIT LEADERSHIP THEORIES (ILTS) Most people think that they will know a leader when they see one, because they intuitively assume that leaders possess certain qualities. Are leaders intelligent or unintelligent? Outgoing or introverted? Task-oriented or indecisive? Cooperative or Machiavellian? Strong or weak? People readily answer these questions by drawing on their implicit leadership theories (ILTs), which are their tacit beliefs about the traits, qualities, and characteristics leaders possess. These beliefs are described as implicit because these intuitive assumptions are usually unrecognized rather than stated explicitly. These beliefs are called theories because, like theories developed by experts and scientists, these cognitive frameworks include law-like generalities about leadership and more specific hypotheses about the types of qualities that characterize most leaders. What qualities, skills, and characteristics are part of people’s ILTs? When Eden and Leviatan (1975) first examined this question by asking people to describe a leader they had never met, they discovered that people’s ratings converged on certain common qualities pertaining to structuring the work to be done (e.g., maintains high standards, offers to solve problems) and consideration for the relations with and between members (e.g., is friendly and easy to approach, encourages teamwork). Lord and his colleagues, across a series of studies, consistently found that people’s ratings in a variety of settings coalesce around these same themes of initiating structure for the task and concern for relations (e.g., Rush, Thomas, & Lord, 1977). In our own research (Nye & Forsyth, 1991) we, too, have found that people associate leadership with instrumentality (analytical, task-oriented, problem-solving) and social sensitivity (egalitarian, positive, extroverted). ILTs also include more specific, trait-level qualities, such as integrity and competence (Chemers, 1997), decisiveness (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005), and willingness to shape group goals and norms (Den Hartog, House, Hanges, Ruiz-Quintanilla, & Dorfman, 1999). Lord, Foti, and De Vader (1984), in their analysis of people’s perceptions of leaders in various domains (e.g., military, political, educational, media, minority), identified ten key qualities: dedicated, goal-oriented, informed, charismatic, decisive, responsible, intelligent, determined, organized, and verbally skilled. Offermann, Kennedy, and Wirtz’s (1994) research on this issue revealed sensitivity, dedication, tyranny, charisma, attractiveness, masculinity, intelligence, and strength as important qualities in ILTs. Epitropaki and Martin (2004) refined the list of Offerman et al. (1994) through confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations modeling. They identified four key leadership qualities—sensitivity, intelligence, dedication, and dynamism—that were relatively consistent across


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time and contexts, as well as some qualities that are associated with poor, ineffective leadership (tyrannical and masculine). The culture where one lives also influences the kinds of qualities that become embedded in one’s ILT, but despite these culture-centered nuances there is a striking degree of agreement across people worldwide. Researchers in the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) Program, for example, asked 15,022 managers in 62 different countries around the world to describe desirable and undesirable characteristics in a leader (House & Javidan, 2004). They then identified those qualities that nearly all of the individuals agreed were critical by calculating indexes of agreement for each country: visionary (acts with foresight, plans ahead), inspirational (dynamic, positive, encouraging, confidence builder, motivational), integruous (trustworthy, just, honest), team-focused (informed, communicative, coordinator, team builder), diplomatic (win-win problem solver, effective bargainer), administratively competent, decisive, and performance-oriented. The GLOBE researchers also identified some qualities that were specific to a particular country or region. For example, whereas most people surveyed expected effective leaders to be charismatic (visionary/inspirational) and team-focused, in some cultures these qualities were stressed more than in others, and these variations reflected broader cultural differences in emphasis on power relations, tolerance of uncertainty, and masculinity (e.g., Hofstede, 1980). Highly collectivistic societies, for example, favored charismatic leaders more so than more individualistic ones. Cultures that displayed higher levels of gender egalitarianism and lower levels of uncertainty avoidance stressed participative, team-focused leadership. Those individuals who lived in cultures marked by hierarchical power structures and greater levels of elitism were more tolerant of self-centered leaders who were status conscious and formalistic. The GLOBE researchers also discovered that certain specific traits were highly valued in some cultures but dismissed as harmful to leadership in others. Risk taking, for example, was considered a quality that enhanced leadership effectiveness in some countries, but in others this quality was viewed as a quality that would disqualify a person from a leadership role. Other culturally contingent ILT traits included ambitious, cunning, elitist, intuitive, micromanaging, procedural, ruling, self-effacing, subdued, and willful (Dorfman, Hanges, & Brodbeck, 2004). ILTs are also sensitive to the specifics of a given situation. Lord et al. (1984) point out that some leadership traits, such as persistence, likability, and charisma, are considered to be essential qualities only in particular contexts, such as politics, business, or sports. Moreover, people’s ILTs appear to augment and discount specific qualities to take into account the kinds of qualities a

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leader will need to deal with a particular leadership setting. When people are asked to describe the qualities a person needed to be successful as a CEO of a large company and those that are needed for skillful management or supervision of a department, their ILTs shift accordingly to take into account these variations in situational demand (Den Hartog & Koopman, 2005). Similarly, different qualities are expected in a newly appointed group leader in comparison to one who has occupied this role for some time (Kenney, SchwartzKenney, & Blascovich, 1996). Finally, evidence suggests that individual differences also play a role in leadership perceptions. Men’s and women’s ILTs differ to some degree, in that sensitivity is less central and power more central in men’s ILTs (Epitropaki & Martin, 2004). Children are more likely to emphasize task-related competences as key determinants of leadership, more so than concern for people (Ayman-Nolley & Ayman, 2005). Individuals who are leaders themselves stress dynamism (dynamic, strong, energetic) in their ILTs more than those who are not leaders of a group or organization (Epitropaki & Martin, 2004). Moreover, our ILTs change over time, as we have more contact with leaders (Lord & Maher, 1991). These studies suggest that ILTs, like any cognitive process occurring in a complex social situation, are highly sensitive to interpersonal context and the dynamic interplay between participants. However, even though ILTs often shift to fit a particular setting, in most settings members expect that their leaders will have certain qualities that set them apart from others. In general, they expect that leaders will be dynamic people who are conscientious about pursuing group goals by drawing on an ample supply of intellect, enthusiasm, interpersonal skill, and integrity.

ILTS AND LEADERSHIP APPRAISALS People would have considerable difficulty navigating a range of social settings if they did not have an accurate conception of the qualities to consider when identifying a leader. Without ILTs, followers would be unable to identify whose influence they should accept or situations where they should step forward into a leadership role. Asch (1946, p. 258), a pioneer in the field of person perception, explained: We look at a person and immediately a certain impression of his character forms itself in us. A glance, a few spoken words are sufficient to tell us a story about a highly complex matter. We know that such impressions form with remarkable rapidity and great ease. Subsequent observations may enrich or upset our first view, but we can no more prevent its rapid growth than we can avoid perceiving a given visual object or hearing a melody.


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Thus, ILTs are extensions of often-practiced habits of perception that we use, on a daily basis, to make sense of our social world. In his information processing theory of leadership perceptions, Lord suggests that ILTs provide followers with a psychological standard or prototype they can use to distinguish between effective and ineffective leaders and leaders and followers (Lord, 2005; Lord & Maher, 1991). If, for example, a follower’s ILT maintains that a prototypical leader should be bold, energetic, and daring, then she will likely rate an enthusiastic leader more positively than a low-key consensus builder. In contrast, if the follower believes that a leader should be considerate and reflective, then he will respond more positively to one who shows concern for others and deliberates extensively before making a decision. As the prototype-matching hypothesis suggests, followers evaluate their leaders and potential leaders by noting the actions and characteristics of the individuals in their group, comparing their findings to their implicit leadership theories, and then favoring those individuals who most closely match their intuitive conception of an ideal or prototypical leader (Lord & Maher, 1991). Researchers have found support for the prototype-matching hypothesis in a number of studies using various methods. Lord et al. (1984), for example, asked people to evaluate one of three hypothetical leaders. One, the prototypical leader, displayed qualities that were congruent with most people’s ILTs: he set goals, provided directive information, talked with subordinates a great deal, and identified problems that needed a solution. The second leader displayed qualities that were inconsistent with most ILTs; he admitted mistakes, paid little attention to details, was critical without reason, and withheld rewards. A third leader displayed positive qualities that were neither consistent nor inconsistent with most ILTs. This leader sought out information, clarified his attitudes, and prevented conflicts. As the prototypematching hypothesis predicts, the prototypical leader was judged to be more effective than the atypical leader, with match to ITL explaining the majority of the variance in leadership evaluations. We (Nye & Forsyth, 1991) extended these findings by asking followers to judge the leadership effectiveness and collegiality of an administrator with leadership responsibilities during a simulated performance appraisal review. Recognizing that different individuals’ ILTs may vary in their inclusion of one trait or another, we first measured followers’ beliefs about leaders using a series of adjectives drawn from Bales’ Systematic Multiple Level Observation of Groups inventory, or SYMLOG (Bales, Cohen, & Williamson, 1979). Followers used the adjectives from SYMLOG to describe their own personal view of an ideal business or small organization leader, and we determined their relative emphasis on dominance (active, assertive, talkative), social sensitivity (egalitarian, positive, extroverted), and instrumental control

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(analytical, task-oriented, problem-solving). The followers were then given the annual review materials for a leader who was described, by his or her own supervisor, as hardworking, competent, and creative. For some followers these materials suggested that the leader was strong on initiating structure, but for others the review stressed the leader’s interpersonal, socioemotional skills. The prototype-matching hypothesis was supported, particularly for the socioemotional component of followers’ ILTs. As shown in Figure 7-1, an outgoing, socioemotional leader was viewed more positively by followers whose ILTs emphasized the importance of people skills, but less positively by those whose intuitive theories did not stress this aspect of leadership. The prototype-matching hypothesis was also supported for the remaining two dimensions—dominance and instrumental control—but only for men in the study. Men who believed that an ideal leader should be dominant and high in instrumental control rated the task-oriented leader more positively than the socioemotional leader. Some of the women, in contrast, rated a leader who disconfirmed their ILTs more positively than those who confirmed their ILTs. Specifically, women who did not emphasize dominance or instrumental control rated the task-oriented leader more positively than a socioemotional one. Because the discrepancy occurred on the two masculine-oriented power dimensions (dominance and instrumental control) and not the interpersonal dimension of friendliness, women may have been reluctant to use their ILTs in these domains as guides for evaluating a relatively successful leader. Although speculative, this explanation is consistent with other research that suggests that information about a leader’s successfulness plays a key role in shaping leadership perceptions. When leaders have been successful in the past, perceivers expect them to always be successful leaders (Nye, 2005).

Figure 7-1 Mean effectiveness ratings of socioemotional and task leaders by followers who endorsed either high or low friendliness prototypes


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Essentially, performance information is a key perceptual cue that allows perceivers to take an important leap of faith and infer that certain leaders are good. This inference is not surprising, in that we naturally assume that a leader’s primary responsibility is to meet group goals. This inferential process is often called the performance cue effect, and it is well documented in leadership research (Lord & Maher, 1991). For example, leaders of successful groups were rated as more effective and collegial than were leaders of unsuccessful groups (Nye & Simonetta, 1996, Study 1), and leaders were judged as being more responsible for group outcomes when the outcomes were positive (Nye, 2002).

ILTS, ACCURACY, AND BIAS A cognitive approach to leadership assumes that followers are information processors who rationally gather information about leaders by using their existing implicit beliefs about leadership as a helpful guide. Yet, research and everyday experience reveal that people’s choices of leaders, and their perceptions of those leaders’ effectiveness, often defy logic. Unfortunately, when individuals first meet as a group and must select one individual to act as their leader, they tend to select the talkative one—even if what he or she says is not particularly clever (Mullen, Salas, & Driskell, 1989). When followers judge leaders who are women, they tend to rate them as less effective compared to men who perform the identical types of behaviors (Eagly & Karau, 2002). When voters must select a leader, they sometimes fall prey to the ‘‘Warren Harding Effect’’—thinking that a handsome candidate has great leadership potential, even when he is thoroughly incompetent (Gladwell, 2005). Thus, although implicit leadership theories can be quite helpful, allowing followers to sift through and organize a welter of information about current or future leaders, they provide this service at a cost. They can bias followers’ perceptions so that they become overly sensitive to information that confirms their initial expectations and ignore information that conflicts with their initial beliefs about leaders. Kissinger, for example, knew that Nixon was a leader, so his ILT about world leaders was primed and ready to be used as a structure for incoming information. Because Kissinger’s ILT included patriotism, he was ready to recognize Nixon’s strong national pride because it was consistent with his expectations. Conversely, he may have forgotten characteristics that are inconsistent with his ILT; since he did not expect a famous leader to be timid or friendly, he may have forgotten that Nixon displayed these qualities. Kissinger ’s ILT may have even distorted his memory; as he wrote his memoirs he may have clearly remembered (confabulated)

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traits, characteristics, and actions that he never even observed (being tough, obsessive). Research provides ample evidence of the biasing effects of ILTs on perceptions of leadership. Foti and Lord (1987), for example, arranged for raters to watch a videotape of a group interaction before asking them to identify behaviors that the leader had or had not performed. As would be expected, when the leader acted in ways that matched raters’ ILTs (prototypical behaviors were present or antiprototypical behaviors were absent), their accuracy and confidence levels were relatively high. However, when leader behavior violated raters’ ILTs (prototypical behaviors were absent or antiprototypical behaviors were present), accuracy suffered. Raters recalled more prototypical behaviors than actually occurred, and did not recall antiprototypical behaviors that occurred. Interestingly, rater confidence was not always a reliable indicator of accuracy, which suggests that biased perceptions may be exacerbated by inflated confidence in them. The biasing influence of ILTs on followers’ perceptions and evaluations of leaders may explain continuing sex differences in leadership. Even though studies of men and women in positions of leadership reveal no convincing evidence of male superiority (Chemers, 1997; Eagly, 2007), evaluative and perceptual biases among group members persist. Both men and women, when surveyed, express a preference for male bosses. When men and women join in so-called leaderless groups, the leader who gradually emerges over time is more often than not a man. When subordinates describe their leaders, they rate leaders who are women as less dominant and less effective than male leaders. Perhaps consequently, women receive lower evaluations and fewer promotions than men even when their performance and behaviors are identical. Eagly’s social-role theory suggests that people’s leadership prototypes are more congruent with their assumptions about the roles men traditionally occupy (Eagly & Karau, 2002). Because women have traditionally been excluded from leadership positions, group members may be more familiar with men in positions of leadership. In consequence, group members may question the leadership ability of women because they view women ‘‘as lacking the stereotypical directive and assertive qualities of good leaders—that is, as not being tough enough or not taking charge’’ (Eagly, 2007, p. 4). Do group members’ ILTs, coupled with their stereotypes about men and women, contribute to their bias against female leaders? We (Forsyth, Heiney, & Wright, 1997) examined this possibility by exposing individuals with differing views about women’s roles to a woman who used either a relationship-oriented leadership style or a task-oriented leadership style. The female leader worked with two men and two women on a series of group and individual tasks in a laboratory setting. The leader, who was selected from among the group members on the basis of her scores on a leadership


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test, was in actuality a confederate of the experimenter. In some groups she enacted a task-oriented leadership style, but in others she focused on the socioemotional side of leadership. Each group included two individuals who were conservative in their attitudes toward the role of women in contemporary society and two more liberal-minded individuals. As the prototype-matching hypothesis would suggest, individuals who possessed more traditional stereotypes about women judged their leader more harshly than individuals whose attitudes were less stereotyped. Conservative participants liked their leaders less than the more liberal group members, and they felt she would be harder to work with. Conservative participants were also more negative than the liberal participants when the leader enacted a relationship-oriented style. They felt such leaders were friendlier, but they nonetheless gave higher effectiveness ratings to the taskoriented leader. Moreover, men exhibited somewhat more prejudice toward the leader.

ILTS AND BEING A LEADER Savvy leaders, recognizing the importance of being seen as having the qualities that qualify them to be leaders, carefully manage the impressions they create in others’ eyes. They do not simply let their followers draw their own conclusions about their strengths and weaknesses. Instead, they usually regulate their outward actions in order to project a particular image. As Calder (1977, p. 202) wrote, ‘‘to teach leadership is to sensitize people to the perceptions of others.’’ The inconsistency between ILTs and people’s stereotypes about men and women, however, suggests that women are caught in a self-presentational bind when they take on the leadership role. For men the leader image– maintenance process is a relatively straightforward one; the skills and qualities that make up most people’s ILTs are consistent with their stereotypes about men. Women, in contrast, must choose between enacting behaviors that are consistent with their followers’ ILT or their stereotypes about women. We (Forsyth, Schlenker, Leary, & McCown, 1985) investigated this interpersonal dilemma in a study of ad hoc groups working on a series of problemsolving tasks. The members of these groups first completed a face-valid leadership inventory and learned that they had been selected to be the group’s leader on the basis of their responses to the inventory. We told some leaders that their scores indicated they were task-oriented leaders who would be instrumental in helping the group reach its goals. We told others that they were relationship-oriented leaders who were skilled in helping group members work well together. We told still others that they had both of these skill sets. (When subsequently asked if they considered themselves to be task or

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relational, the leaders’ responses indicated that they accepted the feedback as valid.) After receiving the feedback about their leadership skills but before actually getting down to work, the leaders were told that to simulate groups that had been working together for a longer period of time they would be given the chance to exchange personal information about themselves with the other members. The exchange of information would be highly structured, however, with leaders using a series of adjectives to describe themselves to their followers. The adjective list paralleled those used to measure ILTs in other research, and included such qualities as powerful, influential, dominant, skilled (dynamism), self-disclosing, open, moving toward others (social sensitivity), and fair, truthful, responsible, and pleasant (social responsibility). How did these leaders’ present themselves to their followers? Unexpectedly, they did not emphasize the strengths that the leadership inventory told them they possessed. Instead, their claims conformed to traditional expectations based on sex roles rather than leadership roles. The men described themselves as task-oriented, even when they were told that they were socially sensitive and responsible. The women, in contrast, described themselves as socially sensitive and responsible, but not as task-oriented (even when they knew that they were, in fact, highly competent task leaders). Moreover, those leaders who were told that they were task-oriented were more confident when evaluating their chances of success as a leader. Those who believed that they were relationship-oriented leaders doubted their ability to lead their groups. These findings suggest that ILTs and stereotypes about men and women can, in some cases, act as interpersonal self-fulfilling prophecies that guide the self-descriptions and overt self-presentational claims leaders make to their followers. Men, even when they believe they are socially skilled, may nonetheless describe themselves in ways that match the demands of the masculine sex role. Women, in contrast, may discount their task-oriented abilities in their self-presentations by displaying qualities that are more consistent with the feminine sex role. These self-presentations, paired with the prototype-matching process described earlier, result in men being favored as leaders rather than women.

ILTS AND THE EYE OF THE FOLLOWER The strong impact of ILTs on followers’ perceptions raises an intriguing question: Which came first: leaders’ traits and actions or followers’ beliefs about leaders’ traits and actions? For many years researchers who wanted to know how leaders actually behaved did not ask the leaders to describe their


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own actions; they assumed that the leaders’ reports would be too biased and possibly self-aggrandizing. Instead, they turned to those they thought would be a more objective source of information: followers. In the Ohio State University Leadership Studies, for example, investigators asked members of various groups to indicate how many of these behaviors their leaders displayed. They then narrowed down the original nine types of behaviors to two essential components: consideration and initiating structure (Halpin & Winer, 1952). Other researchers using similar procedures confirmed Ohio State’s basic findings, all the while assuming that followers’ reports of what their leaders do were excellent proxies for what their leaders actually did. To know what a leader did on a daily basis, one needed only to ask subordinates to describe their leaders’ actions, and then tally the results. Studies of ILTs, however, suggest that leadership may be in the eye of the beholder—the follower—rather than in the actions of the leader. That is, when researchers ask subordinates to describe their leaders, these ratings may reflect the subordinates’ implicit leadership theories more than their leaders’ actions. Why do individuals, even when judging leaders in remarkably different contexts that should demand widely divergent types of skills, abilities, and actions from leaders, nonetheless tend to report that their leaders are task-focused and relationship-oriented? This is because followers’ implicit leadership theories include these two components (Eden & Leviatan, 1975; Schyns & Meindl, 2005). Thus, consistent with the distinction between task and relationship that is revealed in past research, leadership may rest more in group members’ minds than in leaders’ actual behaviors. Some researchers go so far as to define leadership as a perceptual process rather than a behavioral one; as a social construction, existing solely in the minds of the social thinker. Lord and Maher (1991, p. 11) write: ‘‘we define leadership as the process of being perceived by others as a leader.’’ Do people sometimes see leadership when none actually exists and overlook leadership when they do not expect it? Leadership is, undeniably, partly a perceptual process. People believe in leaders and in leadership, sometimes expressing more faith in the unique qualities of leaders than is warranted by reality. Consider the notion of the charismatic leader. For leaders to be considered charismatic, they must be so recognized by their followers as leaders with unique, almost miraculous, qualities. Charisma, as a concept, originally described a special power given by God to certain individuals. These individuals were capable of performing extraordinary, miraculous feats, and they were regarded as God’s representatives on earth (Weber, 1946). Weber argued that charismatic leaders do not have unique, wondrous powers, but they succeed because their followers think they have unique, wondrous powers. Similarly, Meindl’s research on the ‘‘romance of leadership’’ suggests that people believe so strongly in the concept of leadership that they virtually

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ignore the influence of other potential factors and focus on leaders as causal agents. This romantic view of leadership ignores both the limited influence wielded by most leaders and the many other factors that influence a group and its dynamics (Meindl, 1995; Meindl, Ehrlich, & Dukerich, 1985). In her research, Emrich (1999) found that this faith in leaders applies to potential leaders as well as incumbents. Particularly when they were members of turbulent groups, people saw leadership potential where none existed. They exaggerated the potential of possible leaders, misremembered crucial details, recalled their future leader having performed any number of leaderconsistent behaviors, and forgot any past behaviors that conflicted with their image of the person as a suitable leader. Thus, trying situations can conspire with ILTs to create leaders both interpersonally and psychologically.

SEEING LEADERSHIP AND BEING A LEADER In the years since Eden and Leviatan (1975) coined the term ‘‘implicit leadership theory’’ (apparently by accident; Eden & Leviatan, 2005), the preponderance of evidence suggests that ILTs matter. Researchers have known for years that leadership cannot be understood by examining only the qualities and actions of the leader, for followers have a significant say in the leadership process, and their allegiance to their leader can make or break a group. Although few would accept the claim that leadership exists solely as a perception, most researchers would acknowledge the critical role that followers’ perceptions play in the leadership process. If individuals’ ILTs favor individuals who are dynamic, socially sensitive, dedicated, or just highly vocal, then people with these qualities will rise to positions of authority in the group— even when these qualities are not relevant to group needs. People will find that they are led by people they deserve, or, at least, by people they expect. If ILTs were like actual scientific theories, individuals would discard them when they failed to explain who is and who is not an effective leader. But because they are implicit, ILTs are rarely subjected to scrutiny or revised. At the same time, social thinkers are capable of breaking out of the cognitive miser mode when properly motivated, opening up their implicit theories to revision and engaging in more complex and thorough patterns of thinking. This view explains why Henry Kissinger was able to revise his assessment of Richard Nixon and accept the president’s offer to join his administration. If he had been blinded by his ILT, he would have never been able to see that some of Nixon’s most nonleaderlike qualities were his great strengths. Kissinger ’s cognitive transformation provides a standard for followers to emulate. Although they may find that they are drawn to leaders who match their ILTs, they should be aware that their beliefs about their leaders may be based on outmoded ways of thinking about the leadership process, and be


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willing to give leaders who do not fit their traditional conception of a leader an opportunity to take on the role.

REFERENCES Asch, S. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258–290. Ayman-Nolley, S., & Ayman, R. (2005). Children’s implicit theories of leadership. In B. Schyns & J. R. Meindl (Eds.), Implicit leadership theories: Essays and explorations (pp. 227–274). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Bales, R. F., Cohen, S. F., & Williamson, S. A. (1979). SYMLOG: A system for the multiple level observation of groups. New York: The Free Press. Calder, B. J. (1977). An attribution theory of leadership. In B. M. Staw & G. R. Salancik (Eds.), New directions in organizational behavior (pp. 179–204). Chicago: St. Clair Press. Chemers, M. M. (1997). An integrative theory of leadership. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Den Hartog, D. N., House, R. J., Hanges, P. J., Ruiz-Quintanilla, S. A., & Dorfman, P. W. (1999). Culture specific and cross-culturally generalizable implicit leadership theories: Are the attributes of charismatic/transformational leadership universally endorsed? Leadership Quarterly, 10, 219–258. Den Hartog, D. N., & Koopman, P. L. (2005). Implicit theories of leadership at different hierarchical levels. In B. Schyns & J. Meindl (Eds.), Implicit leadership theories: Essays and explorations (pp. 135–158). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Dorfman, P. W., Hanges, P. J., & Brodbeck, F. C. (2004). Leadership and cultural variation. In R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman, & V. Gupta (Eds.), Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies (pp. 669–719). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Eagly, A. H. (2007). Female leadership advantage and disadvantage: Resolving the contradictions. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 1–12. Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109, 573–598. Eden, D., & Leviatan, U. (1975). Implicit leadership theory as a determinant of the factor structure underlying supervisory behavior scales. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60, 736–741. Eden, D., & Leviatan, U. (2005). From implicit personality theory to implicit leadership theory: A side-trip on the way to implicit organization theory. In B. Schyns & J. R. Meindl (Eds.), Implicit leadership theories: Essays and explorations (pp. 3–14). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Emrich, C. G. (1999). Context effects in leadership perception. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 991–1006. Epitropaki, O., & Martin, R. (2004). Implicit leadership theories in applied settings: Factor structure, generalizability, and stability over time. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 293–310. Forsyth, D. R., Heiney, M. M., & Wright, S. S. (1997). Biases in appraisals of women leaders. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 1, 98–103.

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Forsyth, D. R., Schlenker, B. R., Leary, M. R., & McCown, N. E. (1985). Selfpresentational determinants of sex differences in leadership behavior. Small Group Behavior, 16, 197–210. Foti, R. J., & Lord, R. G. (1987). Prototypes and scripts: The effects of alternative methods of processing information on rating accuracy. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 39, 318–340. Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. New York: Little, Brown and Co. Halpin, A. W., & Winer, B. J. (1952). The leadership behavior of the airplane commander. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Research Foundation. Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Hogan, R., & Kaiser, R. B. (2005). What we know about leadership. Review of General Psychology, 9, 169–180. House, R. J., & Javidan, M. (2004). Overview of GLOBE. In R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman, & V. Gupta (Eds.), Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies (pp. 9–28). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Kenney, R. A., Schwartz-Kenney, B. M., & Blascovich, J. (1996). Implicit leadership theories: Defining leaders described as worthy of influence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 1128–1143. Kissinger, H. (1979). The White House years. New York: Little Brown. Lord, R. G. (2005). Preface: Implicit leadership theory. In B. Schyns & J. R. Meindl (Eds.), Implicit leadership theories: Essays and explorations (pp. ix–xiv). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Lord, R. G., Foti, R. J., & De Vader, C. L. (1984). A test of leadership categorization theory: Internal structure, information processing, and leadership perceptions. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 34, 343–378. Lord, R. G., & Maher, K. J. (1991). Leadership and information processing: Linking perceptions and performance. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, Inc. Meindl, J. R. (1995). The romance of leadership as a follower-centric theory: A social constructionist approach. Leadership Quarterly, 6, 329–341. Meindl, J. R., Ehrlich, S. B., & Dukerich, J. M. (1985). The romance of leadership. Administrative Science Quarterly, 30, 78–102. Mullen, B., Salas, E., & Driskell, J. E. (1989). Salience, motivation, and artifact as contributions to the relation between participation rate and leadership. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 545–559. Nye, J. L. (2002). The eye of the follower: Information processing effects on attributions regarding leaders of small groups. Small Group Research, 33, 337–360. Nye, J. L. (2005). Implicit theories and leaderships in the thick of it: The effects of prototype matching, group setbacks, and group outcomes. In B. Schyns & J. R. Meindl (Eds.), Implicit leadership theories: Essays and explorations (pp. 39–61). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Nye, J. L., & Forsyth, D. R. (1991). The effects of prototype-based biases on leadership appraisals: A test of leadership categorization theory. Small Group Research, 22, 360–379.


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Nye, J. L., & Simonetta, L. G. (1996). Followers’ perceptions of group leaders: The impact of recognition-based and inference-based processes. In J. L. Nye & A. M. Brower (Eds.), What’s social about social cognition? Research on socially shared cognition in small groups (pp. 124–153). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Offerman, L. R., Kennedy, J. K., Jr., & Wirtz, P. W. (1994). Implicit leadership theories: Content, structure, and generalizability. Leadership Quarterly, 5, 43–58. Rush, M. C., Thomas, J. C., & Lord, R. G. (1977). Implicit leadership theory: A potential threat to the internal validity of leader behavior questionnaires. Organizational Behavior & Human Performance, 20, 93–110. Schyns, B., & Meindl, J. R. (Eds.). (2005). Implicit leadership theories: Essays and explorations. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Weber, M. (1946). The sociology of charismatic authority. In H. H. Gert & C. W. Mills (Trans. & Eds.), From Max Weber: Essay in sociology (pp. 245–252). New York: Oxford University Press. (Originally published in 1921.)

8 Presidential Greatness and Its Socio-Psychological Significance: Individual or Situation? Performance or Attribution? DEAN KEITH SIMONTON

The chapter reviews the empirical research on the leadership exhibited by presidents of the United States. This research attempted to identify the predictors of presidential performance as gauged by ‘‘greatness’’ ratings. Obtained from surveys of experts, these ratings represent a strong, stable, and valid consensus on the global performance of these chief executives. A series of studies spanning a 30-year period eventually generated a sixvariable prediction equation that explains between 77 and 83 percent of the variance in presidential greatness for all presidents from Washington to Clinton. The six predictors are as follows: (a) the number of years the president served; (b) the number of years he served as wartime commander in chief; (c) whether or not the administration experienced a major scandal; (d) whether or not the incumbent was the victim of a successful assassination; (e) whether the president was a war hero; and (f) the president’s assessment on a measure of intellectual brilliance. The chapter then treats some methodological issues before turning to a theoretical interpretation of the empirical findings. Any theoretical explanation has to address two distinct questions: First, to what extent does each predictor variable represent an individual or situational factor?

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Second, to what degree do presidential greatness ratings reflect objective leader performance rather than subjective attributions of leadership? Leadership adopts many forms. At one extreme, we might speak of ‘‘little-l’’ leadership. This kind is what appears in everyday decision-making groups, such as a meeting of the local Parent Teacher Association. At the other extreme, we can talk of ‘‘Big-L’’ leadership. Leaders in this category exert the kind of leadership that ‘‘makes history.’’ Their successes (and failures) leave a permanent mark on the course of human events. Such leaders eventually become the subject of biographies, histories, and scholarly evaluations. Big-L leadership can include generals who win major battles, entrepreneurs who found new industries, religious figures who establish new faiths, and political leaders who serve as the heads of state of powerful nations. In the last category we can include dictators of totalitarian states, prime ministers of parliamentary systems, and presidents occupying the executive branch of a tripartite government that also includes legislative and judicial branches. Perhaps the most conspicuous example of the latter is the chief executive who serves as president of the United States. As the most influential leader of one of the world’s most prominent nations, U.S. presidents provide an ideal research site for investigating big-L leadership. It is for this reason that I have devoted over a quarter century to studying those select leaders who have managed to serve in this high office. These studies were devoted to addressing two major theoretical issues— issues that apply to both little-l and Big-L leadership. The first question concerned the relative importance of individual and situational variables. To what extent is leadership a matter of being the ‘‘right person’’ versus being at the ‘‘right place and the right time’’? To what degree do they actively shape events rather than being passively shaped by those events? The second question concerns the relative influence of objective performance and subjective attribution. Is leadership largely rooted in the actual leadership behavior of the leader? Or is it mostly situated in the ‘‘eyes of the beholders’’—in the followers who are engaged in making attributions that may or may not closely correspond with objective acts of leadership? In this chapter I wish to report the progress that has been made in addressing these two issues with respect to the chief executives of the United States of America. I begin by discussing the main criterion by which presidential leadership is assessed. I then turn to a treatment of the main predictors of this specific criterion. After a brief methodological discussion, I close by examining what these predictors imply with respect to the individual-situational and performance-attribution questions.

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PRESIDENTIAL GREATNESS The leadership of U.S. presidents can be judged by numerous standards (Bailey, 1966; Simonton, 1987b). Most concern the highly specialized duties laid out in the nation’s Constitution. How well does the president carry out his responsibility as commander in chief? How well does he execute the laws of the land? How good are the president’s appointments to high offices, such as ambassadors, cabinet officials, and federal judgeships? Each of these criteria can then be given an appropriate operational definition. For instance, presidents might be judged according to the manner in which they used their veto power to shape legislation passed by Congress (Simonton, 1987a). How many bills did they veto and how many of these vetoed bills were overturned by a two-thirds majority in both houses? The major problem with using these specialized measures of presidential leadership is that they do not strongly correlate with each other (Simonton, 1987b, 1993). One of the reasons why they do not highly correlate is that each specific measure may not apply to all presidents. For example, a president cannot demonstrate leadership as commander in chief unless the nation is at war. These problems have led many researchers to focus on a more global criterion of leadership, namely, presidential greatness (e.g., Deluga, 1997, 1998; McCann, 1990; Nice, 1984). This assessment represents an overall judgment of the chief executive’s performance, an assessment that presumably integrates all relevant criteria into a single score. In fact, the chief executives have been subjected to this very kind of systematic evaluation for well over 60 years. For example, experts in the American presidency will often offer their personal judgments of the relative standing of various occupants of that office. Thus, Rossiter (1956) rated the presidents from Washington to Eisenhower, deleting only three presidents who had extremely short terms in office (William Harrison, Zachary Taylor, and James Garfield). He identified eight presidents as ‘‘great’’ (e.g., George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt) and five presidents as ‘‘failures’’ (e.g., Warren Harding, Ulysses S. Grant, and James Buchanan). A little later Sokolsky (1964) extended the ratings to John F. Kennedy (deleting W. Harrison and Garfield but not Taylor), and placed Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lincoln at the top, Grant and Harding at the bottom. Only a couple of years later Bailey (1966) offered his own assessments in his book specifically titled Presidential Greatness. Washington was deemed the greatest, Andrew Johnson the worst. Naturally, it is easy to raise the objection that these judgments represent only a single person’s opinion. How can we be assured that the assessments do not reflect personal or political biases? This subjectivity problem can be circumvented by surveying multiple experts rather than relying on the views of any single expert. Given enough


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survey respondents, the bias of any one expert will be counterbalanced by the contrary biases of other experts. The first researcher to adopt this superior method was Schlesinger (1948), who had 55 historians rate all presidents up to Franklin Roosevelt, with the exception of W. Harrison and Garfield. Lincoln came in first and Harding last. Later Schlesinger (1962) repeated the process, this time using 75 experts and extending the presidents to Eisenhower. Again, Lincoln came out on the top, Harding at the bottom. Since Schlesinger’s pioneering surveys, the presidential greatness ratings have expanded by having even more experts evaluate ever more chief executives. For example, Murray and Blessing (1983) had 846 diverse experts rate all presidents from Washington to Nixon (again with the exclusion of W. Harrison and Garfield) and obtained greatness ratings along an interval scale (see also Murray & Blessing, 1988). As in Schlesinger’s polls, Lincoln rated the highest, Harding the lowest. Indeed, despite some disagreements here and there, the entire set of greatness ratings exhibit a remarkable degree of consensus (Simonton, 1986b, 1987b, 2006). This consensus was first demonstrated by Kynerd (1971) using the evaluations published by Schlesinger (1948, 1962), Rossiter (1956), Sokolsky (1964), and Bailey (1966), where necessary translating qualitative judgments into ordinal scales. The correlations among the five ratings ranged from .734 to .963. Moreover, if Bailey’s assessments are omitted, then the correlations range from .894 to .963, an even better degree of agreement. The deletion of Bailey’s ratings can be justified on the grounds that his judgments were published as an explicit criticism of the earlier ratings, and thus may have a contrarian bias. Later assessments also correlate with these earlier ratings. For example, the Ridings and McIver (1997) survey of 719 experts produced ratings that correlate .94 with Schlesinger (1948), .92 with Schlesinger (1962), .80 with Rossiter (1956), .78 with Bailey (1966), and .96 with Murray and Blessing (1983; Simonton, 2001). In addition, confirmatory factor analysis demonstrates that alternative greatness measures can be explained using a single latent variable with high factor loadings (Simonton, 1991a). Some research has also given some insight into the components of these global assessments. For instance, Maranell (1970) had 571 historians rate the presidents on seven dimensions: general prestige, administration accomplishments, strength of action, presidential activeness, idealism versus practicality, flexibility, and respondents’ information. The first four items correlate between .89 and .98, and thus can be said to define a greatness factor, a conclusion reinforced by a factor analysis of the same ratings (Wendt & Light, 1976; see also Simonton, 1981). Moreover, this greatness factor correlates .94 with Schlesinger (1948), .93 with Schlesinger (1962), .88 with Rossiter (1956), .94 with Sokolsky (1964), and .72 with Bailey (1966; Simonton, 1981). Hence, presidential greatness appears to involve some combination of general

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prestige, administration accomplishments, strength of action, and presidential activeness.

GREATNESS PREDICTORS Given this strong consensus on the relative leadership merits of the U.S. presidents, what variables account for the variation? Why are some presidents great and others failures? To what extent are any predictor variables individual or situational in nature? Wendt and Light (1976) were the first investigators to attempt to answer this question. Using the greatness factor derived from the Maranell (1970) survey results, they found that these scores correlated positively with wars declared or sanctioned by Congress (r = .57), the number of unilateral military interventions (r = .48), the number of assassination attempts (r = .59), and a number of other predictors. Nonetheless, this investigation suffered from two major limitations: (a) it only looked at recent presidents who were elected to office (n = 15), and (b) it did not conduct a multiple regression analysis but rather merely calculated zero-order correlations. Yet this investigation inspired a series of studies devoted to teasing out the predictors using a larger sample of presidents and implementing more sophisticated analytical strategies. These studies fall into three consecutive decades: the 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s. These decades are set apart not just by the publication dates of the investigations but also by the greatness measures used and the presidents included (e.g., more recent chief executives).

The 1980s The first attempt to advance beyond the Wendt and Light (1976) inquiry was conducted by Simonton (1981). As in their study, greatness was assessed using the general factor derived from the Maranell (1970) survey of 571 historians. A huge database was then compiled regarding a large number of potential predictors. These concerned variables regarding each president’s term in office (e.g., manner of entering and leaving the presidency and all relevant events between) as well as potential biographical predictors (viz. both preelection and postadministration variables). The systematic search began by looking at the ordinary correlation coefficients. After identifying the variables that had significant correlations, these were then entered into a multiple regression analysis. The latter allows the estimation of any given variable’s effect on the criterion after controlling for all other variables. If a variable had no predictive value after making this statistical adjustment, it was deleted as a possible predictor.


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The upshot of the foregoing selection procedure was a five-variable equation that accounted for 75 percent of the variance in presidential greatness. The predictors were as follows (β representing the standardized partial regression coefficients or ‘‘betas,’’ which are similar to correlations except with adjustments for the other variables also in the equation): the number of years the president served in office (β = .24), the number of years that he served as wartime commander in chief (β = .36), the occurrence of a major administration scandal (β = −.20), the occurrence of unsuccessful assassination attempts (β = .30), and the number of books that the president had published prior to entering office (β = .28). Additional analyses showed that the resulting equation was transhistorically invariant. In other words, the impact of the five predictors was not moderated by the date in which they assumed office. Although this 1981 study could be said to have made some progress, it still left much to be desired. Most conspicuously, the dependent variable was defined for only 33 presidents. Just a couple of years later it had become apparent that this sample size could be increased by about 10 percent. To be specific, Murray and Blessing (1983) had published their survey results that allowed the sample size to be increased to 36 presidents—all the presidents to Nixon with the commonplace exception of W. Harrison and Garfield. This investigation also included the results of two other recent surveys covering the same presidents: One was a survey of 41 experts conducted by Porter in 1981 and the other a survey of 49 experts published by the Chicago Tribune in 1982. As a consequence, it was possible to determine whether any prediction equation would replicate across three alternative presidential leadership evaluations. These three surveys provided the impetus for Simonton’s (1986b) followup inquiry. The investigation began by using factor analysis to show that all evaluations of presidential leadership from Schlesinger (1948) to Murray and Blessing (1983) yielded a single greatness factor. The next step was to define and measure over 300 potential predictors. Besides the variables examined in earlier investigations, numerous new predictors were defined on the basis of subsequent inquiries into other forms of political leadership, such as that displayed by absolute monarchs (Simonton, 1983, 1984). Because the number of variables was so large, a systematic set of stringent criteria was imposed on the search for predictors. Most critical was the imposition that any prediction equation had to replicate across all three survey results. The outcome was another five-variable equation, but one that did not completely overlap with the 1981 results. Replicating the previous findings were the three predictors of years in office (βs = .37 to .41), war years (βs = .37 to .45), and scandals (βs = −.48 to −.48). However, two new variables emerged as predictors. First, successful assassination replaced unsuccessful attempts as a

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predictor (βs = .25 to .32), a change that reflects the addition of Gerald Ford to the sample (the target of two unsuccessful assassination attempts). Second, prior status as a war hero—as in the cases of Washington, Andrew Jackson, Grant, and Dwight Eisenhower—entered the equation (βs = .31 to .32). The new five-variable equation explained 77–78 percent of the variance in the three greatness criteria. And, again, the predictors were transhistorically invariant. The foregoing study can be considered an improvement insofar as it used the same number of predictors to explain more variance in the greatness ratings of more presidents. But it still suffered from one major liability: It incorporated hardly any variables that directly assessed the personality traits of the 36 chief executives. This deficiency is especially critical if we want a fair gauge of the relative contribution of individual and situational factors to presidential leadership. Accordingly, a second investigation introduced new methods for at-a-distance personality assessment (Simonton, 1986c). Specifically, a team of independent raters applied the 300-descriptor Adjective Check List (Gough & Heilbrun, 1965) to personality profiles abstracted from biographical sources. These profiles had all identifying material removed and were placed in random order. The raters were provided reliable scores on 110 adjectives. A factor analysis of these scores yielded 14 orthogonal dimensions. Using the Murray and Blessing (1983) survey evaluations, the study then determined whether any of these factors enhanced the prediction of presidential greatness. The outcome was a six-variable prediction equation (Simonton, 1986c). Besides the five predictors of years in office (β = .36), war years (β = .35), scandal (β = −.40), assassination (β = .20), and war hero (β = .33), a new one was added, namely, Intellectual Brilliance (β = .26). The variable was defined by such descriptors as intelligent, inventive, insightful, curious, interests wide, artistic, sophisticated, and complicated. The magnitude of the effect for this variable was almost the same as that for the prepresidential book publication record in the 1981 study, suggesting that the latter variable was serving as a proxy for Intellectual Brilliance. In any case, with this addition, 82 percent of the variance could be explained, a decided improvement. The new equation was also transhistorically invariant. Just as importantly, Intellectual Brilliance was the only one of the 14 personality factors that correlated with all assessments of presidential greatness published over a 35-year period. For the remaining years of the 1980s several attempts were made to augment or modify this six-variable equation. For example, Simonton (1987b, 1988) himself tested the possible impact of other individual and situational variables, but found that the same six predictors emerged unscathed. Likewise, Kenney and Rice (1988) and Holmes and Elder (1989) attempted to identify additional predictors, but these could not account for any more


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variance than already explained by the six-variable equation (Simonton, 1991b). The equation emerging from the Simonton (1986c) investigation appeared very robust.

The 1990s In this decade there was something of a lull in research regarding the predictors of presidential greatness. To be sure, several investigators proposed new variables or new equations as alternatives to the six-variable model (e.g., Deluga, 1997, 1998; McCann, 1990, 1992; Spangler & House, 1991). Yet for reasons that will be discussed later, none of these rival predictors provided an improvement over the earlier equation (see, e.g., Simonton, 1992). The only original contribution that Simonton himself made to the literature related to this subject was an investigation into the differential greatness of the presidential First Ladies (Simonton, 1996). It was shown that her greatness rating was a function of her personal and political assets and her president’s performance rating. A by-product of this inquiry was yet another replication of the same six-variable equation using a new criterion of presidential performance. Specifically, greatness was a function of years in office (β = .35), war years (β = .38), scandals (β = −.53), assassination (β = .21), war hero (β = .34), and Intellectual Brilliance (β = .16). Fully 83 percent of the criterion variance could be so explained, and the effects were again invariant across historical time. One of the reasons why research stagnated a bit during this period is that new presidential greatness ratings are hard to come by. Comprehensive surveys are expensive to execute and thus cannot be justified unless more former presidents are added to the list. Normally, such additions only take place every four or eight years. But finally, in 1997, Ridings and McIver published their greatness assessments based on the survey of 719 experts. Unlike previous investigations, these ratings pertained to all presidents from Washington through William Clinton, including the often omitted William Harrison and Garfield. This meant that for the first time the model could be tested on a sample 10 percent larger than that available for the investigations of the mid-1980s.

The 2000s Very early in this decade Simonton (2001) used the Ridings and McIver (1997) survey to test whether the six-variable equation would replicate on a more extensive sample. The outcome was confirmatory. About 77 percent of the variance in presidential greatness could be attributed to the same six predictors, namely years in office (β = .53), war years (β = .30), scandal (β = −.38),

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assassination (β = .21), war hero (β = .22), and Intellectual Brilliance (β = .21). Furthermore, Simonton was able to take advantage of the fact that Ridings and McIver had the presidents rated on more specialized performance criteria, namely, assessed leadership, accomplishment, political skill, appointments, and character and integrity. Because these five criteria correlate highly with each other and with the overall assessment, they can be viewed as the components of presidential greatness. Accordingly, it was possible to determine which of the six predictors were most strongly associated with which criteria. To illustrate, war hero status was most predictive of assessed leadership, the number of years as wartime commander in chief was most predictive of accomplishment, and the occurrence of administration scandals was most predictive of character and integrity (in a negative direction). By comparison, the number of years the president served in the White House was more evenly predictive of all five criteria. The preceding investigation had two limitations. First, because Clinton was still in office at the time Ridings and McIver (1997) carried out their survey, his rating was deleted from the analysis. This deletion was especially justified given that the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke the year after the survey results were published. Second, Intellectual Brilliance scores were not available for the presidents who served after Ronald Reagan (Simonton, 1986c). Both of these deficiencies were remedied in another investigation published the following year (Simonton, 2002). In the former case, the inquiry took advantage of a recent survey conducted after Clinton left office (C-Span Survey of Presidential Leadership, 2000). In the latter case, the investigation built upon a study by Rubenzer, Faschingbauer, and Ones (2000) that asked experts to rate U.S. presidents on the Big Five Personality Factors. Among these factors is Openness to Experience, which correlates .71 with the Intellectual Brilliance measure. Therefore, scores on Openness were used to reconstruct the missing values on the Intellectual Brilliance measure (via regression methods). It was thus possible to test the full six-variable equation on all 41 presidents between Washington and Clinton, inclusively. All six predictors replicated, again accounting for 77 percent of the variance. In particular, greatness was a function of years in office (β = .55), war years (β = .24), scandal (β = −.36), assassination (β = .24), war hero (β = .18), and Intellectual Brilliance (β = .29). In 2006 Simonton confirmed this last replication with a new set of Intellectual Brilliance estimates that were extended all the way to George W. Bush (using the Openness to Experience scores reported in Rubenzer & Faschingbauer, 2004). The standardized regression coefficients (βs) were virtually identical and the same amount of variance explained (viz. 77 percent). So far it seems that Simonton is the only one replicating Simonton’s sixvariable equation, but that is not the case. Cohen (2003) applied the same


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model to two separate greatness assessments, one based on a 2000 CNN poll of 58 experts and the other on a poll of 1145 CNN viewers. The six-variable equation replicated across both assessments, with very similar regression weights across both. Hence, the six-predictor model has survived an empirical test by an independent investigator. And both Cohen (2003) and Simonton (2002) have shown that it applies to all presidents from Washington through Clinton.

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES Before I can return to the two theoretical issues posed at the beginning of this chapter, I first must address two methodological issues. The failure to do so would otherwise cast doubt on any theoretical interpretation. The first question concerns the exact degree to which we can say that the various investigations published between 1986 and 2006 can be considered genuine replications. In the first place, the amount of variance explained appears to have declined from 82 percent to 77 percent. In addition, the standardized partial regression coefficients for some of the predictors have tended to either enlarge or shrink across the 20-year period. Thus, years in office and assassination have tended to increase in effect while war years and war hero have tended to decrease in effect. It would seem that these trends would contradict the earlier assertion that the effects of the six variables are transhistorically invariant. Yet this conclusion would be invalid. There are two complicating factors. First, some of the variables have undergone a decline in variance since the earlier investigations. For instance, no president has been a former war hero since Eisenhower, a fact that may partly explain why the impact of this variable has declined from above .30 to below .20. Second, the later studies not only add more recent presidents but also use more recent survey respondents to judge greatness. It is conceivable that experts have modified slightly the weights they assign the six predictors. For example, the experiences associated with the Vietnam War might have undermined somewhat the importance of war years and even war hero as greatness predictors. Even so, such shifts in weights could still apply to all presidents from Washington through Clinton, and thereby remain invariant across historical time. The second methodological question involves the causal status of rival predictors. As noted earlier, many investigators have identified correlates of presidential greatness that did not end up in the final equation. How can this be? There are two causal models that can explicate this outcome: spuriousness and mediation. According to the spuriousness explanation, a variable might correlate with presidential greatness because both that variable and greatness are caused by

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another variable, a variable that is already a predictor in the equation. For example, a number of investigators have suggested that presidential greatness correlates with leader charisma (e.g., Emrich, Brower, Feldman, & Garland, 2001; Simonton, 1988). Although the zero-order correlations are positive, charisma does not enter the equation with the six predictors (Simonton, 1988). It turns out that charisma is strongly correlated with Intellectual Brilliance. In fact, the correlation between greatness and charisma reduces to nonsignificance after partialling out the variance they both share with Intellectual Brilliance. According to the mediation account, a variable might not enter the multiple regression equation because its impact is mediated by one or more variables that did enter the equation. In other words, the variable’s effect is indirect rather than direct. For instance, Winter (2003) has indicated that presidential greatness is positively associated by power motivation (as assessed by content analysis of inaugural addresses). But the power motive is also correlated with a president entering the United States in a war and becoming a target of assassination attempts (Winter, 2003). Because war years and assassination are already in the equation, the consequence of this motive variable can only function through these direct effects.

THEORETICAL INTERPRETATION I now wish to discuss a substantive account of the six-predictor model. That is, I want to interpret these consistent findings in terms of the two issues mentioned at the beginning, namely, individual versus situational factors and performance versus attribution.

Individual Versus Situational Factors What do the six predictors imply about the relative contribution of personal and social variables to presidential greatness? To address this question, let us look at each predictor separately: 1. Years in office—At first glance, the length of a president’s tenure in the White House might be said to reflect his personal qualities as a political leader. After all, the single most important predictor of years in office is the number of times the president has been elected to that office (Simonton, 1986b). Yet this inference becomes more problematic on further examination. For instance, most of the predictors of a president’s reelection are situational rather than individual in nature. A case in point is the fate of the so-called ‘‘accidental president,’’ that is, chief executives who enter the presidency through the death or resignation of their predecessor. Even though vice presidents do not


2.

3.

4.

5.

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differ from presidents on any relevant criterion of leadership, those vice presidents who enter the Oval Office through vice-presidential success are less likely to be nominated to serve a full term (Simonton, 1985). In the main, a detailed analysis of the factors underlying years in office suggests that this variable may be far more situational than individual in nature (Simonton, 1987b). War years—This predictor is also somewhat ambivalent. As noted earlier, presidents who score high in power motivation are more likely to enter the nation into war (Winter, 2003). Yet it is also the case that much of this variable is governed by situational determinants. Although most presidents prefer to fight short (and victorious) wars, all too often they are obliged to fight long wars. Certainly this was the case in the U.S. Civil War as well as the Vietnam War, both of which dragged on far longer than anticipated. So it is difficult to determine how much of this predictor can be considered individual rather than situational in nature. Scandals—Unlike the previous two, this predictor appears to be more obviously individual in nature. As pointed out earlier, scandals are associated with low scores on character and integrity (Simonton, 2001), and scandals are also associated with high scores on need for affiliation (Winter, 2003). Presidents with strong moral principles who appoint experts rather than friends to high office are less likely to experience a major administration scandal. Nevertheless, it should also be acknowledged that some portion of this variable may be situational. At least, we will never know how many presidents had scandalous activities going on in the White House but were fortunate enough never to be detected. Assassination—Because assassination attempts are positively associated with the president’s power motivation (Winter, 2003), it would appear that this predictor would count as an individual factor. Nonetheless, it should also be clear that this variable must have a prominent situational component. After all, if it were entirely individual in nature—powerful presidents attracting their potential killers—we would expect assassination attempts to be the primary predictor of presidential greatness, and that is not the case. Because only a single inch or just one second may separate a successful from an unsuccessful assassination attempt, a huge part of this predictor must contain pure luck. War hero—This predictor is perhaps the most peculiar. On the one hand, we would usually expect war heroes to display personal characteristics that set them apart from everyone else (e.g., courage). On the other hand, it is not always clear that national war heroes have such traits. Thus, while there can be no doubt that generals like Washington and Jackson displayed tremendous individual courage, it is not so clear that Eisenhower did so. The latter’s military leadership was predicated more on the organizational skills required to launch a large-scale attack on the beaches of Normandy. Furthermore, it is not obvious that the qualities underlying military leadership are identical to those behind political leadership.

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6. Intellectual Brilliance—Of all the six predictors, this seems to be the most patently individual in status. In support of this categorization I need only mention that intelligence is the one individual-difference variable that has been most consistently shown to correlate with leadership in a wide range of situations (Simonton, 1995). Moreover, the correlation between this variable and presidential greatness is about the same magnitude as seen in most empirical research. The only counterargument would be that Intellectual Brilliance is assessed after the fact, and so the assessment could be influenced by greatness judgments that are themselves influenced by situational factors.

In light of the above discussion, it is difficult to make any precise statement of the relative contribution of individual and situational factors. The best guess, in my present opinion, is that being at the right place at the right time has some priority over being the right person. The degree of that differential is much less easily specified.

Objective Performance Versus Subjective Attribution The variables making up the six-predictor equation are odd in at least three ways. First, the list excludes many objective performance criteria that would be expected to form part of any overall assessment (Bailey, 1966; Simonton, 1987a). For instance, what about the number of administration-sponsored bills signed into law? What about the number of successful treaties negotiated? Second, the list includes some variables that do not appear on anyone’s inventory of relevant criteria. For example, no one has claimed that assassinated presidents are superior to those having luckier fates. Nor has anyone argued that former war heroes make better chief executives than those lacking that distinction. Furthermore, there is not a shred of evidence that either assassination or war hero status is associated with any more pertinent leader behavior. Third and last, even when it can be argued that a specific variable has some indirect relevance, it seems peculiar that a more directly relevant variable did not enter the prediction equation. One might argue that the number of years in office serves as a proxy for other more germane criteria, such as reelection, which serves as a direct measure of how well the president performed in his first term. Yet when both years in office and reelection are put into the equation together, only the former variable comes out as a significant predictor. Hence, reelection cannot be a direct effect. Although the six variables seem odd from the standpoint of assessing objective performance, they do not seem so strange if we were to look at them from the perspective of subjective attributions. Most represent the kinds of facts that are most likely to be available in even the shortest biographical entry. The reader will soon discover how long the president served, whether


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he served as a wartime commander in chief, whether any scandals had broken out in his administration, and whether or not he was assassinated. Even the president’s Intellectual Brilliance can be inferred from any signs of precocious behavior, his educational history—including attendance at prestigious colleges and the receipt of academic honors—and such adulthood behaviors as writing books, the variable that emerged as a predictor in the original 1981 equation (Simonton, 1981). Furthermore, if these are the kinds of information that are most likely to be read, they may also constitute the facts that are most likely to be recalled when asked to pass judgments on the leaders who have occupied the White House. They are both highly salient and highly available. As a consequence, the six-variable equation might be better explicated in terms of an attributional model. That possibility was examined in an experimental simulation of the predictive model (Simonton, 1986a). The simulation began by specifying a hypothetical process by which salient information activates three separate components of a leadership schema—namely, strength, activity, and goodness—that are presumed to mediate the relation between the salient facts and the summary attribution of leadership. The strength, activity, and goodness components were hypothesized on the basis of specialized research on the prototype of presidential leadership (Kinder, Peters, Abelson, & Fiske, 1980) as well as on more general inquiries into the principal dimensions underlying meaning (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957). College participants were then given the task of evaluating leaders based on descriptive vignettes that contained each leader’s standing on the six predictors. The leader described by each vignette was anonymous, and in one experimental condition the judges were not even told that the descriptions applied to U.S. presidents. Strikingly, on the basis of this minimal information the assessors were able to reproduce the greatness ratings actually received by the presidents corresponding to the vignettes. Indeed, the students, though blind to the identity of those they were evaluating, produced scores that correlated .84 with the Murray and Blessing (1983) survey results. More concretely, the greatness ratings of blind raters correlated almost as highly with the historians’ ratings as the historians’ ratings correlate with each other. Furthermore, the weights assigned the six descriptors paralleled those assigned by the presidential experts. The only exception was a tendency for the student raters to bestow somewhat less weight to years as a wartime commander in chief. In addition, when the raters were given information that the experts do not use in their judgments, the agreement with the greatness ratings actual declined—further evidence that these data are not relevant to global presidential performance evaluations. Finally, the investigation showed that the impact of the six items of salient information was largely mediated by the three semantic assessments of strength, activity, and

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goodness. For instance, wartime leaders and former war heroes are judged as stronger, whereas leaders with major scandals are judged as less good. The impact of the six predictors on the overall performance rating became negligible once the effects of the strength, activity, and goodness assessments were taken into account. All in all, the above investigation provides an empirical argument for the conclusion that expert ratings of the U.S. presidents tell us more about how leaders are perceived than how they actually perform. Presidential greatness may represent more a subjective attribution than an objective performance. Joining this inference with that drawn in the preceding section, we might also conjecture that situational factors dominate over individual factors in the activation of this leadership schema. Presidents are viewed as great largely because they happen to be at the right place and at the right time.

REFERENCES Bailey, T. A. (1966). Presidential greatness. New York: Appleton-Century. C-Span Survey of Presidential Leadership. (2000). Retrieved November 17, 2000, from www.americanpresidents.org/survey/historians/overall.asp. Cohen, J. E. (2003). The polls: Presidential greatness as seen in the mass public: An extension and application of the Simonton model. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 33, 913–924. Deluga, R. J. (1997). Relationship among American presidential charismatic leadership, narcissism, and related performance. Leadership Quarterly, 8, 51–65. Deluga, R. J. (1998). American presidential proactivity, charismatic leadership, and rated performance. Leadership Quarterly, 9, 265–291. Emrich, C. G., Brower, H. H., Feldman, J. M., & Garland, H. (2001). Images in words: Presidential rhetoric, charisma, and greatness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46, 527–557. Gough, H. G., & Heilbrun, A. B., Jr. (1965). The Adjective Check List manual. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. Holmes, J. E., & Elder, R. E. (1989). Our best and worst presidents: Some possible reasons for perceived performance. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 19, 529–557. Kenney, P. J., & Rice, T. W. (1988). The contextual determinants of presidential greatness. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 18, 161–169. Kinder, D. R., Peters, M. D., Abelson, R. R., & Fiske, S. T. (1980). Presidential prototypes. Political Behavior, 2, 315–338. Kynerd, T. (1971). An analysis of presidential greatness and ‘‘President rating.’’ Southern Quarterly, 9, 309–329. Maranell, G. M. (1970). The evaluation of presidents: An extension of the Schlesinger polls. Journal of American History, 57, 104–113. McCann, S. J. H. (1990). Threat, power, and presidential greatness: Harding to Johnson. Psychological Reports, 66, 129–130.


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McCann, S. J. H. (1992). Alternative formulas to predict the greatness of U.S. presidents: Personological, situational, and zeitgeist factors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 469–479. Murray, R. K., & Blessing, T. H. (1983). The presidential performance study: A progress report. Journal of American History, 70, 535–555. Murray, R. K., & Blessing, T. H. (1988). Greatness in the White House: Rating the presidents, Washington through Carter. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Nice, D. C. (1984). The influence of war and party system aging on the ranking of presidents. Western Political Quarterly, 37, 443–455. Osgood, C. E., Suci, G., & Tannenbaum, P. (1957). The measurement of meaning. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Ridings, W. J., Jr., & McIver, S. B. (1997). Rating the presidents: A ranking of U.S. leaders, from the great and honorable to the dishonest and incompetent. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press. Rossiter, C. L. (1956). The American presidency. New York: Harcourt Brace. Rubenzer, S. J., & Faschingbauer, T. R. (2004). Personality, character, & leadership in the White House: Psychologists assess the presidents. Washington, DC: Brassey’s. Rubenzer, S. J., Faschingbauer, T. R., & Ones, D. S. (2000). Assessing the U.S. presidents using the revised NEO Personality Inventory. Assessment, 7, 403–420. Schlesinger, A. M. (1948, November 1). Historians rate the U.S. presidents. Life, pp. 65–66, 68, 73–74. Schlesinger, A. M. (1962, July 29). Our presidents: A rating by 75 historians. New York Times Magazine, pp. 12–13, 40–41, 43. Simonton, D. K. (1981). Presidential greatness and performance: Can we predict leadership in the White House? Journal of Personality, 49, 306–323. Simonton, D. K. (1983). Intergenerational transfer of individual differences in hereditary monarchs: Genes, role-modeling, cohort, or sociocultural effects? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 354–364. Simonton, D. K. (1984). Leaders as eponyms: Individual and situational determinants of monarchal eminence. Journal of Personality, 52, 1–21. Simonton, D. K. (1985). The vice-presidential succession effect: Individual or situational basis? Political Behavior, 7, 79–99. Simonton, D. K. (1986a). Dispositional attributions of (presidential) leadership: An experimental simulation of historiometric results. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 22, 389–418. Simonton, D. K. (1986b). Presidential greatness: The historical consensus and its psychological significance. Political Psychology, 7, 259–283. Simonton, D. K. (1986c). Presidential personality: Biographical use of the Gough Adjective Check List. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 149–160. Simonton, D. K. (1987a). Presidential inflexibility and veto behavior: Two individualsituational interactions. Journal of Personality, 55, 1–18. Simonton, D. K. (1987b). Why presidents succeed: A political psychology of leadership. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Simonton, D. K. (1988). Presidential style: Personality, biography, and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 928–936.

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Simonton, D. K. (1991a). Latent-variable models of posthumous reputation: A quest for Galton’s G. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 607–619. Simonton, D. K. (1991b). Predicting presidential greatness: An alternative to the Kenney and Rice Contextual Index. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 21, 301–305. Simonton, D. K. (1992). Presidential greatness and personality: A response to McCann (1992). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 676–679. Simonton, D. K. (1993). Putting the best leaders in the White House: Personality, policy, and performance. Political Psychology, 14, 537–548. Simonton, D. K. (1995). Personality and intellectual predictors of leadership. In D. H. Saklofske & M. Zeidner (Eds.), International handbook of personality and intelligence (pp. 739–757). New York: Plenum. Simonton, D. K. (1996). Presidents’ wives and First Ladies: On achieving eminence within a traditional gender role. Sex Roles, 35, 309–336. Simonton, D. K. (2001). Predicting presidential greatness: Equation replication on recent survey results. Journal of Social Psychology, 141, 293–307. Simonton, D. K. (2002). Intelligence and presidential greatness: Equation replication using updated IQ estimates. Advances in Psychology Research, 13, 143–153. Simonton, D. K. (2006). Presidential IQ, Openness, Intellectual Brilliance, and leadership: Estimates and correlations for 42 US chief executives. Political Psychology, 27, 511–639. Sokolsky, E. (1964). Our seven greatest presidents. New York: Exposition Press. Spangler, W. D., & House, R. J. (1991). Presidential effectiveness and the leadership motive profile. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 439–455. Wendt, H. W., & Light, P. C. (1976). Measuring ‘‘greatness’’ in American presidents: Model case for international research on political leadership? European Journal of Social Psychology, 6, 105–109. Winter, D. G. (2003). Measuring the motives of political actors at a distance. In J. M. Post (Ed.), The psychological assessment of political leaders: With profiles of Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton (pp. 153–177). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

9 The Unbearable Lightness of Debating: Performance Ambiguity and Social Influence MATTHEW B. KUGLER AND GEORGE R. GOETHALS

This chapter considers three sets of studies on how social influence affects perceptions of candidates’ performances in presidential debates. The first set shows that perceptions are influenced markedly by the reactions of peers watching the debate at the same time or by televised audiences shown on broadcast debates. The second set shows that expectations created by news accounts prior to debates also have significant impact and that different kinds of news accounts affect different viewers in distinct ways. Individuals with a high need for cognition respond well to more complicated messages that advance some reason as to why an apparently negative candidate characteristic may actually work in his or her favor. Those individuals do not respond well to simple assertions that a particular candidate will perform well. On the other hand, individuals with a low need for cognition show the opposite pattern. They respond to the simple but not the more complex messages. The third set of studies considers postdebate spin as well as predebate predictions. Although campaigns often use the strategy of lowering expectations before a debate by arguing that their candidate is disadvantaged and will not perform well, and then after the debate declare a surprising victory, our research suggests that this strategy is unlikely to work. It appears too manipulative. Generally, when campaigns set expectations low, viewers perceive their candidate’s performance as weak.

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In the spring of 2007, Joseph Biden scored points on newscasts with a oneword answer to a debate question. The long-serving senator from Delaware was debating his rivals for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Questions had been raised about his seemingly uncontrolled verbosity. Biden was asked whether he could assure worried voters that he had sufficient self-discipline to be president. He simply said: ‘‘Yes.’’ His answer—just one word—provided an impressive example of restraint. For the broadcast media, it was an effective, though minimal, sound bite. There have been many other brief exchanges that have had similar impact: Lloyd Bentsen telling Dan Quayle, ‘‘You’re no Jack Kennedy,’’ or Ronald Reagan saying that he would ‘‘not exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.’’ These exchanges addressed issues of great concern in a discrete and direct manner, and so have passed into debate lore. We think moments such as these are memorable and influential for two reasons. First, debates have become ever more important in our political process; as voters, we would very much like to know how to assess them. This is made difficult by the second reason. For the most part, the candidates’ relative performances are unclear. Crystallizing moments such as those above are rare. The typical lack of clarity means that while debates are important, they are also ambiguous. Research in social psychology going back to Allport and Postman’s (1947) studies of rumors has shown that the importance/ ambiguity combination creates an extremely ripe occasion for social influence (see Baron, Vandello, & Brunsman, 1996, for a more recent study). Allport and Postman argue that in those situations people seek guidance in creating a simple summary of the facts. Consistent with this research, we would predict that people will be easily influenced by other people’s evaluations (media reports, campaign spin, water cooler gossip) of debate performances. This chapter reports several studies addressing that hypothesis. The importance of debates. Presidential debates are seen by increasingly large numbers of people, with an estimated 62.5 million viewers seeing the first debate of 2004 (Commission on Presidential Debates, 2008). Though debates are often derided as being uninformative, the evidence shows that voters learn at least a little from them—especially about candidates with whom they are not very familiar (Holbrook, 1999). There is also a strong correlation between a person’s view of who won a debate and his/her choice on Election Day (Sears & Chaffee, 1979; Schrott, 1990). Coupled with a large viewership, these findings suggest that debates have the potential to swing close elections. Debate evaluations. But debate evaluations are far from objective. Many variables come into play. Research on the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960 suggests that ‘‘the medium is the message’’ and that Kennedy benefited greatly from the way he appeared on television, relative to Richard Nixon (Kraus,

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1962). That is, it is widely believed that John F. Kennedy benefited most among voters who watched the debates on television rather than those who listened on the radio. For example, after the first debate, undecided television viewers were more likely to perceive Kennedy rather than Nixon as similar to the ‘‘ideal leader’’ (Tannenbaum, Greenberg, & Silverman, 1962). Another factor is prior political leanings and attitudes toward the candidates (Sears & Chaffee, 1979; Sigelman & Sigelman, 1984). In a representative study Fazio and Williams (1986) found high correlations between predebate candidate favorability ratings and postdebate ratings of candidate performance in the 1984 election cycle. In fact, the general conclusion of the political science literature is that perceptions of all political actions are strongly influenced by one’s initial leanings (e.g., Kinder, 1998; Bartels, 2002). So while there is a strong relationship between your perception of who won the debate and who you will eventually vote for, you are generally inclined to believe your favored side won. Media reports are also important. For example, Ranney (1983) and Steeper (1978) documented the effect of news stories on perceptions of President Gerald Ford’s Eastern Europe gaffe in the 1976 debates. Ford had said that Eastern Europe was not under the domination of the Soviet Union. While this remark did not hurt Ford immediately after the debate, news coverage convinced people that he had made a serious mistake and he was subsequently perceived to have lost. Media coverage similarly changed an Al Gore debate victory over George W. Bush into a defeat during the 2000 election (Jamieson & Waldman, 2002). Other research on media commentary continues to underline its importance. Such commentary lessened Bill Clinton’s perceived margin of victory (McKinnon, Tedesco, & Kaid, 1993) in the 1992 debates. Similar research on the 1996 debates between Clinton and Republican challenger Bob Dole showed that network commentary raised viewers’ assessments of both candidates (McKinnon & Tedesco, 1999). In general, debate research suggests that contextual features—such as media commentary and whether people watch the debates on television or listen to them on the radio—make a substantial difference (Kaid & Bystrom, 1999; Lemert, Elliot, Bernstein, Rosenberg, & Nestvold, 1991; Schroeder, 2000). These findings are consistent with the notion that debate perceptions are inherently somewhat fragile. It does not take much to shift people’s opinions. In the aftermath of the election of 1960, Sidney Kraus argued that the debates mattered whether people watched them or not (1962). A narrative was constructed about Kennedy’s cool confidence and command in the first debate, and that story weighed heavily in a close election. What happened in the debate mattered, but the way the public and the media digested and constructed the debate performances was crucial—more crucial, in fact, than

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whether a person had actually seen the debate. In light of the subsequent research discussed above, Kraus’s comment seems prescient. Our research explores multiple facets of how people’s perceptions of debates are affected by what they learn about others’ views. It shows that people can be highly influenced by information that they receive about others’ assessments before, during, and after the debate itself. Its focus is on the influence of both other debate viewers and media commentators. In addition, it considers the possible influence of debate moderators and questioners. Our first set of studies considers one of the simplest forms of influence, that in which other people’s opinions are made known without any rationale or argument. In these studies, those opinions are revealed during the debates themselves. We find that they produce a great deal of influence, influence that is best characterized as conformity (e.g., McGuire, 1968). Our second set of studies considers how different individuals are affected by media-created expectations. It tests the hypothesis that different kinds of people react differently to messages of varying complexity. Our final set of studies considers how people might be affected by two kinds of ‘‘spin’’—predebate prediction about relative performance and postdebate assessment of that performance.

SIMPLE CONFORMITY AND DEBATE PERCEPTIONS Televised debates give audiences an hour or more to assess presidential candidates both by sound and sight as they are confronted with challenging questions. It could be argued that this should give viewers ample opportunity to form strong and coherent impressions about both the show and the actors. Further, it could be argued that—so extensive is the evidence presented in a televised debate—any attempts to influence the opinions of viewers during or after a debate would be overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of audiovisual data presented. In fact, given null results in the following experiments, that is precisely what psychologists would have argued. What the following experiments suggested, however, is that debates are highly ambiguous. For both specific events within debates (Experiments 1+2) and global evaluations of debates (Experiments 3+4), our viewers looked to the reactions of both their peers and distant debate audiences when making their assessments.

Sound Bites: No One Could Forget When. . . As noted above, there are moments in presidential and vice-presidential debates that have passed into debate lore as unforgettable. Even many current high school and college students know something of the KennedyNixon debates, and textbooks on political science, American government, and political communication mention supposedly decisive moments in


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debates to illustrate one concept or another. From our perspective, the question of decisive moments is an interesting one. If there are exchanges in debates that are of such clarity in and of themselves, then it is hard to argue that the ambiguity of debates is high. Yet, a moment may not need to be inherently special to enter into debate lore as pivotal. It could be that instead of being critical some moments are made critical. Perhaps audience reaction or postdebate interpretation is necessary to turn a one-liner from mundane to pivotal. To examine the degree to which pivotal sound bites stand on their own, two studies were run on Williams College undergraduates using the second presidential debate of 1984 (Fein, Goethals, & Kugler, 2007). Let us recall briefly the election of 1984. The Republican candidate was President Ronald Reagan and the Democratic candidate was Walter Mondale, a former vice president and senator. Throughout the campaign, Reagan enjoyed a substantial lead (and ultimately won by an impressive margin). There was, however, one dark period for the Reagan campaign. In the first debate, Reagan had an unexpectedly poor showing, appearing confused. Combined with his age, this confusion sparked some second thoughts in the electorate and Mondale’s numbers began to climb. In the second debate, exactly two weeks later, Henry Trewhitt, a correspondent for The Baltimore Sun, asked Reagan directly about his age. Mr. Trewhitt: Mr. President, I want to raise an issue that I think has been lurking out there for two or three weeks, and cast it specifically in national security terms. You already are the oldest president in history, and some of your staff say you were tired after your most recent encounter with Mr. Mondale. I recall, yet that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuban missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?1 This question cut straight to the heart of the resurgent concerns about Reagan’s age. Reagan’s answer was telling: Reagan: Not at all, Mr. Trewhitt, and I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience. The audience erupted in laughter. Mondale, recognizing the mood, joined in. Trewhitt said, ‘‘Mr. President, I’d like to head for the fence and try to catch that one before it goes over, but I’ll go on to another question.’’ In many ways, this is the prototypical critical moment. Reagan’s response was widely reported and the slight slump disappeared from tracking polls. It appeared that his words were universally received as clever and on topic. Our studies, however, showed that the story was slightly more complicated.

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These experiments each had three conditions: an unedited version containing the key sound bite and the audience reaction to it, an edited version in which the sound bite was included but audience and commentator reaction was excluded, and a second edited version lacking the sound bite altogether. If the one-liner stood on its own and participants did not require ‘‘help’’ from the audience to recognize its importance, then it should not make any difference if the audience reaction and Trewhitt’s ‘‘home run’’ comment are deleted. If, on the other hand, audience and commentator reaction were necessary to persuade viewers that the sound bite was important, then taking them out should have the same effect as taking out both the sound bite and the audience and commentator reactions. The participants in our experiment judged Reagan the winner of the debate in the control condition (with the unedited sound bite). However, they did not believe Reagan performed better than Mondale when the sound bite was included but the audience applause and moderator reaction were excluded. There was a dramatic drop in Reagan’s performance ratings when his comments were not stamped with the audience’s approval. This would seem to indicate that the sound bite did not stand well on its own. When the sound bite was not included at all, Mondale was again seen as doing better in the debate—unsurprising since Reagan’s best lines had been omitted. Interestingly, only 15 percent of participants in the condition where the reaction had been deleted listed the sound bites as among the highlights of the debate, as opposed to 78 percent of participants in the control condition that included audience applause. In this case, the supposed defining moments had little impact if they were not endorsed by others. In the same way, television sitcoms depend on canned laughter. The jokes themselves do not have the same impact if they are presented without other viewers’ reactions. From these studies, we learned something very important about how oneliners are perceived. Specifically, we saw that it was not so much the exchange itself but rather how it was perceived by the audience that most influenced how viewers saw it. But many debates do not have such decisive moments. How susceptible to influence are viewers when the debate content is less dramatic and more even? We conducted two studies investigating that question. One was a simple lab study. Participants came into the lab in small groups to watch a short segment of the same 1984 Reagan-Mondale debate. They were given wireless handheld dials with digital displays of the type commonly used in marketing and persuasion studies. Mirroring a procedure used by CNN in their live coverage of the 1992 debates, participants were told that they should use the dials to track their reactions during the course of the debates (turning them one direction in favor of the Republican candidate and the other direction in


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favor of the Democratic candidate) and that a graph showing the average of their group members’ reactions would be superimposed over the debate video itself. This way they would have constant feedback letting them know how well each candidate was doing at various points in the debate. For our study, we ignored the group’s actual responses and manipulated the feedback displayed. The ‘‘audience’’ feedback always began at the neutral midpoint and during the course of the segment reached a value that was solidly in either Reagan or Mondale territory. This false feedback had a huge effect on audience perceptions. Participants who saw their ‘‘peer’s reactions’’ favor Reagan rated his performance (on 100 point scales) as being 20 points above Mondale’s. Participants who thought that their peers favored Mondale said that he outperformed Reagan by 20 points. Both this study and the sound bite studies can be criticized for being artificial. But our final study, run during the 1992 campaign, had groups of participants watch a presidential debate live in the presence of a few confederates who had been told to cheer subtly for either Bush or Clinton, and jeer the other very quietly but audibly. Participants in the ‘‘pro-Bush’’ room rated Bush’s performance far better (and Clinton’s far worse) than did participants in the ‘‘pro-Clinton’’ room. On a 100 point scale, Clinton’s performance was rated as 51 points higher than Bush’s in the ‘‘pro-Clinton’’ group but only 6 points higher in the ‘‘pro-Bush’’ group. None of the participants said that they were influenced by other people’s reactions, and most reported that they barely noticed the reactions of the confederates. Interestingly, the confederates themselves were affected by their own behavior. They were more proClinton in the ‘‘pro-Clinton’’ group than in the ‘‘pro-Bush’’ group. This study, using a simple, natural manipulation in the midst of an active campaign cycle shows how powerfully debate perceptions can be shaped by social influence.

Conclusions These four studies show that debate perceptions are highly malleable, which suggests in turn that they are very ambiguous. Even when they seem quite clear, they are subject to considerable social influence. Perceptions of even a rather stark and memorable physical reality are shaped by social reality. Specifically, moments in debate history that are later called decisive can be easily cast into oblivion by removing the reactions of the audience. Showing people the reactions of their peers during the course of debates (a feat that is now trivial technologically) creates a consensus position. And exposing debate watchers to a biased crowd will dramatically shift their perceptions. In these findings, we have substantial support for the ambiguity of debates based on the extent to which even modest social influence changes debate perceptions.

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TRAIT-FOCUSED SPIN The next pair of studies (Kugler & Goethals, in press) addresses two new elements in debate perceptions. The first is inspired by Laswell’s (1948) classic formulation that the study of persuasion concerns ‘‘who says what to whom and with what effect.’’ So we can begin to think about how different audiences are affected by different messages under different conditions. Second, we want to examine a hard case for social influence in debates: candidates who had obviously negative traits. One individual difference measure from the persuasion literature can be seen as being particularly important in addressing the first question: Need for Cognition (NFC). NFC measures how much a person is intrinsically driven to think, separating ‘‘chronic cognizers’’ from ‘‘cognitive misers’’ (Cacioppo, Petty, & Kao, 1984). It figures prominently in several models of persuasion, including the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Cacioppo, Petty, Kao, & Rodriguez, 1986). We proposed that people who are high in NFC, those who are highly motivated to think carefully, would prove resistant to the effects of simple persuasion attempts that ignored candidates’ negative qualities. These people would be willing and presumably able to counterargue against a glib pronouncement favoring one candidate over another, a pronouncement that did not provide any backup. On the other hand, their low NFC counterparts would show the usual cooperative effects in response to simple messages. This finding would be consistent with effects found regarding NFC in priming studies (Petty, 2001). We are also concerned here with how spinners might devise convincing messages when the candidates they support have obvious negative attributes. Examples include John F. Kennedy’s inexperience, Bob Dole’s aggressiveness, and George W. Bush’s vagueness. In each of these cases, a simple positive spin might be suspect. These candidates had real problems and all of the cheering crowds in the world could only do so much to counter them. And those people a candidate would most need to impress—news reporters, pundits, potential funders—would certainly be paying close attention, emulating the harder to persuade high NFC audiences. For these sophisticated and involved viewers, we proposed a new approach to pre-debate spin. These individuals might be more influenced by more complex framings that cast specific potentially negative qualities in a favorable light. Such trait-focused spin (TFS) essentially attempts to spin straw into gold. A real-world example of this type of spin can be seen in the work of Jamieson and Waldman (2002) on media framing in the 2000 presidential campaign. They discuss how the media created a narrative that provided an interpretive frame for George W. Bush’s performance in the 2000 debates. The issue was Bush’s vagueness about specific policies. This


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attribute could be seen as a sign of intellectual shallowness, but it could also be portrayed as part of a particular management style. In the summer before the debates, the Bush campaign promoted their candidate as the MBA president, concerned with the big picture and not trivial details. This created a positive frame. When the press later saw Bush’s performance in the debates, his vagueness cued memories of his business school background as opposed to doubts about his intelligence. Chronic cognizers might enjoy the complexity of the counterintuitive interpretations. The elaborate nature of the persuasive message sidesteps their defenses. After trait-focused spin they can say, ‘‘Yes, I think he did well, not surprising given his top-down management style.’’ Yet this very advantage could have the reverse effect on cognitive misers. They could easily become lost in the complexity of the message. We tested these hypotheses in two studies. In the control conditions, participants were given a simple introductory article about the debate they were about to view. In the positive spin conditions, they were given the same article, but with a section inserted saying that the target candidate was favored over his opponent. No real reason was offered for this assertion. There were also trait-focused spin conditions in which a potentially negative trait was described, and then integrated into a positive prediction. In the first case (Dole vs. Mondale, 1976) the trait was Bob Dole’s aggressiveness, and in the second case (Bush vs. Dukakis, 1988) the trait was Michael Dukakis’s cold, intellectual detachment. In the first study, then, the goal was to influence perceptions of Senator Bob Dole in his 1976 vice-presidential debate against Senator Walter Mondale. As indicated above, Dole was seen as being very aggressive. Historically, his aggressiveness was very poorly received and, after the election, even he acknowledged that he had gone too far. His performance was such that viewers at the time understood exactly what Mondale was talking about when he referred to Dole’s reputation as a ‘‘hatchet man.’’ Participants were brought into the lab for a study on perceptions of presidential debates. They were told which debate they would be watching and were given a news article with one of the following headlines: ‘‘TV Producer Says Clash May be ‘Liveliest of All’ ’’ (control); ‘‘Senate Watcher: Dole to ‘Overwhelm’ Mondale’’ (simple positive spin); and ‘‘Senate Watcher: ‘Aggressive’ Dole to ‘Overwhelm’ Mondale’’ (trait description as part of positive message, TFS). The simple positive spin article simply reported that Dole was favored. The trait-focused spin article said that Dole would effectively use his quick wit and sharp invective to overwhelm Mondale. After participants finished watching the selected segment of the debate, in this case the closing third, they were given a questionnaire asking various questions about the debate.

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We predicted that high need for cognition participants would not be influenced by the simple positive spin article, but that they would be moved by the trait-focused spin article. In contrast, we expected that low need for cognition participants would be moved by the simple positive spin article, but might find the trait-focused spin article too involved, and might not be influenced by it. All participants (100 percent) in the control condition said that Mondale won the debate. In contrast, those who had been told that Dole would perform well, or that he would do well because he was aggressive, were generally more favorable toward Dole than were control participants. However, there was an interesting difference based on the participants’ need for cognition. High NFC participants found simple positive spin unpersuasive. Again, none of them thought Dole won. But as predicted, they were positively influenced by the trait-based spin. In that instance, 50 percent thought Dole won. Low NFC participants were more or less equally persuaded by both types of spin. In the simple positive spin condition, 50 percent said Dole won. In the trait-based spin condition, 43 percent said Dole won. Thus the more complex message was slightly—although not significantly— less effective for the low NFC participants. Study 2 employed largely the same design and procedure. Its main goal was to replicate the results of Study 1, especially the difference based on NFC status, in the context of a different debate and a different trait. The performance selected for this study was that of Governor Michael Dukakis in the second presidential debate of 1988. While the 1988 election was largely unexceptional—if not quite as one-sided as 1984—there were a few memorable exchanges in the second debate. These resulted from a framing that the Republicans had been constructing for some time. In the first debate, when Dukakis seemed to laugh derisively at Bush’s momentary confusion, Bush said, ‘‘Wouldn’t it be nice to be the iceman and never make a mistake.’’ This iceman framing can be seen as having prompted the first question in the second debate, the well-known ‘‘Kitty question.’’ Governor Dukakis was asked, ‘‘If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?’’ A difficult question in the best of times, but made worse by Dukakis’s cold and analytic answer. Even he later admitted that he had flubbed the response. A later question, like one given to Reagan in 1984, asked him to reflect upon his performance in the previous debate. It alluded to a belief that Dukakis had ‘‘won the first debate on intellect, and yet [he] lost it on heart.’’ Both of these exchanges are reflective of a general problem created by the ‘‘iceman’’ framing. Dukakis had a very analytic style that played poorly with the electorate. Thus in our articles for this study, the overarching trait into which we attempted to assimilate Dukakis’s analytical detachment was ‘‘intelligent.’’ A generally positive word that undeniably applies to Dukakis,


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‘‘intelligent’’ can also carry with it the air of detachment, intellectualism, and lack of warmth. This captures both the positive and negative aspects of his performance in the debate and throughout the campaign. Once again articles were drafted for the three categories used in Experiment 1. The results were slightly different in this study. Compared to the control condition, the simple spin condition produced only modest influence for both high and low need for cognition participants. Twenty-five percent of the high NFC participants thought that Dukakis won in the control condition, and 38 percent of them thought he won in the simple spin condition, an increase of 13 percent. The low NFC participants showed a nearly identical increase of 12 percent from 11 percent in the control condition to 23 percent in the simple spin condition. Neither of these represented a statistically significant improvement. However, the trait-focused spin condition was highly effective for the high NFC participants. Fifty-seven percent of them thought that Dukakis won. However, none (zero percent) of the low NFC participants in the trait-focused spin condition thought Dukakis won. The traitfocused spin article talked about both the upsides (he will not get lost in the passions of the moment) and downsides (he is aloof) of Dukakis’s intelligence. This message was persuasive to the high NFC participants who can look at issues from both sides. For low NFC participants, all that seemed to matter was that Dukakis was aloof, i.e., cold.

Conclusions Presidential candidates have strengths that can be highlighted, but also weaknesses that cannot be hidden. Results from the two studies reported here suggest clear strategies for working with these weaknesses. Both experiments showed that participants who are high in NFC are willing to be persuaded to incorporate specific potentially negative character traits into positive general frames. But what of those debate watchers who are not intensely motivated to think carefully about politics? The results of the 2000 election, where George W. Bush’s inarticulacy was early and often framed in terms of his ‘‘big picture’’ approach, suggest that with enough repetition, the electorate as a whole can be brought around to embrace a particular framing. Thus, while trait-focused spin did not work for low NFC participants in our second study, it might be more effective in real campaigns. Also, there is a considerable literature on public opinion, some of which focuses on models of elitedriven attitude assessments (e.g., Kinder, 1998). In these models, involved citizens spread their carefully formed opinions to their less dedicated peers, a kind of water cooler postdebate spin. This downstream spin may be the key for those who are less engaged. The next section investigates a related form of social influence in assessments of presidential debate performance.

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INTERACTIONS OF PREDEBATE AND POSTDEBATE SPIN While our studies of trait-focused spin (TFS) employed positive appraisals of the competing candidates, such favorable predebate evaluations are probably less common than more modest candidate descriptions from campaign sources who try to set low expectations. For example, prior to the 1992 vicepresidential debate between Dan Quayle and Al Gore (and, memorably, Admiral James Stockdale, running mate of Ross Perot), Republican sources tried to lower expectations for Quayle. They claimed that Al Gore had been educated at elite schools (he was a Harvard graduate) and had lifetime advantages that made it difficult for Quayle to compete on a fair or equal basis. Why is the expectations game played this way? There are probably two related reasons. First, when a poor performance really is expected, the campaign may try to lower its impact by creating a frame in which it can charitably be understood. In 1992, Republican campaign managers were well aware of Quayle’s disappointing vicepresidential debate performance during the 1988 campaign, in which Democrat Lloyd Bentsen leveled Quayle with the well-remembered putdown, ‘‘Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.’’ Something had to be done. Setting low expectations might help. Low expectation frames can often be understood as a form of negative trait-focused spin. The frame says, our candidate will likely perform poorly, but here is why it should not be taken too seriously. Second, a negative performance expectation creates a low bar over which a candidate may leap, even with a mediocre performance. The hope is that the performance will be enough better than predicted to create a contrast effect (Schwartz & Bless, 1992). That is, the performance may look even better than it was if it is compared to and contrasted with a low expectation. Creating low performance expectations for debates quite probably extends from the utility of creating low expectations for primary results. Over the years, the expectations game has been played most vigorously in the New Hampshire primary. In 1968, Eugene McCarthy was perceived as the effective ‘‘winner’’ of that primary even though incumbent president Lyndon Johnson got more votes, all write-ins. Though Johnson was not even on the ballot, and he got more votes, he was deemed the loser. McCarthy exceeded expectations. In 1972, George McGovern lost the New Hampshire primary to Edmund Muskie, but did better than expected, and celebrated the result. In 1992, Bill Clinton did better than expected, following the Gennifer Flowers and draft-dodging controversies, and declared himself ‘‘The Comeback Kid’’ even though he lost to Paul Tsongas. However, an important difference between primaries and debates would seem to render playing the low expectations game perilous in the debate context. In primaries, there is a clear outcome, measured precisely in terms of the


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percentage of votes going to each candidate. In debates, as we have argued, the outcome is quite ambiguous. When an outcome is ambiguous, it is generally assimilated to, rather than contrasted with, any expectation that has been created (Schwartz & Bless, 1992). That is, if potential voters are led to expect a candidate to debate poorly, they may be very likely to perceive the candidate’s performance just that way. A study by Norton and Goethals (2004) explored precisely this possibility. Undergraduate research participants watched about half of a 1996 Massachusetts senatorial debate between the incumbent senator, John Kerry, and the incumbent governor, William Weld. Pretests showed that Kerry was clearly perceived as the winner of this portion of the debate. In the study itself, participants watched the same debate segments, with some additions. During the introductions, a supposed TV station political commentator, Jack Harper, reported either ‘‘low pitch’’ (negative) or ‘‘high pitch’’ (positive) dubbed-in messages regarding Kerry’s performance. Furthermore, these messages were based on information either from ‘‘members of the media’’ or Kerry aides. In the low pitch version, it was stated that Kerry had been ill and unable to prepare, and was the clear underdog. In the high pitch version, the message stated that Kerry was well-rested and ‘‘raring to go,’’ and that he was the clear favorite. The results of the study were quite clear. Kerry’s margin of victory was less when participants heard a low pitch for him. Setting expectations low effectively turned Kerry from a winner into a loser. While creating low expectations prior to an ambiguous performance can lower perceptions of the performance, campaign aides generally do not rest simply on the impact of low initial expectations. Positive postdebate spin is often combined with lowering expectations before the debate to create an opportunity for campaign ‘‘spinners’’ or ‘‘framers’’ to say, in effect, we were very pleasantly surprised at how well our candidate performed. How well does this work? Not very. A follow-up study addressed this question. The low-pitch, high-spin combination, where campaigns set a low bar, with a negative expectation, and then declare a surprising victory, does not work very well. Observers watched the same video of the Kerry-Weld debate discussed above. This time, not only were predebate pitches included, but also postdebate spin was added. At the end of the actual debate there were a few seconds of televised applause with no comment from the actual broadcasters. In this interval Jack Harper’s (the alleged commentator’s) postdebate assessment was dubbed in. He reported that either ‘‘members of the press’’ or ‘‘the Kerry people’’ thought that Kerry had won the debate. These reports followed earlier predebate pitches, from either the press or the Kerry campaign, that were either positive or negative. When the positive postdebate spin for Kerry followed the earlier positive pitch, Harper reported that ‘‘as expected he

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outperformed Governor Weld and gained a clear victory.’’ When the spin followed an earlier negative pitch, Harper reported ‘‘he performed better than expected and gained a clear victory.’’ The result produced by the various combinations of predebate pitches and postdebate spins was quite clear. Kerry’s margin of victory grew following the positive postdebate spin, except in one instance. When the postdebate spin was attributed to Kerry aides, following a low pitch by these same aides, Kerry gained nothing. Viewers seemed to think that Kerry’s aides lacked credibility and were obviously trying to manipulate the audience. Some data on viewer ratings of the overall quality of the network coverage also suggest their skepticism in this condition. First, coverage ratings were higher when Harper reported the views of the press rather than those of campaign aides. Viewers trust the media more than campaign spinners. Furthermore, the quality of coverage was rated particularly poorly when Harper reported the campaign aides’ low-pitch/high-spin combination. They did not believe these attempts at influence, and they preferred that Harper not report them. In line with this skepticism about campaign spinners, it is interesting that following the 2004 presidential debates between John Kerry and President George Bush, ABC News refused to interview aides from either campaign. They relied instead on their own commentators and instant viewer poll results. Of course, this does not take social influence out of the equation. The findings from all of our experiments suggest that the perceptions of media commentators and the perceptions of other viewers, as conveyed in polls, will have a great impact on those who are tuning in to postdebate coverage. It is not clear whether the media commentators reflect the viewer poll results or vice versa. Either way, the combination is likely to have a powerful influence on those watching the televised coverage.

CONCLUSION Taken together, our results from three sets of studies show that people’s perceptions of debate performances are highly susceptible to social influence. They suggest that debates are inherently ambiguous and that people are open to guidance even when interpreting supposedly crystal clear debate moments. In 2007 Joe Biden had the good sense to respond to the question about his verbosity with brevity, creating a perfect media sound bite. His response actually said very little about his capacity for restraint, just as Reagan’s famous age comment was not necessarily indicative of his mental acuity and Lloyd Bentsen’s ‘‘you’re no Jack Kennedy’’ put-down of Dan Quayle explained nothing about the latter’s leadership ability. Yet all of these moments are excellent examples of how the media shapes public perceptions of our quadrennial presidential debates. This shaping is not necessarily—or


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even likely—for the good, but understanding its form and the magnitude of its impact is essential, especially if we wish to make debates into something more than an exchange of sound bites. A recent column in The New York Times ridiculed coverage of a 2008 Republican primary debate, lamenting the emphasis on how candidates ‘‘came across’’ at the expense of analyzing the veracity of what the candidates actually said (Krugman, 2007). The single most important lesson from our research is that how a candidate comes across is as much a function of what is said about them as what they themselves say. If media coverage of debates focuses on the trivial, then so will public evaluations. This is to no one’s benefit.

NOTES 1. Transcript courtesy of the Commission on Presidential Debates. http:// www.debates.org/pages/trans84c.html

REFERENCES Allport, G. W., & Postman, L. (1947). The psychology of rumor. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Baron, R. S., Vandello, J. A., & Brunsman, B. (1996). The forgotten variable in conformity research: Impact of task importance on social influence. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 71, 915–927. Bartels, L. M. (2002). Beyond the running tally: Partisan bias in political perceptions. Political Behavior, 23, 117–150. Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., & Kao, C. (1984). The efficient assessment of need for cognition. Journal of Personality Assessment, 48, 306–307. Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., Kao, C., & Rodriguez, R. (1986). Central and peripheral routes to persuasion: An individual difference perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1032–1043. Commission on Presidential Debates. (2008). 2004 Debates. Webpage. Retrieved February 10, 2008, from http://www.debates.org/pages/his_2004.html Fazio, R. H., & Williams, C. J. (1986). Attitude accessibility as a moderator of the attitude-perception and attitude-behavior relations: An investigation of the 1984 presidential election. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(3), 505–514. Fein, S., Goethals, G. R., & Kugler, M. B. (2007). Social influence on political judgments: The case of presidential debates. Political Psychology, 28(2), 165–192. Holbrook, T. M. (1999). Political learning from presidential debates. Political Behavior, 21(1), 67–89. Jamieson, K. H., & Waldman, P. (2002). The press effect: Politicians, journalists, and the stories that shape the political world. Cambridge: Oxford University Press. Kaid, L. L., & Bystrom, D. G. (1999). The electronic election: Perspectives on the 1996 campaign communication. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Kinder, D. R. (1998). Opinion and action in the realm of politics. In D. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (pp. 778–867). New York: McGraw-Hill. Kraus, S. (1962). The great debates: Background, perspectives, effects. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Krugman, P. (2007, June 8). Lies, sighs and politics. The New York Times, p. A29. Kugler, M. B., & Goethals, G. R. (in press). ‘‘Trait-focused spin in presidential debates: Surviving the kisses of death.’’ Basic and Applied Social Psychology. Laswell, H. (1948). The structure and function of communication and society: The communication of ideas. New York: Institute for Religious and Social Studies. Lemert, J. B., Elliot, W. R., Bernstein, J. M., Rosenberg, W. L., & Nestvold, K. J. (1991). News verdicts, the debates, and presidential campaigns. New York: Praeger. McGuire, W. J. (1968). The nature of attitudes and attitude change. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 136–314). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. McKinnon, L. M., & Tedesco, J. C. (1999). The influence of medium and media commentary on presidential debate effects. In L. L. Kaid, & D. G. Bystrom (Eds.), The electronic election: Perspectives on the 1996 campaign communication (pp. 191–206). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. McKinnon, L. M., Tedesco, J. C., & Kaid, L. L. (1993). The third 1992 presidential debate: Channel and commentary effects. Augmentation and advocacy, 30, 106–118. Norton, M., & Goethals, G. R. (2004). Spin (and pitch) doctors: Campaign strategies in televised political debates. Political Behavior, 26(3), 227–244. Petty, R. E. (2001). Subtle influences on judgment and behavior: Who is most susceptible? In J. Forgas and K. Williams (Eds.), Social influence: Direct and indirect processes (pp. 129–146). New York: Psychology Press. Ranney, A. (1983). Channels of power. New York: Basic Books. Schroeder, A. (2000). Presidential debates: Forty years of high-risk TV. New York: Columbia University Press. Schrott, P. R. (1990). Electoral consequences of ‘‘winning’’ televised campaign debates. Public Opinion Quarterly, 54(4), 567–585. Schwartz, N., & Bless, H. (1992). Constructing reality and its alternatives: An inclusion/exclusion model of assimilation and contrast effects in social judgment. In L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), Construction of social judgments (pp. 217–245). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Sears, D. O., & Chaffee, S. H. (1979). Uses and effects of the 1976 debates: An overview of the empirical studies. In S. Kraus (Ed.), The great debates: Carter versus Ford, 1976. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sigelman, L., & Sigelman, C. K. (1984). Judgments of the Carter-Reagan debate: The eyes of the beholders. Public Opinion Quarterly, 48(3), 624–628. Steeper, F. T. (1978). Public response to Gerald Ford’s statements on Eastern Europe in the second debate. In G. F. Bishop, R. G. Meadow, & M. Jackson-Beeck (Eds.), The presidential debates: Media, electoral, and policy perspectives (pp. 81–101). New York: Praeger. Tannenbaum, P. H., Greenberg, B. S., & Silverman, F. R. (1962). Candidate images. In S. Kraus (Ed.), The great debates. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

10 Social Stigma and Leadership: A Long Climb Up a Slippery Ladder CRYSTAL L. HOYT AND MARTIN M. CHEMERS

I am really thrilled to be running at a time in our history when, on a stage, you can see an African American man, a Hispanic man, and a woman. —Hillary Clinton In this chapter we explore the difficulties women and minorities face in the leadership domain simply because they belong to social groups that are subordinated in our society. The stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination faced by these nondominant, ‘‘stigmatized’’ individuals contribute to their underrepresentation in top leadership roles. In this chapter, we address stigma and leadership from the following two perspectives: (1) perceptions of and responses to stigmatized leaders by others, and (2) experiences of stigmatized leaders. Regardless of whether they are endorsed or not, the culturally dominant stereotypes surrounding stigmatized groups are pervasive and impact both dominant and subordinated members of society. Judgments of others based on skin color, gender, or other salient stigmatizing characteristics disadvantage individuals in the leadership domain. In addition, members of stigmatized social groups are keenly aware of the stereotypes surrounding their social group and are aware that others may treat them according to those beliefs. The incompatibility of negative stereotypes with expectations for effective leadership places challenges on stigmatized individuals at the outset. A greater understanding of social stigma and leadership will help us

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close the leadership gap; if leadership is in as short supply as many fear, utilizing all of our potential resources is required. Senator Hillary Clinton’s quote, referring to fellow 2008 presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Bill Richardson, is quite telling of the lack of diversity in U.S. political and economic leadership. The prevalence of white males in top leadership positions (far beyond their percentage of the population as a whole) extends well beyond presidential candidates, to many other influence-wielding bodies such as Congress, boards of directors, and the C-suite (CEOs, COOs, CFOs, . . .). In this chapter we explore the difficulties that women and minorities face in the leadership domain because of their membership in subordinated social groups.

THE GLASS CEILING TURNED LABYRINTH The well-known term ‘‘glass ceiling,’’ originally coined to refer to the invisible barrier preventing women from ascending the corporate leadership ladder, now refers to barriers preventing people who are not members of society’s dominant groups from reaching elite leadership positions. Eagly and Carli (2007) find the metaphor of a glass ceiling troublesome in that it implies that it is an absolute, impassable barrier, that everyone has equal access to lower level positions, and that there is one large obstacle rather than a number of challenges along the way. Instead, they proffer the image of the leadership labyrinth conveying the image of a journey. Although women and minorities are successfully finding their way through the labyrinth in record numbers, they remain underrepresented, particularly in the upper echelons of American business and politics. For example, only 23.4 percent of the chief executive officers (CEOs) in American organizations are women, and African Americans and Latinos represent a mere 3.1 percent and 4.6 percent of all CEOs, respectively (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006). At Fortune 500 companies, these statistics are even bleaker. Women represent less than 3 percent of CEOs, they hold only 14.7 percent of Fortune 500 board seats, and women of color hold merely 3.4 percent of board seats (Catalyst, 2006; CNNMoney, 2007). Less than 2 percent of the F500 CEOs are African American, and African Americans hold only 8.3 percent of Fortune 500 board seats (Executive Leadership Council, 2004; Fortune Press Center, 2006). These numbers are even more dismal for Latino leaders who occupy a mere 3.1 percent of F500 board seats (Latinas occupy 0.8 percent) and only 1 percent of CEO positions (Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility, 2007). On the political front the numbers are not much better. Women currently hold only 87 of the 535 seats in the U.S. Congress (16.3 percent; 16 percent in

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the Senate and 16.3 percent in the House of Representatives) and women of color hold only 3.9 percent of the congressional seats. Only 13 percent of the Senate seats are occupied by individuals of non-White race/ethnicity. When stigmatized individuals are not represented among the political elite, members of the entire social group may feel disenfranchised. Remarking on Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s victory in particular and the success of Latinos in attaining public office in Los Angeles in general, the president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, Hector M. Flores, observed: ‘‘It has put Hispanics up in the stars, in terms of the possibilities that are there for them now.’’ Thus, breaking down the walls of the labyrinth not only enables equal representation and increases the pool of eligible and talented leaders, but it also enhances the perception of possible leadership roles for members of disadvantaged social groups.

SOCIAL STIGMA Many factors contribute to the leadership labyrinth, but chief among these are stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination that face these ‘‘stigmatized’’ individuals. Individuals are said to carry a stigma if they possess characteristics that might lead other people to consider them deviant, limited, or otherwise undesirable (Leary, 1995). Goffman (1963) offered three categories of stigmatizing attributes: blemishes of individual character, abominations of the body, and tribal stigma. Thus, the mark of stigma might be related to demographic characteristics such as gender or race, physical disabilities, or even being overweight. What different types of stigma share in common are that those who carry the ‘‘mark’’ are more likely to encounter negative expectations and reactions from others that make it more difficult for such persons to reach positions of influence, respect, and status (e.g., leadership). Senator Barack Obama acknowledges the great impact of social stigma on establishing leadership credibility with his remark that ‘‘Race is still a powerful force in this country. Any African American candidate, or any Latino candidate, or Asian candidate or woman candidate confronts a higher threshold in establishing himself [sic] to the voters.’’ Stigmatized individuals, such as women and minorities, belong to low status/power social categories that are negatively stereotyped (Major & O’Brien, 2005). The application of these negative stereotypes to individual members of the devalued social group often occurs automatically and can be exacerbated by seemingly trivial things such as choice of hairstyle. Malcolm Gladwell was inspired to write his best-selling book Blink, a book about the kind of thinking that takes place in the blink of an eye, by the experiences he encountered after growing his hair out into his now renowned afro:

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on a whim, I let it grow wild, as it had been when I was teenager. Immediately, in very small but significant ways, my life changed. I started getting speeding tickets all the time—and I had never gotten any before. I started getting pulled out of airport security lines for special attention. And one day, while walking along 14th Street in downtown Manhattan, a police van pulled up on the sidewalk, and three officers jumped out. They were looking, it turned out, for a rapist, and the rapist, they said, looked a lot like me. They pulled out the sketch and the description. . . . All we had in common was a large head of curly hair . . . what struck me was how even more subtle and absurd the stereotyping was in my case.

Responding to people based on the social category they belong to, such as race or gender, can have a substantial impact on them (Deaux, 1984). Not only are the stigmatized targets of negative stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination, but they are also aware of the devaluation of their social group, which can impact their own thoughts, feelings, and behavior. This chapter will focus on the social psychological literature relating to stigma and leadership with the primary focus on women and racial/ethnic minorities. Although mechanisms of stigmatization are not always identical across social groups, a number of the processes discussed are also relevant to other stigmatized groups such as lesbians and gay men, overweight individuals, older people, and physically challenged persons. In this chapter, we address stigma and leadership from the following two perspectives: (1) perceptions of and responses to stigmatized leaders, and (2) experiences of stigmatized leaders.

PERCEPTIONS OF AND RESPONSES TO STIGMATIZED (SUBORDINATED) LEADERS I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. —Martin Luther King Jr. We have yet to reach that day. Judgment of others based on skin color, gender, or other salient stigmatizing characteristics is still pervasive although instances of overt racism and sexism have declined substantially over the years. However, some people do indeed judge a leader by his cover. For example, in 2007 Gallup polls of 10 percent of the U.S. population indicated that they would not vote for a qualified woman nominated by their party for president and 13 percent indicated that it would be undesirable for the next president to be a racial or ethnic minority. For this subset of Americans, simply being a member of a devalued social group makes an individual undesirable as a leader.


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When people in general are asked to think about the traits of leaders, many things may come to mind but images of women and minorities are not high on the list. To the extent that leadership is largely in the eye of the beholder, nontraditional leaders are at a distinct disadvantage. According to Lord and Maher, leadership begins with ‘‘the process of being perceived by others as a leader’’ (1991, p. 11). Individuals are deemed leaders to the extent that their traits and behaviors are compatible with people’s conceptions of a leader. These widely held and shared beliefs are referred to as implicit leadership theories and generally revolve around task-oriented and people-oriented traits and behaviors such as being determined and influential as well as caring and open to others’ ideas (Kenney, Schwartz-Kenney, & Blascovich, 1996). From this cognitive-perceptual perspective on leadership, stigmatized leaders are at a clear disadvantage because of stereotype-based biases. Social identity theory of leadership (Hogg, 2001) argues that people hold a specific image or ‘‘prototype’’ of how a leader should look, think, and act. When individuals strongly identify with their group, they are more likely to base their perceptions and evaluations of the leader on how representative, or prototypical, the leader is of the group’s values, attitudes, and behavior. To the extent that gender or ethnic stereotypes are used in judging the degree of prototypicality, minorities and women are at a disadvantage. According to Hogg and colleagues (2006), ‘‘minorities may find it hard to lead in groups that have strong group norms and members who subscribe to traditional stereotypes, because minority members are likely to be perceived as ‘incongruent’ or low in prototypicality’’ (p. 346). Social identity theory of leadership would predict that women and minorities are most likely to be positively evaluated and respected in groups composed of members from their own social group.

Gender, Leadership, and Discrimination Female leaders routinely face bias in leadership positions. Although 89 percent of Gallup poll respondents said that they would vote for a qualified woman candidate for president, 14 percent of those individuals indicated that they would not be completely comfortable and would have some reservations. Furthermore, when asked if they think Americans are ready to elect a woman as president, 38 percent of respondents said no. Individuals’ perceptions and evaluations of female leaders involve stereotypes of what a leader is as well as stereotypes related to gender roles, and these two sets of expectations are not congruous. Virginia Schein’s work illustrates this principle quite dramatically. In the early 1970s (Schein, 1973) she asked business school students to describe the characteristics of ‘‘men,’’ of ‘‘women,’’ and of ‘‘managers.’’ She found that the descriptions (i.e., stereotypes) of men were

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much more similar to the descriptions of managers than were the descriptions of women. Fifteen years later, Heilman and her associates (Heilman, Block, Martell, & Simon, 1988) found similar results. If leadership is truly in the eye of the beholder, then gender stereotypes put women with leadership aspirations in a disadvantaged position. The leadership role is generally thought to require ‘‘agentic’’ qualities, such as independence, assertiveness, competitiveness, and decisiveness, and these agentic qualities are perceived to be incompatible with the communal qualities (sensitivity, warmth, and nurturance ) associated with the female gender stereotype (Eagly & Karau, 2002). Empirical evidence confirms that people do combine both leader and gender role expectations when perceiving leaders, and the incongruity between the female gender role and the leadership role results in less favorable attitudes toward female leaders and greater difficulty for them to reach top roles and be viewed as effective in these top roles. Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, encounters this incongruity in role expectations when she conducts symphonies: Conducting’s all body language. When a woman makes a gesture, the same gesture as a man, it’s interpreted entirely differently. The thing I struggled with the most was getting a big sound from the brass because you really have to be strong. But if you’re too strong, you’re a b-i-t-c-h. As a woman, you have to be careful that it’s not too harsh. It’s a subtle line.

Senator Hillary Clinton discusses this incongruity of role expectations in her autobiography Living History: people could perceive me only as one thing or the other—either a hardworking professional woman or a conscientious and caring hostess. . . . It was becoming clear to me that people who wanted me to fit into a certain box, traditionalist or feminist, would never be entirely satisfied with . . . my many different, and sometimes paradoxical, roles. . . . We were living in an era in which some people still felt deeply ambivalent about women in positions of public leadership and power.

This ambivalence Clinton identifies stems from the incongruity between the female gender role and the leadership role. A related social psychological approach to understanding inequity in leadership is expectations states theory (Berger, Rosenholtz, & Zelditch, 1980), which refers to the processes through which group members assign levels of status and task competence to each other and the consequences this assignment has for their interaction. A central tenet of this theory, which is not specific to the stigma of gender, is that individuals in groups assess the appropriate status for other group members on the basis of the social categories to which the other belongs (e.g., gender, race, etc.). Those expectations then affect the social interactions through which leadership is attained and


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employed (Ridgeway, 2001). In terms of gender, these status judgments create implicit performance expectations that can have a substantial impact on mixed-sex group interactions such that women’s input is given less attention and evaluated more poorly than men’s. It is sometimes the case that any positive input of women, particularly in masculine tasks, is attributed more to luck than to her ability, making women less willing than men to speak up and contribute to tasks. All of these factors result in less influence and lower likelihood of leadership emergence for women than men. Not all people respond to women in leadership positions in the same manner. A recent 2006 Gallup poll asking Americans about their gender preferences in bosses revealed that 37 percent of those polled preferred a male boss, 18 percent prefer a female boss, and 43 percent do not have a preference. One factor that determines how people respond to women in leadership positions is their expectations about the roles of men and women in society. For example, compared to more liberal individuals, people with conservative views of gender roles like female leaders less, think they would be more difficult colleagues, and rate them more negatively when they lead in a relationship-oriented style (Forsyth, Heiney, & Wright, 1997). Similarly, follower attitudes have been shown to be important in the evaluation and performance of first year female cadets at West Point (Rice, Bender, & Vitters, 1980). Female leaders’ group performance and follower satisfaction were the same as that of male leaders when followers held progressive attitudes about women in leadership positions, but female leaders performed more poorly than male leaders and had less satisfied followers when those followers held the more traditional attitudes, hostile to women in leadership positions. Discrimination against women in leadership positions often comes in subtle forms. In one study, Supino and Goethals (2007) presented people with a vignette of either a male or a female candidate for U.S. Secretary of Defense during either a peace context or a terror context. Although the male participants found the male and female candidates equally competent across conditions, they were less likely to vote for the female candidate. In other words, male participants showed a subtle form of discrimination against the female candidate in that their willingness to vote for her was not on par with their perceptions of competency as it was for the male candidate. Further analyses revealed that the male participants rated the female candidate as less intelligent across contexts, and they rated her as less able to cope with stress and more passive than the male candidate in the terror context. Gender discrimination in the leadership domain is indeed still prevalent, yet its contemporary form is more subtle and pernicious. In addition to evaluating women more negatively and being less likely to select them for leadership positions, successful women leaders engender hostility in terms of not being liked and being personally derogated, which

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ultimately has implications for career outcomes such as evaluations and reward allocations (Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004). These penalties women incur for success at male tasks result from the perceived violation of the female gender role. Thus, women leaders are in a double bind: they need to show agency to be perceived as an effective leader but not too much agency or they will be disliked; they also need to show communion to be liked but not too much or they will be seen as an ineffective leader. This hostility that women encounter for violating the prescription of femininity was clearly illustrated in the 1989 Supreme Court case Price Waterhouse v. Ann Hopkins. Hopkins was told by Price Waterhouse that she was too ‘‘macho’’ and that she should be more feminine. They went as far as to advise her to go to charm school, wear jewelry and makeup, and be less aggressive. Hopkins was told that she would not make partner because she was too masculine, and in the end, the court ruled that Price Waterhouse was discriminating based on gender stereotypes.

Stigma and Attributions Another way stigma impacts perceptions of leaders is through the attributions people make for others’ behaviors. People have an intrinsic need to explain behavior and, when searching for these explanations, stereotypes can significantly bias attributions. For example, a large review of the attributional research demonstrates that people attribute success at masculine tasks to skill when rating men, but attribute women’s success to luck (Swim & Sanna, 1996). These biased attributions extend to ethnic/racial minorities as well. For example, researchers have shown that people are more likely to attribute a successful banking career to ability and less likely to attribute it to effort and luck when the banker is a White man compared to a White woman or a Black woman or man (Yarkin, Town, & Wallston, 1982). These attributions play an important role in people’s evaluations of leaders. For example, when followers make external attributions, such as luck, for poor leader performance or internal attributions, such as ability, for good performance, they evaluate the leader better than when the opposite attributions are made. Attributions also play an important role when leaders are viewed as being the beneficiary of preferential treatment, a perception that often surrounds affirmative action. Justice Clarence Thomas’s appointment on the Supreme Court has been viewed by many to be a result of preferential treatment rather than based solely on merit. Regarding Thomas, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden remarked, ‘‘Had Thomas been white, he never would have been nominated. The only reason he is on the court is because he is black.’’ Justice Thomas, however, has repeatedly denied that he has been the beneficiary of


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preferential treatment. This fervent denial is understandable considering how attributions of preferential treatment impact stigmatized leaders. When individuals selected for leadership roles are thought to have been given preferential treatment, or what some call ‘‘reverse discrimination,’’ their abilities and deservingness of the leadership role may be discounted in the attribution process (Crosby, Iyer, Clayton, & Downing, 2003). When leaders are perceived to have been selected for the leadership role preferentially, they are rated lower in leadership characteristics and effectiveness and are more likely to be recommended to be replaced (DeMatteo, Dobbins, Myers, & Facteau, 1996). However, these negative effects can be compensated for when followers are given positive feedback about leader performance. Considerable research indicates that when considerations of merit are indicated along with social group membership, reactions are much more positive.

EXPERIENCES OF STIGMATIZED LEADERS I could not at any age be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. —Eleanor Roosevelt Regardless of whether they are endorsed or not, the culturally dominant stereotypes surrounding stigmatized groups are pervasive and impact both dominant and subordinated members of society. Members of stigmatized social groups are keenly aware of the stereotypes surrounding their social group and are aware that others may treat them according to those beliefs. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, during racial segregation and was fully aware of racial hostility. Rice’s success as a leader depended in part on her responses to the deeply ingrained racism in her childhood, and she credits her parents for her determination to succeed: ‘‘My parents had me absolutely convinced that, well, you may not be able to have a hamburger at Woolworth’s, but you can be President of the United States.’’

Stereotype Threat Stigmatized leaders may perform less well when they think they are being evaluated through the lens of negative stereotypes. Stereotype-based expectations of inferiority can place a large psychological burden on leaders. ‘‘Stereotype threat’’ is the name given to the apprehension individuals experience when they are at risk of confirming a negative social stereotype (Steele & Aronson, 1995). Examining the role of stereotype threat within the domain of leadership, Davies, Spencer, and Steele (2005) exposed undergraduate women to either gender stereotypic commercials (e.g., a female college

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student dreaming of becoming the homecoming queen) or neutral commercials (e.g., a cell phone commercial). They found that those women who were exposed to gender stereotypic commercials had lower leadership aspirations for an upcoming task. Correspondingly, other researchers found similar stereotype threat effects such that women performed less well than men on a masculine sex role-typed managerial task (Bergeron, Block, & Echtenkamp, 2006) and on a negotiation task when the stereotype was implicitly activated (Kray, Thompson, & Galinsky, 2001). We have further investigated the psychological burden that the gender leader stereotype places on women in the leadership role. In one study, undergraduate participants were exposed to magazine advertisements portraying women in either gender stereotypic (e.g., taking care of families, shopping) or counterstereotypic (e.g., being an entrepreneur, making millions of dollars) roles (Hoyt & Simon, 2008). Subsequently, in an ostensibly second study, participants were ‘‘randomly assigned’’ to the leadership role of a three-person group task wherein the leader’s charge was to lead a discussion and reach consensus with two female followers on a controversial topic at the university (the followers were confederates of the experimenter trained to provide standardized feedback in all conditions). The results demonstrated the negative impact of the gender-stereotypic advertisements. The women in the stereotypic advertisement condition reported that they performed worse on the leadership task and they reported lower levels of self-esteem and well-being than those in the counterstereotypic condition. Using a different method to activate the gender leader stereotype and a different task, we demonstrated similar effects of stereotype activation on women in the leadership role in another experiment (Simon & Hoyt, 2007). In this study female participants completed a modified version of the Remote Associates Test. Although this test was originally developed as a test of creativity, participants were told that the task was a reliable measure of decision-making abilities in leadership situations. The gender leader stereotype was activated for half of the participants by telling them that the task had shown robust gender differences, and the stereotype was nullified for the other half by telling them that the task had shown no gender differences. Participants in the stereotype activation condition took longer to complete the task, reported lower levels of perceived performance, identified less with leadership, and reported lower levels of self-esteem and higher disappointment scores compared to those in the nullified condition.

Stereotype Reactance Despite the well-documented stereotype threat effects, stereotypes do not always result in deleterious responses from the negatively stereotyped


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individual. For example, while Davies et al. (2005) found that exposure to stereotypic commercials undermines women’s leadership aspirations, presenting the task as identity safe, that is, telling participants that there are no gender differences in the leadership task, eliminates this vulnerability. Additionally, Bergeron and colleagues (2006) found that women do not underperform men on the managerial task when it is feminine sex role-typed. Furthermore, some leaders from nondominant social groups actually react to negative stereotypes and discrimination with constructive responses. Oprah Winfrey embodies this beneficial ‘‘I’ll show you’’ response: ‘‘I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that’s how I operate my life.’’ When individuals are confronted with a negative stereotype and they engage in counterstereotypical behavior, they are engaging in what has been termed ‘‘stereotype reactance.’’ For example, women have demonstrated reactance by outperforming men at the bargaining table when they were explicitly presented with the gender and negotiation stereotype (Kray et al., 2001). Not all stigmatized individuals will respond to negative stereotypes in the same manner. In a series of studies, we examined the role of leadership selfefficacy, or confidence one has in her/his leadership abilities, in women’s responses to the leader-gender stereotype (Hoyt & Blascovich, 2007; Hoyt, 2005). In two experimental studies, we selected women with high or low leadership self-efficacy to serve as leaders of an ostensible three-person group undertaking an employee hiring decision task. Half of the leaders were primed with the gender leader stereotype by perusing a folder containing media images of male leaders, and they were given information on the gender gap in top leadership roles. The results showed that, unlike low efficacy leaders, high efficacy leaders exhibited positive, ‘‘I’ll show you!’’ responses and reported higher levels of perceived performance, identification with leadership, and well-being as well as performing better.

Stigmatized Leaders’ Attributions Another approach to understanding the impact of stigma on low status group members is to examine the attributions they make. The belief that one is the beneficiary of preferential selection can have harmful effects. Shelby Steele, a vocal opponent of affirmative action, argues that being the recipient of preferential treatment can be harmful to the well-being of African Americans: Even when the black sees no implication of inferiority in racial preferences, he knows that whites do, so that—consciously or unconsciously—the result is virtually the same. The effect of preferential treatment—the lowering of normal standards to increase black representation—puts blacks at war with an

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expanded realm of debilitating doubt, so that the doubt itself becomes an unrecognized preoccupation that undermines their ability to perform, especially in integrated situations.

These potentially damaging effects of preferential selection have been shown to generalize beyond race and extend into the realm of leadership. For example, when women believe they are preferentially selected to leadership roles, they undermine their advancement by being less likely to choose demanding work assignments and they are more likely to undervalue their work-related abilities and task orientation (Heilman, Rivero, & Brett, 1991). These negative effects, however, were not found when the preferential selection was accompanied with positive assessment of their work-related abilities. Examining the role of affirmative action on leadership selection, Major, Feinstein, and Crocker (1994) found that women selected for a leader role based on sex only were more likely to devalue the importance of being a leader compared to those selected on merit. However, the negative impact of preferential treatment is attenuated when consideration of merit is included with the group-based membership—a procedure that mimics affirmative action procedures in the real world (Crosby et al., 2003). When faced with negative feedback, stigmatized leaders may wonder whether the feedback is truly in response to their ability or due in part to the prejudicial attitudes of the person giving it. This uncertainty is termed ‘‘attributional ambiguity’’; these nondominant leaders are uncertain of the motives underlying other’s reactions to them, and the attributions they make can have important implications for their psychological well-being. Crocker and Major (1989) hypothesized that attributing negative feedback to prejudice can be self-protective by buffering stigmatized individuals from negative self-evaluation. Although making these attributions may be self-protective when confronting negative feedback, these same attributions can undermine leaders’ ability to take credit for positive feedback from followers. To take a close look at these predictions, we experimentally examined the attributions and subsequent well-being of Latino leaders (Hoyt, Aguilar, Kaiser, Blascovich, & Lee, 2007). These two studies were conducted using immersive virtual environment technology that allows for computer-generated visual input. Participants donned headsets that immersed them in a virtual conference room ostensibly with two other participants who were actually physically located in other locations in the laboratory. The individuals who were playing the leadership role were made aware whether their ‘‘virtual identity’’ was as a White person or a Latino. In the first study, participants (whether portrayed as Latino or White) were given negative performance feedback during a leadership role. The participants who were represented as Latino attributed the negative feedback more to discrimination and reported greater well-being than nonstigmatized participants. In other words, blaming


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Figure 10-1 The effects of positive and negative performance feedback and stigma (ethnic representation) on well-being

poor performance on discrimination protected the self-esteem of the participants in the face of negative feedback. The second experiment was restricted to only Latino participants who were given either negative or positive feedback. Latinos with their stigma revealed (portrayed as Latino in the virtual conference room) again showed the selfprotective effects after receiving negative leadership feedback. However, in addition, Latinos with a revealed stigma also discounted positive feedback and reported lower well-being (see Figure 10-1). These findings show that members of socially devalued groups are acutely aware that others might be responding on the basis of group membership. Attributing feedback to one’s group membership can buffer leaders against negative feedback but can undermine their ability to take credit for positive feedback.

CONCLUSION Effective leadership involves (a) establishing one’s credibility and influence, (b) building a relationship that, through coaching and support, enables followers to contribute to group goals, and (c) fully utilizing all of the

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resources available to the group by matching leadership strategies to the environment appropriately and creating a strong belief among team members of the collective competency and value of the group (Chemers, 1997). Each one of these elements presents obstacles, barriers, and hurdles for aspiring leaders who are members of stigmatized groups. The incompatibility of negative stereotypes with expectations for effective leadership places challenges on stigmatized individuals at the outset. It may take longer or even be impossible for nontraditional leaders to convince others that they are right for the role and worthy of leadership status and influence. The basis for enabling and empowering followers to contribute to group goals requires that the leader is able to understand followers’ capabilities and needs and to supply support and guidance. The ability to achieve these functions heavily depends on building strong authentic relationships. Animosities, negative expectations, and resistance from followers and superiors make garnering that ability very difficult. However, the picture is not completely bleak for women and minority leaders. Affirmative action programs, especially those that are careful to remind both leaders and followers of competency as the basis for appointment, will put more currently stigmatized individuals into leadership roles. The findings are clear that as followers have a chance to evaluate their leaders on the basis of work-relevant performance, judgments based on irrelevant social categories become less prevalent (Lord & Maher, 1991). Additionally, the mere presence of more women and minorities in top leadership positions will begin to break down the negative stereotypes against these leaders. If leadership is in as short supply as many fear, utilizing all of our potential resources is required.

REFERENCES Berger, J., Rosenholtz, S. J., & Zelditch, M. (1980). Status organizing processes. Annual Review of Sociology, 6, 479–508. Bergeron, D. M., Block, C. J., & Echtenkamp, A. (2006). Disabling the able: Stereotype threat and women’s work performance. Human Performance, 19, 133–158. Catalyst. (2006). 2005 Catalyst census of women board directors of the Fortune 500. New York: Catalyst. Chemers, M. M. (1997). An integrative theory of leadership. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. CNNMoney. (2007). Women CEOs for Fortune 500 companies. Retrieved July 9, 2007, from http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2007/womenceos/ Crocker, J., & Major, B. (1989). Social stigma and self-esteem: The self-protective properties of stigma. Psychological Review, 96, 608–630. Crosby, F., Iyer, A., Clayton, S., & Downing, R. (2003). Affirmative action: Psychological data and the policy debates. American Psychologist, 58, 93–115.


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Davies, P. G., Spencer, S. J., & Steele, C. M. (2005). Clearing the air: Identity safety moderates the effects of stereotype threat on women’s leadership aspirations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 276–287. Deaux, K. (1984). From individual differences to social categories: Analysis of a decade’s research on gender. American Psychologist, 39, 105–116. DeMatteo, J. S., Dobbins, G. H., Myers, S. D. & Facteau, C. L. (1996). Evaluation of leadership in preferential and merit-based leader selection situations. Leadership Quarterly, 7(1), 41–62. Eagly, A. H., & Carli, L. L. (2007, September). Women and the labyrinth of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 62–71. Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109, 573–598. Executive Leadership Council. (2004). Institute for leadership development and research: 2004 Census of African American on boards of directors of Fortune 500 companies. Retrieved July 9, 2007, from http://www.elcinfo.com/ExecSummary.pdf Forsyth, D. R., Heiney, M. M., & Wright, S. S. (1997). Biases in appraisals of women leaders. Group Dynamics, 1, 98–103. Fortune Press Center. (2006). Key Fortune 500 findings and stats. Retrieved July 9, 2007, from http://www.timeinc.net/fortune/information/presscenter/fortune/press_ releases/20060403_fortune500.html Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Heilman, M. E., Block, C. J., Martell, R. F., & Simon, M. C. (1988). Has anything changed? Current characterizations of men, women, and managers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 935–942. Heilman, M. E., Rivero, J. C., & Brett, J. F. (1991). Skirting the competence issue: Effects of sex-based preferential selection on task choices of women and men. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 99–105. Heilman, M. E., Wallen, A. S., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M. M. (2004). Penalties for success: Reactions to women who succeed at male gender-typed tasks. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 416–427. Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility. (2007). 2007 Corporate governance study. Retrieved July 9, 2007, from http://www.hacr.org/research/pageID.87/ default.asp Hogg, M. A. (2001). A social identity theory of leadership. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 184–200. Hogg, M. A., Fielding, K. S., Johnson, D., Masser, B., Russell, E., & Svensson, A. (2006). Demographic category membership and leadership in small groups: A social identity analysis. The Leadership Quarterly, 17, 335–350. Hoyt, C. L. (2005). The role of leadership efficacy and stereotype activation in women’s identification with leadership. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 11(4), 2–14. Hoyt, C., Aguilar, L., Kaiser, C., Blascovich, J., & Lee, K. (2007). The self-protective and undermining effects of attributional ambiguity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 884–893.

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Hoyt, C., & Blascovich, J. (2007). Leadership efficacy and women leaders’ responses to stereotype activation. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 10, 595–616. Hoyt, C., & Simon, S. (2008). The dark side of exposure to role models: Will female leaders guide you to the top or just let you down? Manuscript in preparation. Kenney, R. A., Schwartz-Kenney, B. M., & Blascovich, J. (1996). Implicit leadership theories: Defining leaders described as worthy of influence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 1128–1143. Kray, L. J., Thompson, L., & Galinsky, A. (2001). Battle of the sexes: Gender stereotype confirmation and reactance in negotiations. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 80, 942–958. Leary, M. R. (1995). Impression management and interpersonal behavior. Dubuque, IA: Brown & Benchmark. Lord, R. G., & Maher K. J. (1991). Leadership and information processing: Linking perceptions and performance. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman. Major, B., Feinstein, J., & Crocker, J. (1994). The attributional ambiguity of affirmative action. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 15, 113–141. Major, B., & O’Brien, L. (2005). The social psychology of stigma. In S. T. Fiske (Ed.), Annual Review of Psychology (Vol. 56, pp. 393–421). Chippewa Falls, WI: Annual Reviews. Rice, R. W., Bender, L. R., & Vitters, A. G. (1980). Leader sex, follower attitudes toward women, and leadership effectiveness: A laboratory experiment. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 25, 46–78. Ridgeway, C. L. (2001). Gender, status, and leadership. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 637–655. Schein, V. E. (1973). The relationship between sex role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics. Journal of Applied Psychology, 57, 95–100. Simon, S., & Hoyt, C. (2007). Women’s responses to gender-leader stereotype activation. Unpublished manuscript. Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 797–811. Supino, A., & Goethals, G. (2007). The war on inequality: Subtleties in the perceptions of women leaders. Unpublished manuscript. Swim, J. K., & Sanna, L. J. (1996). He’s skilled, she’s lucky: A meta-analysis of observer’s attributions for women’s and men’s successes and failures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 507–519. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2006). Current population survey, annual averages– household data. (Table 11: Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity.) Retrieved July 6, 2007, from ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/ special.requests/lf/aat11.txt Yarkin, K., Town, J., & Wallston, B. (1982). Blacks anti women must try harder: Stimulus persons’ race and sex attributions of causality. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 21–24.

11 Deifying the Dead and Downtrodden: Sympathetic Figures as Inspirational Leaders SCOTT T. ALLISON AND GEORGE R. GOETHALS

There is nothing sweeter than to be sympathized with. —George Santayana In my country, we go to prison first and then become President. —Nelson Mandela This chapter proposes that leaders often derive their most inspirational qualities from events or actions that transpire before and after, rather than during, their tenure as leaders. These events or actions engender sympathy, emotional support, and adoration for the leader. We identify three types of individuals whose effectiveness as leaders stem from actions that elicit sympathetic responses from others: underdog leaders who attract sympathy from their ability to overcome significant obstacles before they assume their leadership; deceased leaders who attract sympathy and whose deaths elicit reverence and inspiration long after they are gone; and martyrs who make the ultimate sacrifice for noble causes and whose appeal is derived from combined elements of both underdog and deceased leaders. We propose that the self-sacrifice of all three types of leaders cements these leaders’ positive legacy, and that these leaders’ values both reflect and become a central part of their community’s social identity.

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A vast body of leadership research has focused on inspirational leaders and the actions they take, during their tenure as leaders, to motivate and arouse passion among their followers (see Avolio & Yammarino, 2002, for a review). These leaders have been characterized as charismatic (Shamir, 1991), transformational (Burns, 1978), or inspirational (Yukl, 2006), and they connect emotionally with their followers by engaging behaviors such as articulating a clear and appealing vision (Raelin, 1989); persuading followers to fulfill that vision (House & Shamir, 1993); using strong and expressive forms of communication (Nadler, 1988); acting confidently and optimistically (Mumford & Strange, 2002); expressing confidence in followers (Eden, 1990); using symbolic, dramatic actions to emphasize key values (Yukl, 2006); leading by example (House & Howell, 1992); and empowering people to achieve the vision (Riggio & Conger, 2005). Whereas these inspiring actions occur during one’s term as leader, we argue in this chapter that a leader’s most transforming actions often occur before and after, rather than during, his or her tenure as leader. To be effective sources of inspiration, these actions must be emotionally powerful to followers, engendering sympathy, respect, and veneration for the leader. A prominent example is the leadership of Nelson Mandela, who endured 27 years of imprisonment before assuming the presidency of South Africa. While imprisoned, he and other inmates performed hard labor in a lime quarry. Prison conditions were harsh; prisoners were segregated by race, with black prisoners receiving the least rations. Political prisoners such as Mandela were kept separate from ordinary criminals and received fewer privileges. Mandela has described how, as a D-group prisoner (the lowest classification) he was allowed one visitor and one letter every six months. Mandela’s ability to prevail after such long-term suffering made him an inspirational hero. His remarkable triumph over adversity, occurring before his presidency, propelled him to international fame and adoration. Whereas Mandela’s inspirational qualities derived from events that transpired before his formal leadership, other leaders inspire others based on occurrences after their tenure as leaders. Consider the intriguing case of Missouri governor Melvin Carnahan, who was elected to the U.S. Senate on November 7, 2000. Ordinarily, there is nothing noteworthy about voters electing an individual to office, except in this instance the individual had perished in a plane crash three weeks prior to the election. Even more extraordinary was the fact that Carnahan was trailing his opponent by several percentage points in opinion polls just prior to the plane crash. Polls clearly showed that his popularity soared as a result of his death. How could Carnahan have achieved a level of support in death that he could not achieve in life? We argue that Mandela and Carnahan inspired their followers largely because their experiences engendered sympathetic responses. According to

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Eisenberg (2004), sympathy is ‘‘an affective response that consists of feeling sorrow or concern for the distress or needy other’’ (p. 678). Typically, the target of the sympathetic response has experienced a significant setback or suffered a calamitous outcome. Sympathy often derives from empathy, a related affective response that Eisenberg defines as ‘‘the comprehension of another’s emotional state’’ that leads the perceiver to feel emotions that are ‘‘identical or very similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel’’ (p. 678). Batson and his colleagues have found that people display preferential treatment toward those with whom they sympathize. Specifically, sympathizers value the welfare of the persons in need (Batson, Turk, Shaw, & Klein, 1995) and allocate resources preferentially to targets of sympathy, even if these allocations violate principles of justice (Batson, Klein, Highberger, & Shaw, 1995). From these considerations, it appears that targets of sympathetic responses are often the beneficiary of prosocial actions. When a person suffers, observers vicariously feel some of that suffering and may come to care deeply about the ultimate fate of the affected individual. But if the person faces a challenging situation over which observers have no control, they may be relegated to noting how the challenged person responds to the setback. For those challenged individuals who triumph over their setbacks, our sympathy and prosocial wishes for them can evolve into respect, admiration, and even adoration. If the setback is death itself, our sympathy can evolve into reverence and idealization. In short, negative outcomes experienced before or after one’s tenure as leader can engender strong sympathetic responses and have a transforming, inspiring effect on followers. In this chapter, we identify three types of individuals whose effectiveness as leaders derive from actions that elicit sympathetic responses from others. The first is an underdog leader, of which Mandela is a classic example. People sympathize with underdogs and admire those underdogs who defy expectations by overcoming significant obstacles. The second type of leader who attracts sympathy is a deceased leader. As in the case of Mel Carnahan, death invokes sorrowful responses and elevates the status of the deceased. The third type of leader who elicits sympathy is a martyr, who makes the ultimate sacrifice for a noble cause and whose appeal is derived from combined elements of both underdog and deceased leaders. We describe each of these three leader types in some detail below.

UNDERDOGS AS INSPIRATIONAL LEADERS Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. —Booker T. Washington

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Although most social psychological theory and research has focused on the human tendency to associate with winners and successful others (e.g., Cialdini et al., 1976), our recent research findings point to the opposite tendency, namely, the appeal of the underdog (Kim et al., in press; see also Vandello, Goldschmied, & Richards, 2007). Stories about underdogs seem to touch something deep in the human psyche (Spencer, 1873). People, animals, and even inanimate objects that face difficult challenges, against a strong opponent or a demanding situation, inspire our support. The publishers of the children’s classic The Little Engine That Could (Piper, 1930) suggest that the phrase ‘‘I think I can’’ is as central to our collective culture as ‘‘I have a dream’’ and ‘‘One small step for man.’’ What are underdogs, and why might people sympathize with them? We define underdogs as social entities whose struggles engender sympathy with others (Kim et al., in press). The notion of struggle is central to the definition of an underdog; the struggle can be against either a difficult situation or a formidable opponent, which we define as the top dog. Across many cultures underdog stories abound. Many cultural narratives relate stories of people facing difficult challenges, such as King Sisyphus condemned in Hades to roll a stone toward the top of a hill for eternity. Similarly, ‘‘The American Dream’’ and the Horatio Alger stories of ‘‘rags to riches,’’ embodied by individuals such as Andrew Carnegie, captivate our dreams to overcome the imposed limitations of underdog status (Scharnhorst, 1980). Cultural icons featured in films such as Rocky, The Karate Kid, Erin Brockovich, Seabiscuit, and Million Dollar Baby provide sympathetic and inspiring portrayals of successful underdogs. We believe that such narratives reflect an archetype of struggle, derived from the Jungian hero archetype (Jung, 1964), and that these archetypical narratives elicit sympathy and support. These heroic accomplishments of underdogs inspire us and may underscore our hope that the world can be a fair place in which all individuals have the potential to succeed. Are underdog leaders more inspirational than top dog leaders? To answer this question, Allison and Heilborn (2007, Study 1) gave participants descriptions of business and political leaders and experimentally manipulated the biographical backgrounds of the leaders, with half the participants learning that the leaders endured an impoverished upbringing (underdog condition) and the other half learning that the leaders enjoyed an affluent upbringing (top dog condition). Although participants did not differ in their ratings of the basic competence of underdog and top dog leaders, they did differ significantly on measures of sympathy and inspiration. Specifically, participants reported that they sympathized more with underdog leaders than with top dog leaders, and that they liked and respected underdog leaders more than top dog leaders. In addition, participants were significantly more inspired by the underdog leaders, more motivated to work for underdog leaders, more


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inspired by the underdog leader’s vision, and more convinced that the underdog leaders would achieve long-term success. Allison and Heilborn (2007, Study 2) also asked a different group of 50 participants to generate lists of real-world underdog and top dog leaders. The five underdog leaders most frequently mentioned were Muhammad Ali (listed 27 times), Steve Jobs (24), Martin Luther King Jr. (23), Nelson Mandela (21), and Oprah Winfrey (17). The five top dog leaders most frequently mentioned were Bill Gates (28), George Steinbrenner (20), Donald Trump (20), George W. Bush (19), and Michael Bloomberg (12). These ten individuals were then rated by other participants on dimensions of sympathy, liking, respect, competence, and inspiration. The results showed that, compared to the group of top dog leaders, the group of underdog leaders were significantly more sympathized with, liked, respected, and inspiring. Do all underdogs—leaders as well as nonleaders—inspire us? We have conducted several studies showing that people are significantly more likely to root for and sympathize with many types of underdog entities (e.g., teams, artists, and businesses) than they are to root for and sympathize with top dog entities (Kim et al., in press, Study 1). Most importantly, we found that people’s sympathy for the underdog was the psychological mechanism responsible for this underdog effect (Study 3). It is noteworthy that increased sympathy and emotional support for the underdog does not translate into increased perceived competence for the underdog. We found that although people were more likely to root for an underdog artist than for a top dog artist in an upcoming competition, they judged the top dog artist’s painting to be superior in quality to that of the underdog (Kim et al., Study 2). Importantly, we have found in a follow-up study that this negative view of the quality of underdogs’ work may be limited to pre-outcome measures of quality. When people are asked to judge the quality of underdog and top dog work after the successful outcome of a competition, we discovered that people judge underdogs’ work as superior to that of top dogs. These findings suggest that underdogs attract our sympathy but must prove themselves worthy of our admiration by triumphing over their obstacles. One of our most revealing studies underscored the psychologically powerful effect of underdogs on human judgments (Kim et al., in press, Study 3). Employing a methodology reminiscent of that used by Heider and Simmel (1944), the study involved showing participants clips of animated shapes that appeared to chase or bump other shapes. Heider and Simmel’s participants inferred causality from the movement of these shapes and also assigned dispositional attributes to the shapes as a result of their behavior toward each other. The beauty of Heider and Simmel’s work is that it illustrated just how pervasive and natural the attribution process is, emerging in judgments of simple lifeless objects. We presented their participants with moving shapes

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Figure 11-1 A geometric shape appearing to struggle to attain a goal

to determine whether people naturally bestow underdog status and underdog qualities upon shapes that move more slowly than others. The study included four conditions: (1) a single nonstruggling geometric shape (see Figure 11-1); (2) a single struggling geometric shape; (3) a struggling geometric shape together with a benign nonstruggling shape; and (4) a struggling geometric shape together with a ‘‘malicious’’ nonstruggling shape that appeared to intentionally block the struggling shape (see Figure 11-2). The results of this study showed that people showed more emotional support for a single struggling shape than for a single nonstruggling shape. This finding suggests that an entity’s struggle, by itself, is enough to engender support, even when the entity is by itself. Kim et al. also found that the social context heightened participants’ emotional support for the struggling entity, such that participants were especially likely to root for a struggling entity when paired with a nonstruggling one. Finally, the strongest underdog effect emerged when participants viewed a struggling shape whose progress toward achieving its apparent goal was overtly thwarted by a nonstruggling shape (Figure 11-2). Even more importantly, for the purposes of this chapter, Kim et al. found that participants were more likely to sympathize with the single struggling shape than with the single nonstruggling shape. Moreover,

Figure 11-2 A struggling geometric shape’s goal appearing to be thwarted by a nonstruggling shape


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participants showed the greatest degree of sympathy for the struggling shape paired with the malicious circle that impeded the struggling shape’s progress. In summary, the results of several studies suggest that underdogs are viewed as highly respected and inspirational leaders. They derive their appeal from their ability to overcome difficult situations that attract our sympathy. Underdogs who prevail over their circumstances and later become leaders have earned our respect and support, and they are judged to be inspiring leaders.

THE DEAD AS INSPIRATIONAL LEADERS Death openeth the gate to good fame. —Francis Bacon In June 2004, the death of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan triggered an outpouring of praise and admiration from former political allies and adversaries alike (Von Drehle, 2004). These tributes and adulations caught many anti-Reagan liberals by surprise (Troy, 2005). One study of media coverage of Reagan found that it was significantly more positive after his death than during his tenure as president (Lichter, 2004). The media were rarely kind to Reagan and his policies during his presidency, and yet the very same media posthumously showered him and his legacy with many accolades. In fact, a 2007 Gallup poll ranked him as second best all-time U.S. president, trailing only Abraham Lincoln (Polling Report, 2008). How has Reagan attracted more widespread respect in death than he was able to attract in life? In several studies, we have found that people form more favorable impressions of dead leaders than of equivalent living leaders (Allison, Eylon, Beggan, & Bachelder, in press; Allison & Eylon, 2005; Eylon & Allison, 2005). This finding, moreover, emerges in evaluations of fictitious leaders as well as real-world leaders, and it emerges in judgments of competent as well as incompetent leaders. The results of these studies also show that positive judgments of the dead are significantly correlated with judgments of sympathy. Interestingly, the only condition we have been able to identify under which the death positivity bias does not appear is in evaluations of immoral leaders, who are judged less favorably after death than in life. We have proposed that the death of immoral individuals engenders far less sympathy than the death of moral individuals, thus leading to posthumous judgments that are less favorable for the immoral dead (Allison et al., in press). We have called people’s tendency to inflate their evaluations of the dead the death positivity bias (Allison et al., in press). The death positivity bias nicely explains why Reagan’s posthumous media coverage was so positive, and why Carnahan was able to come from behind posthumously to defeat his

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opponent in Missouri’s 2000 U.S. Senate election. Reagan’s and Carnahan’s deaths elicited sympathy and activated the norm of speaking only ‘‘well’’ of the dead. We have found that this norm may explain why press coverage of dead celebrity leaders, such as Princess Diana, John F. Kennedy Jr., and Tupac Shakur, is significantly more positive after death than before death (Allison et al., in press, Study 3). We speculate that the death of young leaders is especially likely to heighten death positivity biases. Moreover, death not only inflates our evaluations, it also makes them impervious to change, a phenomenon we call the frozen in time effect (Eylon & Allison, 2005). Philosophers have long been keenly aware of this norm prescribing reverence for deceased individuals. For example, the great playwright Sophocles warned his audiences ‘‘not to insult the dead.’’ Athenian statesman and legislator Solon echoed this sentiment when he implored citizens to ‘‘speak no ill of the dead.’’ The eminent Greek historian Thucydides went beyond this simple admonition by observing that ‘‘all men are wont to praise him who is no more.’’ In more modern times, American poet John Whittier noted that ’’death softens all resentments, and the consciousness of a common inheritance of frailty and weakness modifies the severity of judgment.’’ Our analysis of death positivity phenomena is consistent with the theoretical mechanisms implicated in terror management theory (Arndt, Greenberg, Schimel, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 2002; Solomon, Cohen, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, Chapter 3 of this volume). Terror management theory proposes that when people think about death, they experience terror and thus engage in worldview-validating behaviors aimed at reducing the terror. As Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski (1997) note, ‘‘Cultural worldviews ameliorate anxiety by imbuing the universe with order and meaning, by providing standards of value that are derived from that meaningful conception of reality, and by promising protection and death transcendence to those who meet those standards of value’’ (italics added, p. 65). In short, a person’s cultural worldview allows behaviors deemed valuable to take on higher order meaning, providing the person with a means for achieving symbolic immortality (Arndt et al., 2002). This tendency to support one’s cultural worldview when thinking of death leads to a more favorable evaluation of those who uphold the values and norms of the worldview, and harsher judgments of those who violate the worldview (Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989). Although terror management researchers have not yet investigated positivity biases in evaluations of dead targets, it seems reasonable that if a deceased target were a meaningful contributor to society—and hence affirmed the perceiver’s worldview—then the perceiver may be motivated to form heightened posthumous appraisals of the deceased target. Following the tenets of TMT, when perceivers honor the dead, particularly dead leaders whose


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actions in life affirmed and validated the perceiver ’s cultural worldview, these enhanced evaluations may mitigate perceivers’ own terror of death that arises from the sheer exposure to the thought of death. Honoring dead leaders who upheld the perceiver’s worldview allows the perceiver to evoke the sense of security provided by adhering to the cherished principles of the cultural worldview. It may also serve to reduce peoples’ fear of their own mortality by assuring them that they will be well regarded after their death. Effective leaders have long been known to shape the values and emotions of those who follow (Dasborough, 2006), and the death positivity bias may represent one source of emotional connection between leaders and followers. To the extent that leaders embody the values of their groups or organizations, their deaths may inspire followers to create permanent positive remembrances of their leaders. These remembrances can take the form of statues, shrines, buildings, city and road names, epic stories, and visages on currency and stamps. Actions taken to honor dead leaders are consistent with the tenets of terror management theory and its emphasis on the impact of mortality salience in validating one’s cultural worldview (Arndt et al., 2002). A great leader affirms the values of the group (Hogg, Chapter 4 in this volume), and when the leader passes away, followers may be motivated to ensure that these affirmations endure by elevating the status of the leader beyond that which existed when he or she was alive (Allison & Eylon, 2005).

MARTYRS AS INSPIRATIONAL LEADERS The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins. —Soren Kierkegaard Surprisingly, very little research has been conducted on the psychologically rich concept of martyrdom. We define martyrs as people who sacrifice their lives in support of a principle or cause. Droge and Tabor (1992) have outlined three defining characteristics of a martyr ’s death. First, the death usually occurs as a sign of persecution and is seen by similarly persecuted others as noble and heroic. Second, martyrs die with the notion that others will benefit as a result of their suffering. Third, martyrs make their sacrifice with the expectation of an eternal vindication, which is often their prime motivation. Martyrdom has its roots in ancient Greek and Roman cultural values. Socrates, called the ‘‘saint and martyr of philosophy’’ by Gottlieb (2000), willingly accepted his death sentence and took his own life to uphold his belief system. The suicide of Socrates ‘‘has stood for 2400 years as a symbol of dying for one’s principles’’ (DeSpelder & Strickland, 1996, p. 455). Greeks and Romans valued the idea of meeting death with both courage and acceptance. Romans revered both the bloody deaths in the gladiator arenas as well as

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intellectual suicides in the tradition of Socrates. The Roman belief system contained the idea that life ‘‘was a treasure that gained value or power only when expended’’ and that martyrdom ‘‘transformed weakness into power’’ (Cormack, 2001, p. 26). In modern times, martyrdom is probably most often considered in the context of religious extremism, but this religious context also has ancient origins. Two thousand years ago, Christianity was metamorphosed from a peripheral offshoot of Judaism to a beleaguered underdog religious sect. Early Christians were put to death in great numbers for preaching their illegal faith to their fellow Roman citizens. This era of persecution spurred the growth of Christianity, as each publicly executed martyr attracted a new cult of converts. For early Christians, the suffering and death of Jesus held a ‘‘fatal attraction’’ (Kastenbaum, 2004, p. 62) and was a strong advertisement for a threatened faith. Paralleling the choice of martyrs, Jesus willingly chose his suffering and death, according to the Gospel of John (10:18): ‘‘No one takes my life, but I lay it down of my own accord.’’ The redemptive value of suffering became part of the ‘‘Christian heroic ideal’’ (Cormack, 2001, p. 43). Martyrs did not just expect to be resurrected in the next life, but also for their memories to be resurrected for all of time. The unshakable determination of these early Christian martyrs shamed the Roman Empire’s tactics of brutality, garnered sympathy for the Christian cause, and fueled the growth of Christianity. Virtually all religions feature at least some history of martyrdom or suggestion of martyrdom in their belief systems. In Scripture there are numerous accounts of Jewish martyrs resisting the Hellenizing of their Seleucid overlords, being executed for such crimes as observing the Sabbath, circumcising their children, or refusing to eat pork or meat sacrificed to idols. In Hinduism, the term sati refers to a woman’s act of immolating herself on the funeral pyre of her husband, as remaining alive after one’s husband’s death carries with it the feared social sanction of being ‘‘an alluring or lustful widow who might tarnish the family reputation’’ (Cormack, 2001, p. 120). Satis are venerated as martyrs for being those who ‘‘embody and affirm the truth’’ (Cormack, 2001, p. 119). The Islamic conceptualization of martyrdom delineates specific rewards for those who would die for their God; the Qur’an specifies that the Muslim martyr, or shahid, is spared the pain of death and receives immediate entry into paradise. Islam accepts a much broader view of what constitutes a martyr, including anyone who succumbs in territorial conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims. There is widespread disagreement in the Muslim community about whether suicide bombers should be considered martyrs (Cormack, 2001). Martyrs who die for their causes would appear to derive much of the sympathy and support they attract through mechanisms associated with the


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death positivity bias (Allison et al., in press). Moreover, from our review of the history of martyrdom, it appears that most martyrs embrace underdog causes. Indeed, a ‘‘top dog martyr’’ would seem to be an oxymoron, inasmuch as the desperation of dying for one’s cause suggests a minority or underdog position under great siege. Thus martyrs may be especially powerful in attracting sympathy because they derive it from mechanisms implicated in people’s responses to the sacrifice and suffering of underdogs and of the dead. Witnessing others make extreme sacrifices appears to be psychologically powerful. A prominent example can be found in our evaluations of those who died in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Hundreds of firefighters, emergency rescue workers, and law enforcement personnel sacrificed their lives to save others from the World Trade Center. Although roughly 3,000 people perished in this tragedy, a disproportionate amount of media attention, and national mourning, focused on the loss of these emergency personnel. Their morally courageous and heroic actions at the time of their deaths sealed our impressions of them forever. Clearly, living emergency rescue workers have our great admiration, but our greatest veneration is reserved for individuals whose deaths occur in the performance of their moral, altruistic services. We investigated martyrdom in the laboratory by asking participants to evaluate an individual who died while engaged in a fierce political fight against poverty. Half the participants learned that this individual was a financially disadvantaged person (underdog condition), whereas the other half learned that this individual was a financially advantaged person (top dog condition). Moreover, half these two groups of participants learned that this person took his own life for the cause he championed (suicide condition), whereas the other half learned that this person was killed by opponents of his cause (nonsuicide condition). The results revealed that the martyr who attracted the highest degree of sympathy and support was the underdog martyr whose death was caused by the opponents to his cause. Martyrs who took their own lives—whether underdog or top dog in status—were viewed the least sympathetically and received the weakest emotional support. The top dog martyr who died at the hands of his opponent was the recipient of a moderate amount of sympathy and support. As in our studies of the underdog (e.g., Kim et al., in press), we found that sympathy judgments mediated the effects of underdog status on support judgments. These findings suggest that martyrs can inspire others, but they also underscore an important boundary to the effect, namely, that (at least among our American participants) committing suicide to advance a cause is viewed as unacceptable regardless of underdog or top dog status. The most powerful martyrs are those whose deaths occur at the hands of their opponents, and

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these deaths are viewed especially sympathetically when the martyrs are underdogs. As noted above, this finding may be culture specific. For example, Palestinian suicide bombers have been treated like celebrities, their legacies cemented by community-wide celebrations, and their personal items coveted as objects of worship-like devotion (Israeli, 2003). In summary, martyrdom has a long and storied history in human tales of sacrifice, heroism, and religious persecution. Martyrs inspire others, and their self-sacrificing actions often promote their causes so effectively that their beliefs can become a central part of their community’s social identity. The death of a martyr can attract sympathy and support for the martyr’s cause, but death by suicide is far less likely to tug on the heartstrings of western observers than death caused by opponents of the cause.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING COMMENTS Next to love, sympathy is the divinest passion of the human heart. —Edmund Burke Leaders of all three types described in this chapter—underdogs, the dead, and martyrs—share in common the experience of great sacrifice and suffering. Underdogs face daunting challenges and must sacrifice their time, energy, and strength to overcome those challenges. Leaders who perish make the ultimate sacrifice, as do martyrs. We propose that the self-sacrificing actions of all three types of leaders cement these leaders’ positive legacies to such a degree that their values become imbedded into their community’s social identities. Borrowing a phrase from Aronson and Mills’s (1959) classic study of cognitive dissonance, suffering does indeed lead to liking. Our three types of leaders embody some of western society’s most cherished values. Successful underdogs are a living testament to the puritan work ethic, and dead leaders and martyrs nourish our images of fallen heroes who sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Effective leadership and moral conduct are inextricably linked (Burns, 1978), and our analysis would seem to have several implications for promoting better and more responsible leadership. First, the death positivity bias would underscore the importance of leaders proactively engaging in activities aimed at validating the moral values of the group or organization. A leader’s moral conduct may be a more central determinant of perceived leadership effectiveness than other, more traditional, criteria for evaluating leadership (Allison & Eylon, 2005). A second implication of the death positivity bias is that enhanced posthumous evaluations of a leader may influence employee attitudes and behavior in the workplace long after the leader has passed away. Leadership has long been known to shape the values and performance of those who follow (Gardner, 1995),


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and moral leadership posthumously inspires followers. A third implication of the death positivity bias is that it suggests strategies for leaders to craft constructive posthumous legacies for themselves and for their organizations (Allison, Eylon, & Markus, 2004). Although firms and individuals work hard at building reputations, it is clear that the focus needs to be on long-term meaningful issues (e.g., morality) that will eventually elicit respect and sympathy from followers. We would like to end this chapter on a cautionary note. Although the resounding message from the research reported here points to the propensity of sympathetic figures to attract emotional support and adulation, there is the possibility that these responses to sympathetic leaders have a fragile quality. As we have noted, Kim et al. (in press) did find that people show strong emotional support for underdogs, but Kim et al.’s Study 4 demonstrated that under certain conditions people’s emotional support did not translate into behavioral support. Specifically, when the outcome of a competition had important consequences for perceivers, the top dog received significantly more tangible, monetary support than did the underdog. Only when the outcome had no effect on perceivers did perceivers’ emotional connection to the underdog translate into increased behavioral assistance to the underdog. Leaders should take note that suffering may lead to liking, but it does not always lead to unconditional following.

REFERENCES Allison, S. T., & Eylon, D. (2005). The demise of leadership: Death positivity biases in posthumous impressions of leaders. In D. Messick & R. Kramer (Eds.), The psychology of leadership: Some new approaches (pp. 295–317). New York: Erlbaum. Allison, S. T., Eylon, D., Beggan, J. K., & Bachelder, J. (in press). The demise of leadership: Positivity and negativity in evaluations of dead leaders. The Leadership Quarterly. Allison, S. T., Eylon, D., & Markus, M. (2004). Leadership legacy. In J. M. Burns, G. R. Goethals, & G. Sorenson (Eds.), The encyclopedia of leadership (pp. 894–898). New York: Berkshire Publishing. Allison, S. T., & Heilborn, J. (2007). The smaller they come, the better they lead: Underdogs as inspirational leaders. Unpublished manuscript, University of Richmond. Arndt, J., Greenberg, J., Schimel, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (2002). To belong or not to belong, that is the question: Terror management and identification with gender and ethnicity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 26–43. Aronson, E., & Mills, J. (1959). The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 177–181. Avolio, B. J., & Yammarino, F. J. (2002). Transformational and charismatic leadership: The road ahead. Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science.

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Batson, C. D., Klein, T. R., Highberger, L., & Shaw, L. (1995). Immorality from empathy-induced altruism: When compassion and justice conflict. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 1042–1054. Batson, C. D., Turk, C. L., Shaw, L., & Klein, T. R. (1995). Information function of empathic emotion: Learning that we value the other’s welfare. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 300–313. Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row. Cialdini, R. B., Borden, R. J., Thorne, R. J., Walker, M. R., Freeman, S., & Sloan, L. R. (1976). Basking in reflected glory: Three football field studies. Journal of personality and social psychology, 34, 366–375. Cormack, M. (2001). Sacrificing the self: Perspectives on martyrdom and religion. Oxford: University Press. Dasborough, M. T. (2006). Cognitive asymmetry in employee emotional reactions to leadership behaviors. The Leadership Quarterly, 17, 163–178. DeSpelder, L. A., & Strickland, A. L. (1996). The last dance: Encountering death and dying. California: Mayfield Publishing. Droge, A., & Tabor, J. (1992). A noble death. San Francisco: Harper Publishing. Eden, D. (1990). Pygmalion in management: Productivity as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Eisenberg, N. (2004). Empathy and sympathy. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 677–691). New York: The Guilford Press. Eylon, D., & Allison, S. T. (2005). The frozen in time effect in evaluations of the dead. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 1708–1717. Gardner, H. (1995). Leading minds: An anatomy of leadership. New York: Basic. Gottlieb, A. (2000). The dream of reason. New York: W. W. Norton. Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Pyszczynski, T. (1997). Terror management theory of self-esteem and cultural worldviews: Empirical assessments and conceptual refinements. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 29, pp. 61– 139). San Diego: Academic Press. Heider, F., & Simmel, M. (1944). An experimental study of apparent behavior. American Journal of Psychology, 57, 243–259. House, R. J., & Howell, J. M. (1992). Personality and charismatic leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 3, 81–108. House, R. J., & Shamir, B. (1993). Toward the integration of charismatic, visionary, and transformational leadership theories. In M. M. Chemers & R. Ryman (Eds.), Leadership theory and research: Perspectives and directions (pp. 81–107). San Diego: Academic Press. Israeli, R. (2003). Islamikaze: Manifestations of Islamic martyrology. London: Frank Cass. Jung, C. G. (1964). Man and his symbols. New York: Doubleday. Kastenbaum, R. (2004). On our way: The final passage through life and death. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kim, J., Allison, S. T., Eylon, D., Goethals, G., Markus, M., McGuire, H., & Hindle, S. (in press). Rooting for (and then abandoning) the underdog. Journal of Applied Social Psychology.


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Lichter, S. R. (2004). Press praised Reagan only after death. Retrieved July 15, 2007, from the Center for Media and Public Affairs Web site, http://www.cmpa.com/ pressReleases/StudyFindsPressPraise ReaganOnlyAfterDeath.htm Mumford, M. D., & Strange, J. M. (2002). Vision and mental models: The case of charismatic and ideological leadership. In B. Avolio & F. Yammarino (Eds.), Transformational and charismatic leadership: The road ahead (pp. 109–142). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science. Nadler, D. A. (1988). Organizational frame bending: Types of change in the complex organization. In R. Kilmann & T. Covin (Eds.), Corporate transformation: Revitalizing organizations for a competitive world (pp. 66–83). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Piper, W. (1930). The little engine that could. New York: Platt & Munk. Polling Report. (2008). Presidents and history. Retrieved January 8, 2008, from the Polling Report Web site, http://www.pollingreport.com/wh-hstry.htm Raelin, J. A. (1989). An anatomy of autonomy: Managing professionals. Academy of Management Executive, 3, 216–228. Riggio, R. E., & Conger, J. A. (2005). Getting it right. The practice of leadership. In J. Conger & R. Riggio (Eds.), The practice of leadership: Developing the next generation of leaders (pp. 331–344). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Rosenblatt, A., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Lyon, D. (1989). Evidence for terror management theory I: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 681–690. Scharnhorst, G. (1980). Horatio Alger, Jr. Boston: Twayne Publishers. Shamir, B. (1991). The charismatic relationship: Alternative explanations and predictions. Leadership Quarterly, 2, 81–104. Spencer, H. (1873). The principles of psychology (Vol. 2). New York: Appleton. Troy, G. (2005). Legacy of Ronald Reagan (#62462). Retrieved July 15, 2007, from the History News Network Web site, http://hnn.us/readcomment.php?id=62462#62462 Vandello, J. A., Goldschmied, N. P., & Richards, D. A. R. (2007). The appeal of the underdog. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1603–1616. Von Drehle, D. (2004, June 5). Ronald Reagan dies. Washington Post. Retrieved July 15, 2007, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18566-2004Jun5. html Yukl, G. (2006). Leadership in organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.


PART III

WHAT LEADERS DO


12 Persuasion and Leadership JAMES M. OLSON AND GRAEME A. HAYNES

In this chapter, we discuss the implications of social psychological research on persuasion for leaders. For example, how can leaders maximize their influence in a group? How can they successfully convince people to follow recommended courses of action? We address these questions by analyzing the effectiveness of former Vice President Al Gore in the film An Inconvenient Truth. What characteristics of the film and of Gore account for the persuasiveness of his message? We show that research findings on persuasion illuminate some of the mechanisms through which An Inconvenient Truth changes viewers’ beliefs and attitudes. We begin our analysis by differentiating between two types of persuasion, one based on strong arguments and one based on cues that imply the position is correct. We then discuss some of the source characteristics that influence the persuasive impact of a communication, including the source’s credibility and presentational style, as well as some of the message characteristics that influence persuasive impact, including the explicit drawing of conclusions and the elicitation of a state known as ‘‘protection motivation.’’ In the final section of the chapter, we offer some concrete suggestions for leaders who want to persuade and influence group members. In the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth (Bender, Burns, David, Skoll, & Guggenheim, 2006), former U.S. Vice President Al Gore presents evidence to support the claims that global warming is a serious threat to humanity and that such warming is caused in large part by human activities. The film has been enormously successful (it grossed about $50 million at the box office) and very influential, persuading many viewers to learn more about the issue

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and even to change their behavior to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Not surprisingly, the film has been more favorably received by Democrats than Republicans in the United States; for example, a survey in December 2006 showed that 82 percent of Democrats supported legislation that would set limits for greenhouse gas emissions, whereas 61 percent of Republicans supported such legislation. There has also been some controversy about Gore’s arguments and data (e.g., the critical documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, Durkin, 2007), but no one can dispute the impact of the film. Indeed, in October 2007, Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in bringing the issue of global warming into the international spotlight. Our goal in this chapter is to discuss the implications of social psychological research on persuasion for leaders. For example, how can leaders maximize their influence in a group? How can they successfully convince people to follow recommended courses of action? We will address these questions by analyzing the effectiveness of An Inconvenient Truth. What characteristics of the film and of Gore account for the persuasiveness of the message? (Gore’s effectiveness is particularly interesting given his prior reputation as a wooden speaker.) We will argue that research findings on persuasion illuminate some of the mechanisms through which An Inconvenient Truth changes viewers’ beliefs and attitudes. We will begin by defining some of the key concepts that we will discuss. Social psychologists define attitudes as individuals’ evaluations (good-bad judgments) of a target (Zanna & Rempel, 1988). For example, an individual’s attitude toward global warming is the judgment that global warming is bad or good (and the extremity of that evaluative judgment). Social psychologists define beliefs as individuals’ cognitive links between an attribute and a target (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). That is, beliefs represent the characteristics or features that an individual associates with a target. For example, an individual’s beliefs about global warming are the associations that come to mind when he or she thinks about global warming, such as hotter temperatures, rising sea levels, more frequent hurricanes, air pollution, and so on. Attitudes and beliefs are related constructs; indeed, attitudes are often based on beliefs (e.g., an unfavorable evaluation of global warming based on such perceived negative consequences as rising sea levels and air pollution). In the remainder of this chapter, we use the term persuasion to refer to changes in either attitudes or beliefs in response to a message. We do not differentiate between changing attitudes and changing beliefs because the distinction does not matter to most people attempting influence (e.g., leaders), so long as the message is accepted and the recommendations are embraced. Moreover, techniques that facilitate a change in attitudes also facilitate a change in beliefs. We will begin our analysis by differentiating between two types of persuasion. We will then discuss some of the features of messages and sources that

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influence the persuasive impact of a communication. In both sections, we will apply the theoretical concepts to An Inconvenient Truth, treating Al Gore as a model for leaders whose goal is to persuade. We close the chapter with a more general summary of the implications of these findings for leaders.

TWO TYPES OF PERSUASION When laypersons think about persuasion, they normally imagine changes in attitudes or beliefs that result from a convincing message. That is, most people think of persuasion as involving a written or oral communication that contains strong arguments, which then elicit favorable thoughts and agreement based on rational analysis. Although such persuasion is common, social psychologists have also identified a second type of persuasion that is not as rational or argument-based. Specifically, people sometimes adopt an attitude or accept the recommendations of a message simply because there are cues or features that imply the position is correct. This type of influence occurs when we read a newspaper article in which a new car model is favorably evaluated by an auto expert. We do not question the evaluation or scrutinize the evidence offered in the article (unless, perhaps, we happen to be looking for a car). The expert is a person who knows about cars, and that is that. This is also the type of influence that can be exerted by someone we admire or like. For example, when a popular singer endorses a product, fans may purchase the product simply because they identify with the singer. These two ‘‘types’’ of persuasion—one based on strong arguments and one based on cues that imply the position is correct—have been integrated by Petty and Cacioppo (1986) in the elaboration likelihood model (see also Chaiken’s 1980 systematic-heuristic model). The elaboration likelihood model is probably the most influential theory of persuasion today. It has been tested in many studies and applied to many persuasion domains (for a review, see Petty & Wegener, 1998). The elaboration likelihood model distinguishes between two ‘‘routes’’ to persuasion. The central route refers to persuasion that is based on information and strong arguments. The peripheral route refers to persuasion that is based on simple cues and assumptions (e.g., the car reviewer is an expert). Persuasion that occurs via the central route is effortful because the person must pay attention to the message and think carefully about the arguments. Therefore, to conserve psychological resources, the central route is useful primarily when the issue is important or personally relevant to the individual. The peripheral route involves less effort, so people are likely to use it when the issue is not as important. When attitude change results from central processing, it is more likely to be long-lasting and to affect behavior than when attitude change results from peripheral processing.

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Petty and Cacioppo hypothesized that the rational, argument-based type of attitude change (central route) will occur only when an individual is both (1) motivated to engage in the necessary thinking and (2) capable of understanding the arguments. For example, the issue must be at least somewhat important to the individual (to motivate him or her to exert the effort to think carefully), and the arguments must be simple enough and presented clearly enough that the individual is able to understand them. If either requirement is missing, then the peripheral route is the only avenue by which persuasion can occur. Numerous researchers have documented both central route persuasion and peripheral route persuasion in the same study. Typically, these researchers have shown that the strength of the arguments in a message is very influential when recipients are motivated to listen and the arguments are clear, but if recipients are not interested in the topic or cannot understand the arguments, then persuasion occurs only when there is a cue implying that the message is valid, such as a highly credible source. For example, Hafer, Reynolds, and Obertynski (1996) conducted a study in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, that presented participants with a persuasive message on plea bargaining (which occurs when an accused person pleads guilty in return for a reduced charge). At the time the study was conducted, a well-publicized case of plea bargaining had recently occurred in St. Catharines, involving an individual who was implicated in the murder of two teenage girls but received a relatively short sentence in return for testifying against another defendant. This deal was widely criticized for being too lenient. Thus, the issue of plea bargaining was salient to participants, and their preexisting attitudes were probably unfavorable. Participants listened to a taped message that presented either five strong or five weak arguments in favor of plea bargaining. Within each message, all of the arguments were either stated clearly (e.g., ‘‘There is often an overly long time period before a case comes to trial. Plea bargaining can help to cut down on this waiting period’’) or in complex and hard-to-understand language (e.g., ‘‘Plea bargaining can facilitate the avoidance of trial delays of unacceptable magnitude’’). Finally, the source of the message was either an expert judge who was a graduate of Harvard Law School (high credibility) or a second-year law student (low credibility). The researchers predicted that all participants would be highly motivated to process the message (due to the salience of the issue), but that those who read a complex message would have trouble understanding it. (Consistent with this reasoning, a memory test taken at the end of the study showed that participants who read a hard-to-understand message recalled less information than participants who read a clear message.) How were these messages expected to affect attitudes toward plea bargaining? When the message was clear and comprehensible, strong arguments were expected to persuade more


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effectively than weak arguments, and source credibility was not expected to make much difference. But when the message was difficult to understand, strong versus weak arguments were not expected to matter, whereas participants would be persuaded more by the high credibility source than by the low credibility source. Results on the attitude measure supported these predictions. Thus, persuasion occurred via the central route when the arguments were clear but via the peripheral route when they were not. How does the distinction between central and peripheral routes to persuasion apply to An Inconvenient Truth? Most people who see the film are probably highly motivated by the issue of global warming because they or their children, or both, are likely to be personally affected. Thus, most viewers engage the central route while watching the film. Gore presents many arguments, often accompanied by graphs and dramatic photos. These arguments are generally comprehensible and compelling, especially because most viewers lack specific knowledge to counterargue Gore’s claims. Therefore, the film is very effective in producing persuasion via the central route. But An Inconvenient Truth is skillful because it also includes many cues that imply the validity of the conclusions, which facilitate persuasion via the peripheral route. Perhaps the most important cue for peripheral persuasion is source credibility (see Eagly, Wood, & Chaiken, 1978). Credibility consists of two principal components: expertise (e.g., knowledge, experience) and trustworthiness (e.g., honesty, no ulterior motives). Al Gore is a former vice president who is clearly intelligent and articulate. His self-deprecating humor early in the film increases his perceived trustworthiness. Most of the scientists cited in the film are authoritative and associated with prestigious universities. All of these cues of source credibility induce viewers to accept the conclusions as valid. Also, the movie is long and includes numerous statistics; people sometimes infer that a message is valid simply because it is long, based on the reasoning that at least some of the arguments must be valid (see Petty & Cacioppo, 1984). Thus, Gore covers all the bases in An Inconvenient Truth. He presents strong, compelling arguments on an issue that is highly motivating for most viewers, and his status and intelligence serve as cues implying validity for those viewers who are either not motivated or unable to understand the persuasive information. The significant impact of the film may be attributable to its effective intermixing of these substantive and stylistic factors.

SOURCE CHARACTERISTICS THAT INCREASE PERSUASIVENESS Some people are more persuasive than others. Having strong, compelling arguments for one’s position is paramount, of course, but what additional,

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noncontent characteristics of the source of a message are associated with greater persuasiveness? In this section, we will summarize some of the social psychological research that has investigated source variables (for reviews, see Johnson, Maio, & Smith-McLallen, 2005; Perloff, 2003; Petty & Wegener, 1998) and consider their applicability to Gore’s role as leader and advocate in An Inconvenient Truth. We mentioned credibility in the previous section as one important source variable. Other source characteristics that have been studied include likability, attractiveness, similarity (to the recipients of the message), and power. Not surprisingly, likable, attractive, similar, and powerful sources are generally more influential than dislikable, unattractive, dissimilar, and weak sources—especially in the context of persuasion via the peripheral route, such as when the issue is not important to the recipient of the message (see Petty & Wegener, 1998). Although these factors all facilitate persuasion, they probably do so by different psychological mechanisms. For example, Kelman (1958) distinguished between internalization, identification, and compliance. Internalization represents true, enduring persuasion, wherein the recipients conclude that the message content is valid. Source credibility often facilitates internalization. Identification occurs when the recipients accept the message’s recommendations because they admire or want to establish a relationship with the source. The acceptance is genuine, but it does not necessarily reflect belief in the veridicality of the arguments. Likable, attractive, and similar sources may often facilitate identification. Finally, compliance occurs when the recipient endorses the message publicly but not privately. Powerful sources may often produce compliance. How do these source characteristics apply to An Inconvenient Truth? Al Gore is an ideal presenter of the film’s content. We have already noted that his intelligence, articulateness, and status give him credibility. His humor and likability heighten his attractiveness. His casual, friendly style and frequent references to family engender feelings of similarity in viewers. Finally, his position as a famous politician increases viewers’ admiration and gives him additional credibility as a powerful, influential person. Gore’s success at eliciting simultaneous perceptions of authority, honesty, and likability serves as a model for leaders aiming to influence their followers. There is one final source characteristic we want to discuss, which relates to presentational style. Charismatic, persuasive individuals often have distinct speech styles, which make them appear more self-confident and wellinformed than other communicators. What features of their speeches create these impressions? Perhaps the most important feature of speech is the extent to which it is ‘‘powerless’’ or ‘‘powerful’’ (Erickson, Lind, Johnson, & O’Barr, 1978; Hosman, 1989). Powerless speech contains sounds, words, or phrases that communicate uncertainty, lack of knowledge, or low status. For example,


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statements such as ‘‘I haven’t thought about this a lot, but. . .’’ and ‘‘You probably know more about this than I do, but. . .’’ (often called disclaimers) suggest that the speaker’s comments are preliminary and may not be valid. Similarly, phrases such as ‘‘I guess’’ and ‘‘maybe’’ (often called hedges) indicate a lack of confidence and imply that the speaker is uncertain about the accuracy of his or her comments. Also, speech hesitations such as ‘‘uh’’ and ‘‘well’’ indicate nervousness and perhaps even attempted deception. Finally, polite forms such as ‘‘Please consider. . .’’ and ‘‘Thank you for your attention. . .’’ imply low status, as well as possible uncertainty. In contrast to powerless speech, powerful speech does not include these features and gives the impression of credibility, expertise, self-confidence, honesty, and high status. Many studies have tested the impact of powerless versus powerful speech. For example, Erickson et al. (1978) investigated the impact of powerless versus powerful speech in a simulated courtroom setting. Participants were given some background information about a civil damages trial and then either read a written transcript or listened to an audiotape of the testimony of a witness. The content of the witness’s testimony was taken from a real trial. The witness supported the person who was suing the defendant for damages, so if the witness was credible and influential, then participants should have awarded larger damages to the plaintiff. The witness adopted either a powerless or powerful style of speech. For example, in response to the question ‘‘Approximately how long did you stay there before the ambulance arrived?’’ the witness who used powerless speech said: ‘‘Oh, it seems like it was about, uh, twenty minutes. Just long enough to help my friend Mrs. Davis, you know, get straightened out.’’ The witness who used powerful speech responded to the same question by saying: ‘‘Twenty minutes. Long enough to help get Mrs. Davis straightened out.’’ In response to another question, the witness using powerless speech said, ‘‘Yes, I guess I do,’’ whereas the powerful speech witness simply said, ‘‘Yes.’’ After reading the background information and then reading or listening to testimony, participants rated the credibility of the witness and estimated the amount of damages, if any, that should be awarded to the plaintiff. Analyses of these measures showed that the powerless/powerful speech manipulation had a significant impact. Participants rated the witness who used powerful (versus powerless) speech as more credible, and participants awarded larger values to the plaintiff when the witness used powerful (versus powerless) speech. In An Inconvenient Truth, Gore consistently employs a powerful speech style. He avoids hedges and hesitations, and speaks clearly and confidently without disclaimers. Of course, a recorded speech allows editing and consequent elimination of verbal miscues. Nonetheless, Gore’s presentational style is excellent.

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MESSAGE CHARACTERISTICS THAT INCREASE PERSUASIVENESS Some messages are more persuasive than others. Once again, the inclusion of strong arguments to support one’s points constitutes the foremost quality of influential messages, but social psychologists have also identified other features of effective messages (for reviews, see Johnson et al., 2005; Perloff, 2003; Petty & Wegener, 1998). In this section, we will review some of this work and consider the implications for Gore and An Inconvenient Truth. One factor relates to whether messages should include an explicit statement of conclusions. Researchers have compared messages in which conclusions are explicitly stated versus messages in which conclusions are not stated (with the hope that recipients will draw the conclusions themselves, which might increase the impact of the conclusions). For example, a speaker who presents information on crime rates and wants the audience to conclude that more police should be hired can either state the recommendation explicitly or hope that the audience will make this inference on their own. O’Keefe (1997) identified past studies on this issue and conducted a ‘‘meta-analysis’’ of the findings—a technique that combines the results of many studies and tests whether the overall pattern is significant. O’Keefe’s meta-analysis showed that explicit conclusions are generally more persuasive than unstated or implicit conclusions. Presumably, explicit conclusions leave no doubt about the implications of the speaker’s arguments, whereas at least some recipients are unlikely to draw those conclusions on their own. A second factor involves the one-sided versus two-sided nature of the message. Given that there are almost always two sides to important issues, should a speaker who is arguing for one side acknowledge both sides in the message, or should he or she mention only the preferred side? Further, if the speaker mentions both sides, should the other side be explicitly refuted or simply stated? For example, a speaker who argues in favor of reducing tuition at a college can choose to present a one-sided message, mention that some people support higher tuition but say little else, or state that some people support higher tuition but then refute the arguments for that side. In a metaanalysis of the literature, Allen (1991) concluded that two-sided messages that refute the other side are most effective; interestingly, two-sided messages that simply state the other side without any refutation are actually less persuasive than one-sided messages. Presumably, a two-sided message that refutes the other side shows both that the speaker is well-informed about the issue (e.g., knows there are two sides) and that the arguments for the opposing side are weak. Two-sided messages may also be effective because they show that the speaker is honest and is not trying to hide the opposing side.


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A third factor relates to the use of metaphors in a message. Metaphors are comparisons or connections drawn between two objects, implying that the objects are conceptually similar. For example, referring to a person as ‘‘a snake in the grass’’ implies that he or she may be sneaky, dangerous, and ready to strike unexpectedly. Researchers have tested whether the use of metaphors influences the effectiveness of messages. On the one hand, metaphors are colorful, might increase attention, and can clarify or organize the main points in the message. On the other hand, metaphors can be subtle and potentially confusing. Sopory and Dillard (2002) conducted a metaanalysis of research on metaphors, which revealed that metaphors generally increase the effectiveness of persuasive messages. Metaphors are usually vivid and interesting (e.g., ‘‘he has the heart of a lion’’), thus increasing attention while also helping the recipient to organize and understand the arguments in a message. The final factor we want to discuss in this section concerns the use of threat or fear in a message to motivate attitude and behavior change. Social psychologists have long been interested in the effectiveness of threatening messages, but early research on fear appeals yielded inconsistent results (see McGuire, 1969). Fortunately, order was imposed on the literature by Rogers (1983) in his protection motivation theory. Rogers hypothesized that in order for a threatening message to be effective, it must create four beliefs or perceptions in the recipient: (1) the problem is severe, (2) the recipient is susceptible to the problem, (3) the recommended actions will be effective in avoiding the problem, and (4) the recipient is personally capable of performing the recommended actions. If these four beliefs are created, then the individual will feel motivated to protect himself or herself. Many researchers have tested protection motivation theory by manipulating some of the critical beliefs and then measuring participants’ attitudes toward the recommended actions and/or their intentions to perform the actions. These studies have generally supported the model. For example, Das, de Wit, and Stroebe (2003) manipulated the first two perceptions listed above: severity and susceptibility. Participants read an article about the health implications of stress. In the low severity condition, the article stated that stress can cause a variety of relatively mild consequences, such as fevers and cold hands. In the high severity condition, the article stated that stress can cause a variety of serious consequences, such as heart disease and ulcers. Next, participants were told that a new scale had recently been developed to measure people’s susceptibility to developing stress-related health problems in the future. Participants then completed this alleged stress susceptibility scale, after which they were told that their future risk of developing stressrelated illnesses was either low (low susceptibility condition) or quite high (high susceptibility condition).

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All participants then read a fictitious letter that had allegedly been submitted to an American health journal, which described stress management training as an effective way to reduce the risk of stress-related illnesses. Finally, participants rated their attitude toward stress management training (e.g., the extent to which they thought stress management training was useful, important, and positive) and were asked whether they would like to receive more information about stress management training (yes or no). Results showed that participants’ attitudes were least favorable toward stress management training when both severity and susceptibility were low. That is, when participants learned that stress has only mild consequences and they were not personally susceptible, they did not rate stress management training as highly useful or important. In contrast, when either severity or susceptibility was high (the other three conditions), participants’ attitudes toward stress management training were more favorable. The results on participants’ requests for more information on stress management training showed the same pattern. In the ‘‘low severity/low susceptibility’’ condition, only 25 percent of the participants requested additional information, whereas the other three conditions yielded an average of 60 percent who requested additional information. We have identified four characteristics of effective messages: they state conclusions explicitly; they mention both sides of the issue but refute the nonpreferred side; they use metaphors; and they generate four beliefs to arouse protection motivation. Does Al Gore employ these techniques in An Inconvenient Truth? The short answer is yes. The longer answer follows. First, Gore is explicit about the consequences of global warming and the actions that must be taken to combat the problem. He presents graphs and photos to underscore the urgency of corrective actions. In short, he leaves very little to the imagination of the audience. Second, Gore both mentions and refutes the other side of the issue. Regarding the claim that scientists are divided on the issue, Gore counters with evidence suggesting that there is near unanimity in the scientific community. Regarding the argument that combating global warming will damage the economy, Gore states that new technologies will soften the economic consequences. Third, Gore uses numerous metaphors in his presentation. For example, he calls the Arctic region ‘‘a canary in a coal mine’’ to imply that current changes in the Arctic are early signs of danger and must be taken seriously. He also tells the story of his father’s difficult decision to stop growing tobacco after his sister Nancy died of lung cancer. It is understood that this decision serves as a metaphor for the current choices facing the world with regard to global warming. Finally, Gore’s message on global warming effectively targets the beliefs identified as crucial by protection motivation theory. His graphs, photographs, and commentary support each of the four perceptions: if unchecked,


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global warming will have devastating consequences (it is a serious problem); global warming is happening now (the world is susceptible); there are things we can do to significantly reduce and even halt global warming (the recommendations will be effective at solving the problem); and small, individual actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will ultimately make the difference (individuals can perform the recommended actions). Together, these perceptions arouse protection motivation: viewers often leave the theatre shaken by the realization of the severity of the global warming problem but also energized to reduce their own CO2 emissions.

PERSUASION AND LEADERSHIP We have reviewed diverse social psychological research on persuasion and used these findings to explain Gore’s effectiveness in the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Gore uses persuasion techniques skillfully to maximize the impact of the film’s message. In this final section of the chapter, we will briefly consider the implications of the reviewed research for other leaders who want to persuade and influence group members. First, we should note that leaders vary a great deal in their oratorical skills, charisma, and self-confidence. They also vary in the nature of their leadership role. Some have considerable power over group members, whereas others are weak; some are popular with their subordinates, whereas others are disliked; and some are experienced in the role, whereas others are new. These differences affect leaders’ abilities to employ specific persuasion techniques, so the following comments are meant as general guides to be adapted for particular leaders and groups. The first point is that strong arguments are the best, most surefire way to persuade. When clear, cogent reasoning supports a leader’s recommendations, persuasive success is likely. This point is particularly true when recipients of the message are motivated and able to process information carefully, such as when the issue is personally relevant (which probably encompasses most instances of leaders influencing group members). Recommending that leaders have strong arguments to support their conclusions may not be particularly helpful, however, because all of us strive to be convincing when possible, and sometimes strong arguments are simply lacking. Nevertheless, leaders may underestimate the importance of presenting strong arguments, assuming instead (sometimes wrongly) that group members will accept their conclusions at face value and implement their decisions with alacrity. A second point is that leaders can exploit cues that lend credibility to the message, such as their own leadership expertise and authority. When group members are not processing the message carefully (due to low motivation or low ability), credibility cues can induce acceptance of the recommendations

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via the peripheral route. It may also be possible to emphasize features of the message (rather than the leader) that give it additional weight, such as its long developmental history or the fact that input was received from various experts. Leaders are also more likely to have persuasive success if they are liked and perceived as similar. Although these qualities cannot be achieved by all leaders, they can be cultivated over time. Of course, likability and similarity can have benefits beyond increasing the leader ’s persuasive impact, such as improving group morale and cohesiveness. Charismatic speakers often speak clearly and confidently, communicating their ideas with poise and self-assurance. One key aspect of such communication is powerful rather than powerless speech. In general, leaders should strive to avoid disclaimers, hedges, and hesitations in their written and oral presentations. They should speak clearly and succinctly, without apologies or other polite forms of speech. Powerful speech not only increases persuasiveness, but also enhances perceived competence and attractiveness (e.g., Holtgraves & Lasky, 1999), which are themselves desirable traits for leaders to possess (or to be seen as possessing). Leaders can build certain features into messages to enhance persuasion. For example, explicit conclusions should typically be drawn for the audience. Two-sided messages including a refutation of the nonpreferred side should be employed when possible. And metaphors can be used occasionally, so long as they are clear in meaning and implication. Finally, when the domain of influence involves self-protective actions (e.g., health behaviors, job security), leaders should aim to create the beliefs identified as critical by protection motivation theory. Recipients must perceive that the problem is serious, that they, the group, or both are susceptible, that recommended actions will effectively deal with the problem, and that they are personally capable of performing the recommended actions. Leaders can use these four perceptions as a framework for creating persuasive messages. Research on attitudes and persuasion has been abundant in social psychology. There is now a growing literature that can be accessed for practical advice on both being persuasive and resisting persuasion. By definition, leaders must influence other people (lead them). Therefore, leaders can benefit from the knowledge that social psychologists have gathered on effective persuasion techniques. Al Gore’s success in An Inconvenient Truth provides a reallife demonstration that these techniques work.

REFERENCES Allen, M. (1991). Meta-analysis comparing the persuasiveness of one-sided and twosided messages. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 55, 390–404.


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Bender, L. (Producer), Burns, S. (Producer), David, L. (Producer), Skoll, J. (Producer), & Guggenheim, D. (Producer/Director). (2006). An inconvenient truth [Motion picture]. United States: Lawrence Bender Productions. Chaiken, S. (1980). Heuristic versus systematic processing and the use of source versus message cues in persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 752–766. Das, E. H. H. J., de Wit, J. B. F., & Stroebe, W. (2003). Fear appeals motivate acceptance of action recommendations: Evidence for a positive bias in the processing of persuasive messages. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 650–664. Durkin, M. (Director). (2007, March 8). The great global warming swindle [Television broadcast]. United Kingdom: Independent Broadcasting Authority. Eagly, A. H., Wood, W., & Chaiken, S. (1978). Causal inferences about communicators and their effect on opinion change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 424–435. Erickson, B., Lind, E. A., Johnson, B. C., & O’Barr, W. M. (1978). Speech style and impression formation in a court setting: The effects of ‘‘powerful’’ and ‘‘powerless’’ speech. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 14, 266–279. Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention, and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Hafer, C. L., Reynolds, K. L., & Obertynski, M. A. (1996). Message comprehensibility and persuasion: Effects of complex language in counterattitudinal appeals to laypeople. Social Cognition, 14, 317–337. Holtgraves, T., & Lasky, B. (1999). Linguistic power and persuasion. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 18, 196–205. Hosman, L. A. (1989). The evaluative consequences of hedges, hesitations, and intensifiers: Powerful and powerless speech styles. Human Communication Research, 15, 383–406. Johnson, B. T., Maio, G. R., & Smith-McLallen, A. (2005). Communication and attitude change: Causes, processes, and effects. In D. Albarracıń, B. T. Johnson, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), The handbook of attitudes (pp. 617–669). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Kelman, H. C. (1958). Compliance, identification, and internalization: Three processes of attitude change. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2, 51–60. McGuire, W. J. (1969). The nature of attitudes and attitude change. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 136–314). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. O’Keefe, D. J. (1997). Standpoint explicitness and persuasive effect: A meta-analytic review of the effects of varying conclusion articulation in persuasive messages. Argumentation and Advocacy, 34, 1–12. Perloff, R. M. (2003). The dynamics of persuasion: Communication and attitudes in the 21st Century (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1984). The effects of involvement on responses to argument quantity and quality: Central and peripheral routes to persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 69–81. Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 19, pp. 123–205). New York: Academic Press.

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Petty, R. E., & Wegener, D. T. (1998). Attitude change: Multiple roles for persuasion variables. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 323–390). New York: McGraw-Hill. Rogers, R. W. (1983). Cognitive and physiological processes in fear appeals and attitude change: A revised theory of protection motivation. In J. T. Cacioppo & R. E. Petty (Eds.), Social psychophysiology: A sourcebook (pp. 153–176). New York: Guilford. Sopory, P., & Dillard, J. P. (2002). Figurative language and persuasion. In J. P. Dillard & M. Pfau (Eds.), The persuasion handbook: Developments in theory and practice (pp. 407– 426). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Zanna, M. P., & Rempel, J. K. (1988). Attitudes: A new look at an old concept. In D. Bar-Tal & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), The social psychology of knowledge (pp. 315–334). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

13 What It Takes to Succeed: An Examination of the Relationship Between Negotiators’ Implicit Beliefs and Performance LAURA J. KRAY AND MICHAEL P. HASELHUHN

The ability to successfully negotiate with others is a key skill for leaders in today’s rapidly changing organizational, political, and social environments. Decades of research have demonstrated that the beliefs negotiators bring to the bargaining table have strong effects on how value is created and claimed. In this chapter, we begin by reviewing previous research linking cognition and negotiation, exploring how negotiators’ beliefs regarding themselves, their counterparts, and the negotiation situation affect conflict resolution. Building on this previous work, we introduce recent research that explores how negotiators’ implicit beliefs regarding the malleability or fixedness of negotiation ability affect multiple aspects of the negotiation process. We present research demonstrating that negotiators who believe that negotiation ability can be developed have a clear and consistent advantage over negotiators who believe that negotiation ability is a fixed trait, as gauged by value creation, value claiming, and negotiation course mastery. We conclude with an eye toward future research, arguing that leaders’ implicit beliefs in other domains (e.g., emotion, personality, morality) may have important implications for how leaders negotiate and interact with others. One of the most important attributes of a successful leader is the ability to negotiate effectively. We make this bold assertion fully recognizing the

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complex analytic and strategic decisions that characterize a leader ’s job because, in order to sell ideas, secure resources, and implement strategy, leaders must work interdependently with others. This observation is especially true in today’s business environment where the rapid pace of change is unprecedented. The complexity and pace of leaders’ decision making has been exacerbated by constantly changing technology, increased job mobility, greater access to information, and more diversity in the workplace (Thompson, 2005). Whenever individuals require the buy-in and assistance of others, the ability to negotiate effectively increases the chances of success. This assertion holds true both within and between organizations and regardless of the power relations between parties. Given the importance of negotiation as a core leadership competency, it is worthwhile to consider what the negotiation process involves. In its simplest form, negotiations enable two or more parties to divide up a fixed pie of resources in such a way that both parties have exceeded their next-best alternative. If a house seller has an existing offer for $250,000 and only aspires to maximize the sale price, then her decision of whether to accept a competing offer entails assessing whether it exceeds this dollar value. More complex yet equally common negotiations might involve multiple issues and multiple parties with differing priorities, expectations about the future, and attitudes about risk and time. For example, a more typical negotiation over property includes issues such as the closing date, inspection terms, and type of financing. Whereas the seller may prioritize the closing date, the buyer may care more about the inspection terms, thus creating an opportunity to expand the pie by granting each negotiator her most preferred concession. Across myriad configurations of issues and parties, the negotiation process enables interdependent parties with likely conflicting desires to reach agreement over the division of scarce resources. Achieving success in negotiations requires diverse leadership skills. Negotiations are challenging because they involve a fundamental tension between claiming and creating value (Lax & Sebenius, 1986). Whereas claiming value involves maximizing one’s share of a pool of resources, creating value involves expanding the pie through creative problem solving. Value that is created must be claimed, meaning that negotiators must learn to balance both competitive and cooperative motives. Yet the behaviors associated with claiming value are often in opposition to the behaviors associated with creating value. For example, claiming value often involves inflating demands with an assertive opening offer that anchors the negotiation (Galinsky & Mussweiler, 2001), whereas creating value involves openly sharing information to facilitate logrolling (Thompson, 1991) or identifying interests underlying stated positions (Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 1991). By striking a delicate

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balance between these two approaches, negotiators succeed at securing resources and expanding the pie. With this brief introduction to negotiation as a backdrop, the focus of the current chapter is the relationship between negotiators’ beliefs and their performance. We recognize that the past 20 years of research on negotiation has been largely cognitive in orientation (cf. Bazerman & Carroll, 1987). Much attention has been paid to negotiators’ beliefs about the zone of possible agreements and characteristics of the parties involved. We briefly review several key findings related to negotiator beliefs and the impact that they have on performance as a way of laying a foundation for current research that expands the scope of theorizing about negotiator cognitions. Specifically, we describe recent research identifying implicit negotiation beliefs, which concern individuals’ assumptions about whether negotiating ability is a skill that can be developed as opposed to being a fixed trait, as powerful predictors of how well negotiators perform, both in terms of claiming and creating value and in learning negotiation theory. We then lay out a research agenda for further exploration of the role of negotiators’ implicit beliefs in a wide range of negotiation processes and outcomes.

NEGOTIATOR BELIEFS: A REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH Researchers have long appreciated the importance of negotiators’ beliefs in determining how resources are divided and whether they are expanded in such a way that negotiators avoid leaving money on the table. Negotiators’ beliefs can either provide them with the confidence and efficacy they need to persevere or undermine their ability to succeed. Just as self-fulfilling prophecies can produce outcomes consistent with expectations (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968), negotiators’ cognitions do more than just describe reality; they shape it. Although a comprehensive review of the literature on cognition in negotiations is beyond the scope of this chapter, we consider three classes of negotiator beliefs that support the thesis that beliefs matter. Rather than focusing on the beliefs that negotiators may have about specific issues that are on the table in a particular negotiation, we restrict our discussion to beliefs that define situations and what it calls for to succeed, as a way of laying a foundation for current research on implicit beliefs in negotiations. Fixed pie belief. One of the earliest findings in the cognitive revolution was the observation that negotiators often assume that the pool of resources to be divided is fixed. The fixed-pie bias is characterized by a belief that the interests of negotiators are opposed, and therefore, that resources are zerosum (Bazerman & Neale, 1983; Pinkley, Griffith, & Northcraft, 1995; Thompson & Hastie, 1990). If negotiators assume that a negotiation is fixed-sum in nature (even though this may not be the case), they tend to align their

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behaviors entirely with the goal of claiming value and often leave money on the table. However, it may be the case that the parties’ priorities differ across issues, and that there are opportunities for trade-offs. A lose-lose outcome (Thompson & Hrebec, 1996) is often the result of a fixed-pie perception because negotiators fail to explore opportunities to satisfy each party’s interests. Rather than expending the effort and working to build on differences, negotiators prematurely settle for suboptimal outcomes. Implicit in the notion of a fixed-pie bias is the recognition that negotiators’ beliefs about the issues on the table affect how well they perform. Negotiability beliefs. Negotiators’ beliefs about whether a situation or issue is potentially negotiable have powerful effects on whether effort is expended to improve offers initially put on the table. Instead of accepting the first offer presented to them, people who believe that an issue is negotiable are more likely to engage in a process characterized by reciprocal concessions. Researchers examining these types of beliefs have focused most of their attention on exposing a perceptual asymmetry between women and men (Babcock, Gelfand, Small, & Stayn, 2006). In general, much variability exists among individuals in the recognition of the potential to negotiate, which contributes to a gender gap in negotiation performance whereby men tend to reap more favorable outcomes than women (Kray & Thompson, 2005). In much of the experimental research done on negotiation, role-playing simulations make it obvious to participants that they are in a negotiation situation. In contrast, the real world is colored by the ambiguity of whether a situation has the potential to be a negotiation. For example, students enrolled in negotiations courses often fret over how they can know which aspects of a job offer are negotiable. Some employers make standard offers to all entry-level candidates, and other employers personalize their offers. Implicit in the belief that a situation is negotiable is the assumption that efforts to improve outcomes will be worthwhile. Effective negotiator beliefs. A third example of the importance of beliefs in determining how well negotiators perform has to do with the traits they associate with effective negotiators. When a negotiation is thought to be diagnostic of inherent abilities, negotiators’ naı¨ve theories about what it takes to succeed at the bargaining table are activated. Kray, Thompson, and Galinsky (2001) determined that many of the traits associated with effective negotiators are consistent with gender stereotypes. For example, students in a negotiations class in an MBA program ascribed stereotypically masculine traits, such as assertiveness, rationality, and a lack of emotionality, to effective negotiators. When a negotiation is thought to be diagnostic of core abilities, these stereotypes are automatically activated, and negotiators implicitly question whether they possess the attributes required for success. When negotiators question their own ability to succeed, it affects their confidence, the


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assertiveness of their opening offers, and ultimately how well they perform. This research suggests that negotiators’ beliefs about what it takes to succeed, and whether they possess those traits, dictate how well they do when the stakes are highest.

Implicit Negotiation Beliefs The research previously discussed suggests that beliefs about the fixedness of the pie, offers, and traits associated with effective negotiators have robust effects on how negotiators perform. Each of the aforementioned findings regarding negotiator cognition supports the view that beliefs about the rigidity of the negotiation situation and what it takes to succeed undermine effective performance. Negotiators who believe that the pie can be expanded, that anything is negotiable, and that a wide range of traits and styles contribute to success are indeed more successful at the bargaining table. Next we expand on these observations by exploring negotiators’ beliefs about the ability of individuals to improve as negotiators. We review research examining general theories about human personality and aptitude and then explore the implications of implicit theories about negotiation. In a highly influential approach to examining self-theories, Carol Dweck and her colleagues (Dweck, 1996; Dweck & Leggett, 1988) proposed that implicit beliefs are rarely articulated thoughts regarding the malleability of personality and intelligence that nonetheless have powerful effects on motivation, affect, and behavior. According to Dweck, implicit beliefs fall along a continuum, with entity and incremental beliefs representing the endpoints. Entity theorists are individuals who endorse the belief that an attribute, such as personality or intelligence, is a fixed entity that is difficult—if not impossible—to change. In contrast, incremental theorists believe that personal attributes are malleable to such a degree that anyone can change even their most basic characteristics through hard work and persistence. Whereas the entity theorist endorses a ‘‘nature’’ viewpoint, the incremental theorist favors a ‘‘nurture’’ viewpoint. Although some evidence suggests that individuals hold ‘‘implicit person beliefs’’ that generalize across contexts (e.g., Chiu, Hong, & Dweck, 1997; Heslin, VandeWalle, & Latham, 2006), individuals are clearly capable of modifying their viewpoint depending on the domain under consideration. For example, an individual may believe that intelligence is a fixed trait, but that people can demonstrate different sides of their personality depending on the situation. Likewise, an individual may be an incremental theorist with regard to intelligence but an entity theorist with regard to athletic ability. Implicit beliefs regarding personality, morality, intelligence, and emotion have been identified (e.g., Chiu, Dweck, Tong, & Fu, 1997; Hong, Chiu, Dweck, & Sacks, 1997; Tamir, John, Srivastava, & Gross, 2007).

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Applying the lens of self-theories to negotiations, our research has examined implicit negotiation beliefs and their influence on negotiation processes and outcomes (Kray & Haselhuhn, 2007). Implicit negotiation beliefs refer to the belief that an individual’s ability to negotiate is fixed (i.e., the idea of the ‘‘born negotiator’’) versus the belief that anyone can become a good negotiator through training and hard work. We expected implicit negotiation beliefs to affect negotiation performance in two ways. First, we expected that implicit negotiation beliefs would affect the types of goals negotiators adopted at the bargaining table. Drawing on previous research on more general forms of implicit beliefs (e.g., Dweck & Leggett, 1988), we expected that because incremental theorists believe that people can grow and gain negotiation ability, they would approach negotiations with mastery goals, or the desire to learn new things and improve. In contrast, because entity theorists believe that negotiation ability is relatively fixed, we anticipated that they would approach negotiations with performance goals, or the desire to demonstrate how well they can negotiate. Second, we expected implicit negotiation beliefs to determine the amount of effort negotiators dedicated to the conflict resolution process. Effort affects how long negotiators hold out for a concession, how many offers are put on the table, and how persistent negotiators are in reaching agreement versus declaring an impasse. In general, effort has a negative connotation for entity theorists because it can be interpreted as a sign that one has little intrinsic ability. Incremental theorists, on the other hand, place a high value on effort. They believe that learning and growing are effortful processes that require dedication and commitment, and, indeed, more value is placed on the process of achievement than on the ultimate achievement itself (Hong, Chiu, Dweck, Lin, & Wan, 1999). Based on the links between implicit beliefs and effort, we predicted that incremental theorists would exert greater effort in negotiations. Because effort and perseverance have been linked to negotiation success (Bazerman, Magliozzi, & Neale, 1985; Huber & Neale, 1986), we expected incremental theorists to outperform their entity counterparts. To test our hypotheses regarding the relationship between implicit negotiation beliefs and goals, we designed a three-pronged approach. First, we sought to establish a causal relationship between implicit negotiation beliefs and performance by manipulating beliefs. An additional benefit of this experimental approach is that it allowed us to examine mediating processes that link implicit beliefs to performance. Second, because we believe implicit negotiation beliefs operate within the real world in a fairly stable manner, we examined the impact of dispositional implicit beliefs on performance in a nonexperimental setting. Third, because we expected incremental theorists to be more learning-oriented than entity theorists, we sought to determine what effect implicit negotiation beliefs have on actual learning in a


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classroom setting. In combination, this multipronged approach contributes to a robust understanding of the role of implicit negotiation beliefs at the bargaining table. In our experimental research, we presented novice negotiators with an essay designed to manipulate their endorsement of an entity versus incremental viewpoint and then examined their goals and performance in negotiations. Specifically, participants read an essay designed to spur either incremental or entity beliefs. The essays were titled ‘‘Negotiation Ability Is Changeable and Can Be Developed’’ and ‘‘Negotiation Ability, Like Plaster, Is Pretty Stable over Time.’’ Each essay included reports from fictitious studies supporting the main thesis of the article. In our first study, after reading one of the essays, participants were given an opportunity to select a negotiation task that they expected to perform. One task was labeled a ‘‘learning negotiation task’’ and was described as an opportunity to learn new concepts and practice their skills, although it would also expose them to the risk of failure. The second task was labeled a ‘‘performance negotiation task’’ and was described as an opportunity for them to demonstrate their ability as a negotiator, although it would also limit their ability to learn anything new. Consistent with our theorizing, implicit negotiation beliefs predicted which task negotiators selected: incremental theorists were significantly more likely to prefer a negotiation task that would offer them an opportunity to learn and grow as a negotiator, even if it meant they might not succeed initially. In a follow-up study, we had participants actually complete a distributive negotiation task after being exposed to our essay manipulation. We predicted that the incremental theorists’ greater willingness to expend effort to overcome obstacles would lead them to outperform their entity theorist counterparts. Consistent with this hypothesis, we found that negotiators who read a fictitious article asserting the fixedness of negotiation ability claimed less of the negotiation pie than did negotiators who read an article describing negotiation ability as malleable. We also examined the relationship between implicit negotiation beliefs and both value claiming and value creating in a classroom setting. We measured implicit negotiation beliefs on the first day of a negotiation class and then examined their correlation with negotiation performance throughout the course. Entirely consistent with our experimental findings, we observed that individuals who naturally endorsed an incremental viewpoint claimed more of the bargaining pie than their entity counterparts. To explore value creating, negotiators engaged in a simulation characterized by a negative bargaining zone, which exists when a seller’s minimum requirement is greater than the buyer’s maximum willingness to pay. Specifically, the seller in this negotiation required a minimum of $580,000 for a gas station, but the buyer was only authorized to pay up to $500,000. Although a negotiation with a negative

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bargaining zone typically ends in impasse, in our simulation negotiators could overcome their initial impasse if they discussed the interests underlying their stated positions and introduced additional terms into the agreement that satisfied these interests. In this simulation, part of the rationale for the seller’s asking price was that he would be taking a trip around the world and wanted to have money in the bank for when he returned and needed to find employment. Because the buyer wanted to purchase a significant number of stations that had to be managed and the seller had established a good reputation as a station owner, negotiators could expand the pie by having the buyer offer a job to the seller upon returning from his travels. By discussing the rationale underlying their offers, negotiators had more information from which they could construct a viable agreement. Notably, success on this task required negotiators to persevere beyond initial stalemates and to expend effort to craft a workable deal. Consistent with our expectations, incremental theorists were more successful at this task than entity theorists. Specifically, we found that the more dyads collectively endorsed an incremental viewpoint, the more likely the negotiators were to avoid impasses and instead create an agreement that expanded the pie. We also showed that implicit negotiation beliefs affect more than negotiation performance; they also affect a person’s ability to learn about negotiation theory and to analyze negotiation situations. By correlating implicit negotiation beliefs measured on the first day of a semester-long course with final course grades determined 15 weeks later, we found that the implicit negotiation beliefs of students at the beginning of a semester predicted their learning. In particular, the more adamantly students believed that negotiating ability is a skill that can be developed, the more successfully they learned course concepts and the better they performed in school. To understand why implicit negotiation beliefs have the power that they do, we examined the contribution of negotiators’ beliefs about their own ability. We reasoned that entity theorists are most vulnerable to underperforming relative to their incremental counterparts when they doubt their own ability to succeed. As our finding regarding negotiation achievement goals suggests, entity theorists are relatively unwilling to put themselves in a situation where they run the risk of failure. Rather than persevering to overcome an obstacle that could potentially lead to failure, we expected entity theorists to give up when they encountered challenges to their success. To test this hypothesis, we measured negotiators’ confidence in their ability to succeed before they engaged in a distributive negotiation. We found an interaction between perceived ability and implicit negotiation beliefs; entity theorists performed well only when they perceived themselves to be strong negotiators, while incremental theorists performed at a relatively high level regardless of their perceived ability. As shown in Figure 13-1, entity theorists performed on par


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Figure 13-1 Relationship between implicit beliefs, perceived ability, and performance

with incremental theorists when they were confident in their ability. The pernicious effect of entity beliefs was most pronounced when they doubted their abilities. Overall, these studies strongly support the idea that implicit negotiation beliefs affect how successfully people negotiate. The belief that negotiation ability can be changed promotes effort and perseverance in all facets of the negotiation process. Value claiming, value creating, and the learning of negotiation concepts are facilitated by the belief that negotiating ability is a skill that can be developed. Next we broaden the scope of investigation of implicit beliefs beyond the negotiation domain to better understand their impact across a variety of leadership settings and to identify directions for future research.

A Wide-Lens Examination of Implicit Beliefs In this section, we consider several areas of research that speak to the vast impact of implicit beliefs, specifically on negotiations and more generally on leadership behavior.

Conflict Handling Styles In addition to the effects of implicit beliefs on transactional negotiations, beliefs also affect how individuals approach conflict resolution in

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interpersonal relationships (Kammrath & Dweck, 2006). In this context, implicit beliefs refer not to negotiation ability in particular, but rather to beliefs regarding whether people can change their basic attributes. In the broader conflict resolution domain, incremental theorists tend to respond to conflict by openly discussing potentially contentious issues and trying to constructively address the situation, whereas entity theorists are less likely to approach conflict in such a straightforward manner. In Kammrath and Dweck’s investigation of real-world conflicts, this divergence in how entity versus incremental theorists approach conflict was strongest when the issues were most important—precisely when constructive problem solving may be most desirable. They theorized that these responses are a direct result of beliefs regarding the efficacy of the effortful conflict resolution process. Incremental theorists, who believe that a counterpart in a conflict can change the traits or behaviors at the source of the conflict, are willing to exert effort in important situations because they believe the effort may pay off. Entity theorists, on the other hand, see attempts at change as a wasted effort as well as futile.

Implicit Emotion Beliefs Researchers have recently identified individual differences in beliefs regarding the malleability of emotion. In this context, incremental theorists believe that the emotions one feels can be controlled, while entity theorists believe that emotions cannot be changed (Tamir et al., 2007). Emotions are critical for understanding negotiation behavior (Barry, Fulmer, & Goates, 2006; Barry, Fulmer, & Van Kleef, 2004). The ability to control anger or frustration at a counterpart’s moves is crucial for effectively separating the person from the problem, a key part of the problem-solving negotiation style prescribed by practitioners and scholars alike (Fisher et al., 1991). Because the belief that emotions can be changed is so closely tied to the belief that one can personally control his or her emotions (Tamir et al., 2007), incremental theories of emotion can lead to greater confidence and self-efficacy at the bargaining table.

Implicit Morality Beliefs Implicit beliefs regarding morality may be an important factor in negotiations as well. In this context, entity theorists believe that a person’s moral character is fixed and that morality and honesty are ingrained aspects of an individual’s personality, whereas incremental theorists believe that moral character is something that can change (Chiu, Hong, & Dweck, 1997). Because entity theorists believe that moral character is a fixed attribute, they place


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great weight on single instances of moral or immoral behavior. In contrast, incremental theorists focus their attention on the contextual factors that may lead a person to act morally or immorally in a given situation. In light of the growing importance that researchers and practitioners place on the ethics of negotiation (Shell, 2006), these beliefs are of particular interest. While incremental theorists may view a negotiator’s past ethical transgressions as oneoff occurrences, entity theorists will likely interpret a previous instance of unethical behavior as a strong predictor that the negotiator will not hesitate to act unethically in any future interaction, regardless of the context. Likewise, if incremental theorists have a more contextualized view of morality, they may be more likely to engage in ethically questionable behavior without considering the reputational consequences of even one transgression. In support of this view, a recent study examined the use of deception in a negotiation simulation designed to pose an ethical dilemma. In this study, more than 40 percent of negotiators who held incremental beliefs regarding morality reported misrepresenting material information. In contrast, less than 15 percent of negotiators who held entity beliefs regarding morality reported engaging in similar deception (Haselhuhn, Schweitzer, & Kray, 2007). These initial findings suggest that implicit morality beliefs have strong implications for how ethically people behave, how reputations form, what negotiators expect of others, and negotiators’ willingness to forgive past transgressions in dispute situations.

Implicit Subordinate Beliefs Moving beyond the specific context of negotiations, implicit beliefs impact interactions between superiors and subordinates in organizational contexts (VandeWalle, 1997; Heslin, Latham, & VandeWalle, 2005; Heslin et al., 2006). VandeWalle found that a person’s implicit beliefs extend to perceptions of others. For example, managers with incremental theories believe that their subordinates can change and grow, while entity theorists place greater weight on initial impressions. As a result, incremental theorists are more likely to coach their subordinates and teach them important skills that are mutually beneficial. Rather than entering into contentious discussions regarding suboptimal performance, incremental managers are willing to work with their subordinates to improve the situation to a greater degree than entity managers (Heslin et al., 2006). As part of this feedback and coaching process, incremental theorists are more sensitive to changes in performance, both positive and negative, of their subordinates. Entity theorists base their evaluations of subordinates primarily on initial performance outcomes. When it is assumed that people are unable to drastically change their ability, these initial impressions are thought to generalize to future behaviors as well. Incrementalists, on

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the other hand, believe that subordinates can change, and therefore place greater weight on more recent performance (Heslin et al., 2005). These findings suggest that the entity viewpoint prevents people from updating their beliefs about others and may result in less accurate evaluations of others over time.

Implicit Leadership Beliefs We have recently begun examining beliefs regarding the malleability of leadership by adapting our scale measuring implicit negotiation beliefs specifically to the leadership domain (Kray & Haselhuhn, 2008). In our first investigation of how these beliefs may impact leadership behavior, we focused on one critical skill for effective leadership: the ability to process information in an unbiased fashion and avoid the tendency to attend to and give great weight to information consistent with a preexisting hypothesis. Previous research has determined that the confirmation bias is a robust affliction resulting from motivated information processing (Schulz-Hardt, Frey, Luthgens, & Moscovici, 2000). After measuring the implicit beliefs of MBA students enrolled in an introductory organizational behavior course, we correlated their beliefs with their decision-making process in a simulation designed to gauge the tendency to engage in biased information processing. Based on the space shuttle Challenger disaster in which decision makers failed to appreciate information that suggested conditions were not favorable for a safe launch, the Carter Racing simulation challenges participants to question the decision to ‘‘launch’’ by considering information that could potentially disconfirm this dominant hypothesis. Since making strategic decisions is a central job of leaders, we expected that implicit leadership beliefs would impact how participants approached the task. Our analyses suggest that incremental theorists were significantly more likely than entity theorists to process information in a balanced manner. As a result, incremental theorists were significantly less likely to make a decision consistent with the illfated Challenger launch. These findings clearly suggest that implicit beliefs affect the manner in which information is processed.

A Research Agenda Given the importance of implicit negotiation beliefs on negotiation and leadership performance, we encourage future research that broadens the breadth and depth of our understanding of their impact. Although the possible avenues for future research are vast, we restrict our discussion to three possible paths. Specifically, we consider the impact of implicit beliefs on


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assessments of negotiating parties, negotiator preferences, and willingness to negotiate.

Negotiator Assessments Reputations matter in negotiations (Tinsley, O’Connor, & Sullivan, 2002). Knowing what to expect from one’s negotiating partner helps to determine what information to reveal and when to do so. If negotiators expect their partners to be weak because they have not been effective in the past, they may be overconfident in their ability to prevail without sufficient consideration of alternatives or preparation. We expect that negotiators who hold entity beliefs will believe that past negotiation outcomes are stronger predictors of future success or failure compared to incremental theorists. If, however, the contexts of two negotiations are different enough that these assumptions prove faulty, then entity theorists may be more likely to fall victim to the fundamental attribution error (Ross, 1977). A negotiator who has performed poorly in the past may improve in future negotiations, or may try new things at the bargaining table that could lead to different results. Similarly, a negotiator who has performed well in the past could improve or regress if they try new tactics or strategies. These differences in how past performance is evaluated may lead to differences in negotiation preparation.

Negotiator Risk Attitudes Implicit beliefs may impact negotiators’ attitudes toward risk at the bargaining table. Virtually all methods of creating value in negotiations require that negotiators accept some degree of risk. Specifically, negotiators assume strategic risk when they reveal information about their preferences that their counterpart could exploit (Roth, 1977). For example, a car buyer who reveals her preference for a red vehicle may pay more if a car dealer claims that he cannot keep red cars in stock. Negotiators assume contractual risk when they structure a deal on the basis of their uncertain forecasts of the future (Bottom, 1998). For example, a buyer’s willingness to pay for a vehicle may be based on her estimates of the car’s resale value in 5 years. Because this value will not be known until the future unfolds, the buyer may overpay if her estimates are overly optimistic. Kray, Paddock, and Galinsky (2007) determined that past performance influences how negotiators respond to these two types of risk. Negotiators who have experienced a history of failures are more drawn to contractual risk, and its delay of outcomes, than to strategic risk. This effect may be moderated by negotiators’ implicit beliefs. Because entity theorists endorse a fixed belief about abilities, we expect that past performance will have a larger influence on current risk attitudes of entity theorists

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than on incremental theorists. Future research that explores how implicit beliefs shape attitudes about various types of risk in negotiations would be worthwhile. Along similar lines, many negotiations involve trade-offs between shortterm and long-term performance concerns. Negotiators may have to relinquish some of what they want in a negotiation in favor of developing a long-term relationship with a negotiation counterpart that will bring returns over an extended period. Entity theorists, who are more focused on demonstrating their ability, may be concerned about short-term outcomes since any loss with no guarantee of a future gain is threatening to one’s self-esteem. Incremental theorists, on the other hand, approach situations with the goal of learning and gaining competence over time, which suggests that they may be more focused on long-term relationships than entity theorists. Examining how implicit beliefs affect the trade-offs negotiators make over time is also a promising direction for future research.

Willingness to Negotiate A third direction for future research involves how implicit beliefs affect the willingness of individuals to solve problems through negotiations. For example, consumers looking to purchase a new car often have the choice between making their purchase at a regular dealership or purchasing the same car at a ‘‘no negotiation’’ dealership. The option that does not involve negotiation appears to be quite successful. Indeed, when General Motors introduced the Saturn brand, a large facet of the marketing campaign focused on the fact that customers would pay the price on the tag, no haggling required (or allowed). Assuming that dealerships like this are not benevolently putting their lowest price on the tag, shoppers are essentially paying the dealership a premium to avoid negotiation (Purohit & Sondak, 1999). We hypothesize that entity theorists will have a greater preference for the dealership that does not allow negotiation relative to incremental theorists for at least two reasons. First, incrementalists will likely see more value in the negotiation process itself because it provides an opportunity to learn and improve for future negotiations. Entity theorists, on the other hand, will likely see the time and effort spent negotiating as an additional cost to buying the car because they perceive little value from the negotiation process. Second, in contrast to incrementalists’ views of the negotiation as a learning experience, entity theorists view the negotiation as an opportunity to demonstrate their negotiation prowess (or avoid showing the lack thereof). This view suggests that highly confident entity theorists will be more likely to purchase a car from a regular dealership (since they aim to demonstrate their high level of ability), while entity theorists with lower self-evaluations will be more likely to choose the


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option that does not require negotiation. Incrementalists’ choices, conversely, should be unrelated to perceived ability.

CONCLUSION We began this chapter by highlighting the intimate relationship between leadership effectiveness and negotiating ability. With this appreciation of the art and science of negotiation front and center, we then explored one of the most important contributors to negotiation success: the set of beliefs that negotiators bring with them to the bargaining table. First, we acknowledged the deep cognitive roots of early negotiation research with its emphasis on assessing negotiators’ beliefs about the fixedness of offers, pies, and contributors to success. Second, we attempted to motivate the next generation of negotiator cognition research by introducing implicit negotiator beliefs as a powerful determinant of negotiation performance. Finally, we laid out an agenda for expanding the scope of investigations regarding implicit beliefs at the bargaining table. In so doing, we call attention to the fact that what it takes to succeed is a belief that success is within reach through hard work and perseverance.

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14 Presidential Leadership and Group Folly: Reappraising the Role of Groupthink in the Bay of Pigs Decisions RODERICK M. KRAMER

‘‘What do you think about this damned invasion?’’ ‘‘I think about it as little as possible.’’ —President Kennedy’s response to Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s query on March 28, 1960, prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion (Schlesinger, 2007, p. 108) Social scientists have afforded considerable attention to identifying the antecedents or determinants of effective presidential decision making. Recognizing that nearly all consequential presidential decisions are made within the context of group deliberations, they have focused particular attention on understanding how presidential advisors influence decision making. Within this literature, Janis’s groupthink hypothesis remains by far the most cited and influential framework. Janis regarded the Bay of Pigs decision as one example of a perfect decision fiasco and one that could be attributed to the effects of dysfunctional group dynamics. This chapter reexamines the adequacy of Janis’s groupthink explanation in light of recently declassified evidence. I conclude the preponderance of the evidence does not favor groupthink as a necessary or sufficient explanation for the Bay of Pigs decisions.

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In a reflective moment during his presidency, President John F. Kennedy observed, ‘‘The essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer—often, indeed, to the decider himself. . . . There will always be the dark and tangled stretches in the decision-making process—mysterious even to those who may be most intimately involved’’ (quoted in Allison & Zelikow, 1999, p. i). Kennedy’s observation notwithstanding, social scientists have afforded considerable attention to the antecedents or determinants of presidential decision making (e.g., Burns, 2006; Burke & Greenstein, 1989). Recognizing that nearly all important and consequential presidential decisions are made within the context of group deliberations, political scientists and presidential historians have been particularly interested in understanding how presidential advisors influence presidential decision making. Although the lion’s share of research in this important area has been done by political scientists (Cronin & Greenberg, 1969; George, 1980), social psychologists have made a number of important contributions as well (e.g., Raven, 1974). Among these social psychological contributions, Janis’s (1972, 1983) groupthink hypothesis remains by far the most cited and influential framework. Indeed, more than four decades after its conception, the groupthink hypothesis remains an enduring fixture in the social psychological literature on decision-making fiascoes involving presidential decisions, including those made by Presidents Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush (Hart, 1990). In many respects, the resilience of the groupthink hypothesis is not altogether surprising. Among its alluring features is that it appears to offer a set of prima facie plausible assumptions regarding the dynamics of dysfunctional decision making. Additionally, it identifies a set of compelling symptoms for diagnosing the sources of defective deliberation. Moreover, it offers a series of concrete and useful prescriptions for avoiding them. Perhaps most impressively, support for the theory is buttressed by a set of dramatic and compelling case studies. Janis’s original case studies include some of the most formative events in American history—the tragic escalation of the Vietnam War, the ill-fated Bay of Pigs operation, and the nefarious Watergate coverup. The conjunction of defining events in history with a seemingly parsimonious and robust theory to explain them has proven a powerful lure to both theorists and practitioners alike. In each of these cases, unfortunately, the evidence available to Janis for constructing his inductive analysis was fragmentary and incomplete. Additionally, in some instances, we now know relevant data were suppressed and/ or sanitized by various governmental agencies. Janis himself recognized the constraining limitations of the evidence available to him. Consequently,

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he urged future scholars to reappraise the groupthink hypothesis as new, relevant evidence emerged. It is in this spirit that the present analysis proceeds. There are several reasons why revisiting the original case studies might prove fruitful today. First, Janis’s qualitative studies constituted the core empirical foundation for his conjectures about groupthink. However incomplete the evidence might have been, Janis believed his case studies offered compelling evidence for the validity of the groupthink hypothesis. His arguments and assembly of the evidence were so persuasive that groupthink remains among the most influential explanations for these fiascoes even today. Indeed, so successful and compelling has the groupthink account been that it continues to exert explanatory sway over conventional wisdom regarding the origins and dynamics of a variety of contemporary presidential fiascoes (e.g., Hart, 1990; Moorehead, 1991; Neck, 1992). Reexamining the original case studies seems particularly appropriate at this time for two other reasons. First, the scholarly literature on group and organizational decision making has made impressive theoretical strides in the decades since Janis originally articulated the groupthink hypothesis (see, e.g., Hackman, 2003; March, 1995; Tetlock, 1991, 1995; Turner, Pratkanis, Probasco, & Leve, 1992; Turner, Pratkanis, & Struckman, 2007; Whyte, 1989). Thus, scholars today have a much richer set of theoretical perspectives from which to survey the hypothesis and the evidence for it. Second, and of particular relevance to the present study, with the passage of time a considerable amount of fresh archival material bearing on these fiascoes has become available to scholars. With respect to the Bay of Pigs decisions made by President Kennedy and his advisors, for example, this material includes a treasure trove of recently declassified records, such as presidential logs, memos, and transcripts of crucial meetings (Kornbluh, 1998; Reeves, 1993). Further, comprehensive oral histories are also now available for the Kennedy presidency (e.g., Strober & Strober, 1993). Additionally, there are new reassessments by historians and political scientists, as well as detailed memoirs from principal participants in the Kennedy years that were not available when Janis conceived the groupthink hypothesis (Burns, 2006; Fursenko & Naftali, 1997; Kornbluh, 1998; Naftali, 2001). For all of these reasons, the time seems ripe to revisit the Bay of Pigs decision-making process and, in particular, the adequacy of the groupthink hypothesis to explain it.1 How well has Janis’s construal of the Bay of Pigs decision-making process weathered nearly four decades of theoretical advances and emerging empirical evidence? This is the central question I engage in this chapter.


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ADVICE, DISSENT, AND DECISION IN THE BAY OF PIGS CASE: REASSESSING THE JANIS BRIEF Janis regarded the decision by President Kennedy and his advisors to approve the CIA’s plan to land a contingent of Cuban exiles on the shores of Cuba in 1961 as the prototypic example of groupthink. As he later recounted, many of his initial intuitions regarding groupthink were inspired by this case. Moreover, he felt the Bay of Pigs case most explicitly represented all of the relevant features of the hypothesis. In his eyes, therefore, the Bay of Pigs constituted a ‘‘perfect failure’’ in decision making—and an equally perfect example of groupthink in action. Janis’s arguments regarding groupthink were woven around a series of critical questions that should be used, he proposed, as guidelines for deciding whether groupthink was present in any presidential decision. First, it was important to examine who made the policy decision. Did the evidence show, for example, that the critical decisions were made primarily by a president acting alone, or did it indicate instead that an advisory group participated to a significant extent? Second, it was important to determine whether this group constituted a tightly knit, cohesive group. Third, were the antecedent conditions and symptoms of groupthink discernible in the group’s deliberations? Fourth, were the decisions avoidable errors? In other words, was there sufficient countervailing evidence available to the group members to indicate that their decisions entailed unacceptable risks, or were in other ways seriously flawed? If not, Janis noted reasonably, any critique reduces to mere hindsight bias and would not constitute a true instance of groupthink. With these evaluative criteria in mind, it is useful to explicate some of the major points in Janis’s analysis and argument. First, Janis’s characterization of the decision-making process leading up to the Bay of Pigs attached considerable importance to a specific series of meetings involving President Kennedy and some of his advisors during which the Bay of Pigs was discussed. Janis implied that the planning for the invasion occurred primarily within the context of these deliberations and that they could be characterized, in turn, as discussions by a small, cohesive, and relatively isolated group that consisted, moreover, of a fixed cast of advisors. In recent years, the release of new and detailed records have provided scholars with much more information regarding the actual scale, scope, duration, and content of the planning sessions leading up to the Bay of Pigs. These records also reveal the magnitude of Kennedy’s efforts to decide what to do about the Cuban operation outside the context of these meetings (see, e.g., Higgins, 1987; Neustadt & May, 1986; Reeves, 1993; Strober & Strober, 1993). Viewed in aggregate, these new sources provide a detailed—and in some instances almost hour-by-hour—chronicle of the decision-making process,

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including not only with whom Kennedy discussed the Bay of Pigs, but how often and for how long, as well as the specific content of some of those discussions. This recently available material suggests—to an extent much less apparent in the fragmentary data then available to Janis—that President Kennedy did not rely exclusively, or even predominantly, on a small, fixed, tightly knit group of advisors in making his ultimate decisions regarding the Bay of Pigs operation. Instead, he employed a broad and complex—even if also somewhat idiosyncratic and unsystematic—advisory process. This new evidence, in fact, shows that Kennedy prudently sought advice from a wide corridor of diverse opinions. These included soliciting the views of President Dwight Eisenhower, the views of a number of prominent journalists and magazine editors he respected, various senators, and even close friends and colleagues (see, e.g., Dallek, 2003; George, 1980; Reeves, 1993). To be sure, Kennedy remained secretive regarding the extent of his advisory process. He had a tendency, as presidential scholar Reeves (1993) noted, to compartmentalize his associations and discussions, probably to retain control over his decision-making process. Kennedy was also prudently cautious when it came to revealing his own thinking about the operation when soliciting others’ views, most likely in order to keep his options open until the very end. As a result, individuals around Kennedy often underestimated the extent to which he sought the advice of others beside themselves. At the same time, they also overestimated the extent to which his opinion mirrored their own views (Reeves, 1993). The new evidence also suggests that the comparatively few group planning sessions devoted specifically to the Bay of Pigs might better be characterized as a ‘‘series of ad hoc meetings’’ involving a ‘‘small but shifting set of advisers’’ (Neustadt & May, 1986, p. 142). Thus, they were hardly the sort of sustained deliberations involving a single, tightly knit and isolated group, as Janis argued (Kornbluh, 1998). Janis also faulted Kennedy and his advisors for not attending more diligently to the details of the CIA plan and uncovering its prospective flaws. However, with the release of classified documents over the past four decades, scholars are now in a much better position to appreciate that the planning for this operation occurred during a period of what Reeves (1993) has aptly characterized as ‘‘an astonishing density of [simultaneous or co-occurring] events’’ (pp. 74–75). Specifically, at the very same time that he was dealing with planning the Bay of Pigs operation, Kennedy was also confronting a growing crisis in Southeast Asia, an extremely risky and uncomfortably fluid situation in Berlin, and a rapidly emerging ‘‘race for space’’ in which the United States seemed stuck in the starting blocks (Reeves, 1993, p. 85). Thus, the planning sessions for the Bay of Pigs occurred within the context of


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a series of other critical events that claimed the attention of Kennedy and his advisors. As a consequence of this astonishingly packed agenda, Kennedy’s advisors had to make difficult—but necessary—discriminations as to how best to allocate their limited and strained attentional resources. There was, as a result, somewhat of a tendency to delegate and defer to other experts when necessary. Even Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, an individual legendary for his hands-on, detailed-oriented, attentive approach to decision making, has recently confessed, ‘‘I had entered the Pentagon with a limited grasp of military affairs and even less grasp of covert operations. This lack of understanding, coupled with my preoccupation with other matters and my deference to the CIA on what I considered an agency operation, led me to accept the [Bay of Pigs] plan uncritically’’ (p. 26). In fairness to himself, McNamara said he felt that Cuba was not his turf, nor was it his role to attend to the operational details of the Bay of Pigs planning, especially given the operational control of the CIA and the military experts advising it. Moreover, he felt his job was to attend to the more urgent and critical tasks President Kennedy had already assigned to him (including, among other things, reassessing U.S. nuclear deterrent capabilities and revamping its strategic policy regarding their use). Janis’s critique of the overall quality of the decision-making process, moreover, was predicated on his assumption that available evidence was sufficient to indicate serious problems with the proposed CIA operation. Thus, in his view, the decision to proceed with it reflected an avoidable decision error of the sort that defined groupthink. Janis used Kennedy’s spontaneous exclamation (made to speechwriter Ted Sorensen as they strolled around the White House grounds after the failure), ‘‘How could I have been so stupid to let this thing go forward?’’ to suggest that this was Kennedy’s own post hoc assessment. When Kennedy’s complete statement is examined, however, it is clear he was referring specifically to his stupidity over trusting the recommendations of his military and CIA experts on the feasibility of the operation and its odds for success. As Neustadt and May (1986) noted more broadly, Kennedy was ‘‘scarcely stupid to think Castro a problem. Most Americans thought so too, not least Eisenhower and Nixon’’ (p. 270, emphases added). Newly available evidence suggests, in fact, that President Eisenhower had warned Kennedy in the strongest of terms at one of their early secret briefings (classified at the time of Janis’s analysis) that it was Kennedy’s ‘‘responsibility to do whatever was necessary to overthrow Castro because the United States could not let the present government go on there’’ (Higgins, 1987, p. 76). The former President communicated a sense of urgency for action to Kennedy, cautioning him against weakening commitment to the contest in Cuba. ‘‘Should we support guerrilla operations in Cuba?’’ Kennedy asked

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Eisenhower. ‘‘To the utmost,’’ Eisenhower replied (Reeves, 1993, p. 32). Eisenhower further warned Kennedy to ‘‘avoid any reorganization until he could become acquainted with the problems’’ (p. 32). As Neustadt and May (1986) further noted, Kennedy was hardly stupid for trying to ‘‘hold firm against the overt use of American Force [during the invasion itself]. Law and morality were buttressed by military considerations’’ (p. 270). Thus, they concluded, ‘‘so the stupidity for which [Kennedy] blamed himself comes down to a small handful of judgments and presumptions on a handful of particulars’’ (p. 270). Based upon all of the evidence available to him, Janis also assumed that the CIA had been at most simply a bit naive and overly optimistic in its assessments of the prospects for success of the planned Cuban operation. The recently declassified records and materials indicate, however, that Kennedy and his advisors were actively and intentionally misled about the operation by Richard Bissell, the primary proponent and operational officer in charge of the action, and other advisory elements with the CIA. There is strong evidence, for example, that Bissell, acting largely on his own initiative, transformed the operation from an initially small-scale covert infiltration into a substantial invasion (Neustadt & May, 1986). Moreover, the CIA was determined to proceed with its aggressive agenda of covert operations in Cuba and perfectly willing, if necessary, to provide bogus or inflated accounts of anti-Castro activities, civilian unrest, and lack of support for Castro to the President and his advisors in order to secure their commitment (Neustadt & May, 1986). Thus, the CIA representatives said nothing when President Kennedy expressed reservations about the original parameters for the operation and failed to act in good faith in complying with Kennedy’s directives (Reeves, 1993, p. 263). Instead, as Reeves (1993) has nicely put it, the CIA started ‘‘making it up as they went along.’’ In fact, Bissell and the CIA were quite adept at ‘‘reading’’ Kennedy’s concerns and responding in the most persuasive way to assuage them. For example, as soon as Kennedy revealed a proclivity toward viewing acceptance or rejection of the original plan in terms of its political ramifications (e.g., risks to his image as president), the CIA and Bissell were quick to reframe the options available to him in similar terms. Detecting, for example, that the new President was sensitive to possible domestic political repercussions of the venture’s failure, CIA Director Allen Dulles skillfully positioned the trade-offs associated with going forward versus calling off the operation in precisely such terms: ‘‘There would be a political price, as well as a military one,’’ he shrewdly reminded the President, ‘‘for calling off the invasion’’ (Reeves, 1993, p. 71). Moreover, and relatedly, Dulles knew how to prick Kennedy’s anxieties about being compared to Eisenhower as the nation’s commander in chief and coming up short in that comparison. When discussing the plan’s


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prospects for success, for example, Dulles told Kennedy, ‘‘Mr. President, I know you’re doubtful about this . . . but I stood at this very desk and said to President Eisenhower about a similar operation in Guatemala, ‘I believe it will work.’ And I say to you now, Mr. President, that the prospects for this plan are even better’’ (p. 73). Bissell and the CIA were also convinced that, because Kennedy was so concerned about appearing weak against communism and indecisive as a military leader, he would commit to the much larger operation they had in mind once it was too late to call it off. In other words, ‘‘when push came to shove,’’ Kennedy would do whatever necessary to save face and avoid a military defeat (Reeves, 1993, p. 72). Janis also made much of Kennedy’s tendency to ignore expert advice that questioned the wisdom of the operation. According to Janis, this critical advice should have factored more heavily into Kennedy’s deliberation process. In Janis’s eyes, it also constituted further evidence that the Bay of Pigs was an avoidable decision error. Janis affords particular attention, in this regard, to the fact that Kennedy gave little weight to Chester Bowles’s reservations regarding the logistics of the operation—concerns that in retrospect turned out to be quite prescient. However, recent documents indicate that President Kennedy had little confidence in Bowles’s judgment or his strategic acumen with respect to such matters. Bowles had acquired a general reputation within the Kennedy administration and the State Department for gloomy, fatalistic analyses. ‘‘Chet was just telling me there are four revolutions [going on around the world] that we need to worry about,’’ Kennedy once humorously quipped after one encounter with Bowles (Reeves, 1993, p. 53). Moreover, as revealed in recently released oral history of this period, Bowles had also acquired a reputation for making arguments that were perceived as containing serious strategic flaws (R. F. Kennedy, 1988). As a consequence, Bowles had ‘‘slipped in the President’s esteem’’ (Higgins, 1987, p. 107). Indeed, he had become the sort of risk-averse, gloomy analyst who had simply cried wolf too many times. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Kennedy chose to discount Bowles’s advice in this particular instance. And, significantly, Kennedy was not alone in doing so. Dean Rusk and others also chose to give little credence to Bowles’s forebodings about the Bay of Pigs. In contrast, Kennedy and those around him had a great deal of confidence in Richard Bissell’s operational abilities and his strategic acumen regarding covert operations. By all accounts, Bissell was a brilliant and compelling speaker. He displayed a deft grasp of strategic issues and a confident command of operational details. Whenever doubts were expressed about the wisdom or feasibility of some aspect of the Bay of Pigs operation or the logic of its assumptions, Bissell was able to provide convincing and reassuring answers. His answers, moreover, seemed amply supported by the CIA’s seemingly objective and independent assessments (which we now know

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were intentionally disinformative; the CIA was determined to secure presidential commitment in the belief that once his feet were in the water, Kennedy would never pull them out). Even the military advisors in the room—whom Kennedy scrutinized for reactions of reservation or doubt—revealed little ambivalence or concern regarding the operation as it was articulated by Bissell. Of them, Kennedy later commented, and with some justifiable bitterness, ‘‘Those sons-ofbitches with all the fruit salad just sat there nodding, saying it would work’’ (Reeves, 1993, p. 103). This last point merits emphasis because Janis concluded that the deferential treatment accorded Bissell reflected a ‘‘taboo against antagonizing new members of the group’’ (Janis, 1972, p. 31). However, Kennedy accepted Bissell’s judgment not because there was some sort of irrational or inflated trust of the members of his inner circle. Rather, and more simply, Kennedy felt Bissell made the keenest and most compelling arguments regarding going forward rather than backing away from the proposed CIA operation. Along with Eisenhower’s strong urgings and support of the operation, Bissell’s leadership and assessment of his prospects were viewed as significant endorsements by the new President. In trying to further assess why President Kennedy proceeded with what seemed such an obviously flawed plan, Janis also afforded considerable attention to the role that overconfidence and unrealistic optimism played in the deliberation process. There was, as Janis aptly noted, some evidence of buoyant optimism in the early months of the Kennedy administration. However, much of the evidence Janis cites refers to a general mood in the White House about what might be accomplished in the four years that lay ahead. Significantly, the new evidence indicates that this uncritical or unrealistic optimism did not extend to Kennedy’s deliberations about the Bay of Pigs operation. Presidential insider and historian Arthur Schlesinger was particularly adamant about this distinction. In support of this point, the new evidence indicates that President Kennedy expressed significant reservations about the plan from the outset. As soon as the operation had been presented to him, he immediately appreciated the serious political risks it posed and discerned the need to ‘‘turn down the noise’’ level on it (Reeves, 1993, p. 70). By ‘‘noise level’’ Kennedy meant the magnitude of the proposed invasion and the fact that it would occur during the day. He thus countered Bissell’s ambitious proposed operation with a ‘‘scaled down’’ plan that included ‘‘no invasion, just infiltration’’ (p. 82, emphases added). He called for a change to a remote landing, and informed the CIA to make it a ‘‘quieter’’ landing, preferably even conducting the operation at night. He determined from the outset that there should be no U.S. military intervention. Additionally, he insisted on having a call-off option up until the last minute if he was not satisfied with


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the confluence of emerging factors. The CIA disapproved of these changes, but remained silent. Kennedy’s ongoing ruminations regarding the operation were not unrealistically optimistic nor was his acceptance of the parameters of the plan uncritical. Instead, he was, if anything, clearly dysphoric about the ‘‘hot potato’’ that Eisenhower had passed to him. Thus, when confronted with the question, ‘‘What do you think of this damned invasion idea?’’ he replied, ‘‘I think about it as little as possible’’ (Reeves, 1993, p. 76). Even up to the last minute, Kennedy expressed skepticism regarding important features of the plan (White, 1999). However, he also felt it was impossible to avoid proceeding with some version of the operation if he was to avert a potentially catastrophic political loss. Moreover, given the tightly compressed ‘‘window of opportunity’’ outlined by the CIA and Bissell, Kennedy felt there was little time for more leisurely reflection or equivocation. Higgins (1987) succinctly characterized his mood in the following terms, ‘‘Although profoundly doubtful about his first major presidential decision, two hours after Bissell’s official deadline for the final Go–No Go deadline, Kennedy, with a heavy heart, released the invading fleet approaching the Bay of Pigs’’ (p. 131). Janis suggests that Kennedy and his advisors suffered from unrealistic optimism and displayed symptoms of an ‘‘illusion of invulnerability’’ when deciding ultimately to proceed with the operation. However, new evidence indicates that Kennedy’s evaluation of the prospects for success of this operation was influenced not only by the deliberately misleading CIA intelligence assessments but also by the fact that the plan had been developed under the leadership of President Eisenhower. Dwight Eisenhower was, after all, the primary architect and organizational genius behind the largest, most complex, and most successful military invasion in U.S. history—the invasion of Europe that led to Hitler’s defeat. On first hearing the operational details of the proposed Cuban operation, Kennedy commented, somewhat sardonically, ‘‘Just like D-day.’’ It was almost inconceivable to Kennedy that a plan developed under Eisenhower ’s watchful eye—and that Eisenhower now seemed to endorse unconditionally during their two top secret briefings together—could be so inherently flawed. Kennedy’s assessment of the prospects for success of the scaled down infiltration that he envisioned and authorized reflected, moreover, a reasonable reading of the history of U.S. covert operations up until that point. It is noteworthy to remember that this was a history that Janis and the American public had no inkling of at the time the groupthink hypothesis was conceived. With respect to the military risks of failure, for example, there had been, up until this point, a series of historical top secret but successful covert operations of exactly this sort (see Reeves, 1993). The idea of the Cuban operation was therefore simply to duplicate the role the CIA had played in other

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successful covert overthrows (p. 70). CIA Director Dulles reassured the president that the Cuban operation was even more likely to succeed than these past operations. Second, with respect to the political risks associated with the invasion, U.S. presidents up until this time had been extraordinarily successful, especially given the number of risky covert operations around the world, at maintaining ‘‘plausible denial.’’ The pre-Watergate press was far more trusting of U.S. institutions and less aggressive at investigating presidential indiscretions. Viewed in aggregate, this new evidence suggests more clearly why President Kennedy felt ex ante that he had little reason to reflect upon the possibility of a catastrophic failure—either militarily or politically—of the sort that unfolded. New evidence reinforces the view that President Kennedy’s assessment of the merits of the CIA plan was dominated by political considerations. Kennedy was keenly cognizant, for instance, of the political implications of the operation’s success. He was especially appreciative of the political repercussions associated with its failure. As Reeves (1993) concluded in a recent assessment of all of the available evidence, Kennedy was ‘‘concerned about the politics of the invasion—he wanted the least possible political risks—even though that meant military risks would be greatest’’ (p. 134). In Kennedy’s eyes, the decision he faced was whether to continue with an ongoing covert operation that already enjoyed considerable institutional momentum—and that had been developed under Eisenhower’s leadership—or ‘‘turn it off,’’ thereby risking enormous scorn and imperiling an already fragile reputation. Kennedy’s tendency to construe this decision primarily in political terms, it is essential to note, was entirely consonant with all of the political instincts and judgments that had propelled him—against great odds—into the White House in the first place. Throughout his political career, Kennedy—despite his campaign rhetoric to the contrary—was a reluctant and circumspect cold warrior. He believed in cautious appraisal and conservative action. When it came to controversial or costly political issues, he avoided action whenever possible, or, if need be, selected the most moderate course available. Kennedy believed, as Schlesinger (1965) once noted [and aptly quoting one of Kennedy’s own conclusions from Profiles in Courage], that those who go down to defeat in vain defense of a principle ‘‘will not be on hand to fight for that or any other principle in the future’’ (p. 110). Throughout his campaign, Kennedy had self-consciously projected an identity as a cold warrior. He had also decried repeatedly the complacent and indecisive leadership of President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon whom, he asserted, had allowed a communist regime to fester unchallenged only 90 miles from American soil. In his inaugural address, moreover,


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Kennedy noted that he ‘‘welcomed’’ and ‘‘would not shrink’’ from his responsibility in dealing with the communist menace, a point he reiterated during press conferences and in other speeches. Kennedy was also fully aware of the fact that he was under scrutiny. Both the American public and the international community were still forming impressions of this young and inexperienced leader. Thus, although ‘‘Ike’s approval was not necessary,’’ Kennedy felt, ‘‘his disapproval would be devastating’’ (Reeves, 1993, p. 33). Kennedy knew that his international adversaries, as well as his domestic rivals, would use evidence of weakness or indecisiveness to potentially devastating effect. Thus, from Kennedy’s perspective, undoing the decision was much worse than letting it go forward in its scaled down form.2 In many ways, Kennedy’s advisors tended to evaluate both the Cuban operation, as well as the options they confronted, in similar terms. Janis identified a number of important aspects of the psychological ‘‘climate’’ within the advisory group meetings, which, he argued, contributed directly to its defective deliberations. He suggested, for example, that Kennedy’s advisors often suppressed personal doubts because of group pressures and group dynamics. In particular, he argued that group members were motivated to protect a valued but fragile esprit de corp. There is no doubt that some members of Kennedy’s group entertained reservations about the wisdom of going forward with the CIA operation. Nor is there any doubt that they sometimes elected not to fully express those concerns in the planning sessions. However, recent evidence suggests that political considerations, more than group dynamics per se, shaped the reticence of Kennedy’s advisors to reveal their thoughts. For example, McGeorge Bundy’s acquiescence to Kennedy’s decision did not reflect a suppression of personal doubt that was predicated on a lack of willingness to disrupt the group’s cohesiveness or esprit de corps, as Janis suggested. Rather, it was based on his perception that the ‘‘noise level’’ (i.e., scale and scope) of the covert operation had been reduced sufficiently to overcome his skepticism (Neustadt & May, 1986). Bundy, like Kennedy, was attuned primarily to the political risks public exposure of the covert operation posed. When reassured those risks were reasonably ‘‘contained,’’ he opted for going forward. Moreover, in a later and more general discussion of his philosophy about serving a president as an advisor, Bundy noted, regarding the suppression of doubt or ‘‘selfcensorship,’’ that he felt his role was that of a staff officer who knows the big decision is made and is working to help in its execution. Obviously I have had my own views on what ought to be done and how, but since on balance I am in favor of trying harder, not heading for the exit, I am ready to help the president do it his way. He’s the boss. (p. 123)

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Other accounts emphasize strenuously that Bundy was always ready to express and defend his doubts when he felt doing so was essential (Valenti, 1975). Similarly, although Secretary of State Dean Rusk indicated significant reservations about the operation after the fact, his decision not to voice them vociferously at the time did not reflect group dynamics so much as a carefully considered political calculus. As Frankel (1994) noted, Dean Rusk had developed a ‘‘formula’’ for political resilience in the competitive Washington bureaucracy, and that formula ‘‘was to endure and survive, to keep playing a mediocre hand rather than risk all for a better one, and to stand around for greater achievement another day.’’ From the vantage point of a purely political calculus, it should be emphasized, this formula served Rusk remarkably well: he enjoyed the reins of power as secretary of state longer than anyone ever had before him. Even advisor and historian Arthur Schlesinger noted that, although he felt badly ex post about having remained silent during the planning meetings, ‘‘my feelings of guilt were tempered by the knowledge that a course of objection would have accomplished little save to gain me a name as a nuisance’’ (Schlesinger, 1965, p. 144). Thus, participants’ self-censorship and suppression of personal doubts reflected a political motive more than a group-centered motive. When in doubt, each member of Kennedy’s inner circle decided to conserve political capital and not draw attention to himself, especially for a cause that was not really his turf. Each reasoned, why weaken political credibility on later, more personally relevant issues? As Thomson (1968) astutely observed about the utility of such a calculus in the White House (or other competitive political settings), ‘‘The inclination to remain silent or to acquiesce . . . to live to fight another day, to give on this issue so that you can be ‘effective’ on later issues—is overwhelming’’ in such situations (p. 49). In some respects, the very public exit of Chester Bowles—the most vocal public critic of the invasion plan—was ample validation for this point of view. Bowles was the one official ceremoniously ‘‘hung out to dry’’ by Kennedy when the house cleaning came. From the perspective of the pragmatic politician, a highly visible ‘‘profile in courage’’ (expressing one’s doubts and going against the grain) may be highly desirable from the standpoint of high quality decision making, but it may be fatal to one’s long-term political effectiveness and even survival. Having covered a fair bit of ground in reviewing Janis’s original arguments and the new evidence available to scholars that is pertinent to evaluating them, it may be useful here to attempt briefly to pull the strands of argument and evidence more tightly together. First, there is no doubt, as Janis aptly observed, that group deliberations played an important role in Kennedy’s


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decision making. However, it is also clear that Kennedy reached far and wide beyond any one seemingly isolated and insulated inner circle for advice. Instead, he drew on diverse networks and contacts that he had carefully cultivated during his rise to political power and that had served him well in the past. Second, it is clear that Kennedy trusted his advisors and relied on their assessments (although to varying degrees). Thus, his final decisions were influenced by the advice he received from them, as Janis argued. However, it is also clear that he deeply trusted his own political instincts and judgments, especially when it came to protecting his political power as president and his image in history. As Reedy (1970) concluded in a thoughtful assessment of presidential decision making, ‘‘The fact is that a president makes his decisions as he wishes to make them, under conditions he himself has established, and at times of his determination’’ (p. 31). Kennedy made his own decisions—and his decision to proceed with the Bay of Pigs was a considered, individual decision by a tough-minded political pragmatist who wished to avoid political loss. Although Kennedy made his own decisions after what he might have regarded as prudent and reasoned reflection, this is not to claim that his decision-making process was necessarily always systematic or coherent. As presidential scholar and Kennedy observer Burns (2006) aptly noted: Crisis followed crisis [in the Kennedy administration] . . . The main fault lay in Kennedy’s fluid, informal management style, which placed enormous burdens of coordination and follow-through on the president . . . He insisted that everything be brought to him. He was governing alone and he was overwhelmed by it. There was little chance for reflection, planning, or anticipation. (p. 50)

Thus, although it is true that Kennedy sometimes repudiated what from the outside might seem like expert advice (e.g., the advice of Chester Bowles), these tendencies did not reflect the operation of groupthink-like factors such as an illusion of vulnerability and unrealistic optimism. Rather, they reflected the same sort of cautious, risk-averse political appraisal of options available to him that had helped Kennedy reach the presidency in the first place. Thus, Kennedy did not ‘‘avoid’’ or ‘‘minimize’’ painful trade-offs, as Janis suggested, so much as opt for the less politically risky alternative. If anything, in fact, Kennedy ruminated intensely about his decisions. Relatedly, there seems pervasive evidence of an asymmetry in the salience of political gains and losses driving his judgment and choice. Specifically, in each case, the prospect of political losses often seemed to loom much larger than the prospect of potential gains from a given course of action. In some instances, this led decision makers to favor the status quo (e.g., Kennedy’s decision to continue with rather than ‘‘turn off’’ the Cuban operation). Thus, when in doubt,

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Kennedy almost always opted for the course of action that averted or minimized, to the greatest degree possible, the prospect of political losses. To a sometimes surprising extent, Kennedy tended to engage in ‘‘worse case’’ thinking about the political risks and losses associated with certain decisions like the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy might more aptly be considered a cautious warrior rather than a cold warrior. Along related lines, much of the new evidence points, rather consistently, to the conclusion that many of the individual members in Kennedy’s advisory group also operated out of a similar, pragmatic, political calculus—a calculus honed by years of experience in the political trenches. Thus, behaviors such as suppression of doubt and self-censorship reflected political considerations as much as they did concerns about disrupting the cohesiveness or esprit de corps of the groups they were in. Although interesting, this pattern is hardly surprising: Kennedy had been careful to select those individuals who had the pragmatic intellect and tough-minded optimism and confidence he felt they needed to be effective. In sum, the present chapter argues that Janis’s original analysis of the Bay of Pigs decisions tends to overstate the causal importance of small group dynamics, while underestimating the significance that political psychological factors played in the unfolding of these fiascoes.3 In asserting that the groupthink hypothesis fails to provide either a parsimonious or powerful theoretical account of this fiasco, I do not intend to cast aspersions on Janis’s observational skills. As Janis himself repeatedly noted throughout both editions of the groupthink work, the available historical records on the Bay of Pigs were frustratingly fragmentary and equivocal regarding many key points. As a consequence, he was required on many points to make inferential leaps of faith in building his brief for the groupthink hypothesis. And it should be remembered that it was Janis himself who encouraged future scholars to revisit the Bay of Pigs decision-making process as more evidence about it became available.

CONCLUSION If repudiating the groupthink hypothesis, we are left in this chapter with the nagging question, what, if anything, does the study of such fiascoes tell us? As Whyte (1989) succinctly put the matter, ‘‘The critical question from an analytic point of view [becomes] whether or not any pattern can be recognized from decisions of this sort, or are these simply difficult decisions that unfortunately went awry’’ (p. 40). To put this question in perspective, it is useful to remember that Janis characterized the Bay of Pigs invasion as ‘‘one of the worst fiascoes ever perpetrated by a responsible government’’ (p. 14). Scholars today continue to agree the decisions leading up to the invasion


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were deeply flawed. However, when viewed in aggregate, the new evidence suggests that the Bay of Pigs fiasco was, at best, an imperfect failure of choice among imperfect alternatives. Most importantly, it emerges as a far from perfect example of groupthink. It is perhaps better characterized, as a failure of judgment and decision that flowed from political rather than group folly. When viewed from that perspective, the contributions of the present research can be framed in terms of both the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. I begin with the theoretical. Broadly construed, the results of the present research provide additional support for a number of influential theoretical perspectives that have been brought to bear on risky decision making in organizations. At the time Janis conceived the groupthink hypothesis, it should be recalled, theory and research on organizational decision making were dominated largely by subjective utility theory. According to this perspective, organizational decision makers are motivated to maximize their prospective gains through their actions. More recent work on organizational decision making, however, has offered an alternative view of the political decision-making calculus, and one in which loss avoidance figures prominently in judgment and choice (e.g., Farnham, 1994; Kramer, 1989; Kramer, Meyerson, & Davis, 1990). Other studies (e.g., Stein & Pauly, 1993; Whyte, 1989) have buttressed the argument that decision makers are often motivated to minimize economic, social, and political losses in their actions. Particularly compelling work was done by Whyte (1989) with his thoughtful group polarization perspective. Whyte argued, consistent with prospect theory, ‘‘for each of the fiascoes discussed by Janis, the frame adopted by decision makers led them to perceive their decision as between a certain [i.e., sure] loss and potentially greater [but uncertain] losses’’ (p. 48). Much of the new evidence presented in this chapter supports Whyte’s argument. Such considerations engage, more generally, recent conceptions of rationality in organizational decision making. As Tetlock (1991) and March (1995) have noted, decisions in group and organizational settings are complex social events. As such, logics of appropriateness and concerns about accountability often influence decision makers’ concerns about what it means for a decision to be ‘‘good.’’ Decisions that seem poorly conceived when viewed through one theoretical lens may glisten when viewed from another. As Tetlock (1991) has crisply put it, ‘‘Response tendencies that look like judgmental flaws from one metaphorical perspective frequently look quite prudent from another’’ (p. 454). In other words, a decision that looks thoroughly irrational when viewed from the perspective of an ‘‘intuitive economist’’ might look quite reasonable when viewed from the perspective of the ‘‘intuitive politician. Thus, how attractive or unattractive a decision appears may vary with the analytic framing or conceptual categorization used by a decision maker

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when evaluating it. Along these lines, the analysis advanced in this chapter also resonates with recent perspectives on intelligent or adaptive decision making, in particular the work by Sternberg and his associates on the role practical intelligence plays in real-world problem solving (Sternberg, 1985; Sternberg, Wagner, Williams, and Hovarth, 1995; Wagner & Sternberg, 1986). Sternberg (1985) argues that intelligent behavior in real-world settings is often ‘‘directed toward purposive adaptation to . . . real-world environments relevant to one’s life’’ (p. 45). In developing this idea, Sternberg et al. (1995) draw an important distinction between formal, academic knowledge and tacit knowledge. As defined by them, tacit knowledge is ‘‘action-oriented knowledge . . . that allows individuals to achieve goals they personally value. The acquisition and use of such knowledge appears to be uniquely important to competent performance in real-world endeavors’’ (p. 916). President Kennedy was, at heart, a pragmatic intellect in exactly this vein. His political intelligence was shaped by years of a cautious climb through a series of risky encounters and highly competitive political contests. Along the way, he derived significant tacit knowledge that helped him navigate through and around the political crises he confronted. Almost everyone who knew Kennedy and worked with him was struck by the cautious approach he took to political risks: When in doubt, he tended to take the less risky road (see, e.g. Dallek, 2003; Reeves, 1993). In contrast with previous work on practical intelligence, which has largely extolled the virtues of practical intelligence; the present research suggests some ways in which such hard-won and often adaptive forms of tacit knowledge, acquired on the road to power, may impede sensemaking and effective action once power is achieved. Turning to the matter of practical implications, one might ask, ‘‘Does it really matter all that much which model or metaphor we use when viewing decision-making fiascoes of this sort?’’ To the extent such models and metaphors serve as templates that guide real-world policy makers as they wrestle with difficult and complex sensemaking predicaments of the sort Janis studied, the answer is yes. Janis himself remained optimistic about the utility of groupthink as a remedy for reducing avoidable decision error in organizations. His framework could, he suggested, provide a ‘‘new perspective for preventing Watergate-like fiascoes in government, private industry, and public welfare organizations’’ (1983, p. 204). But if, in fact, the theory is wrong, it may quite obviously lead policy makers to focus on irrelevant factors and even stimulate wrongheaded interventions or solutions. In this sense, when the status of a conceptual model is elevated to metaphor, it can obscure important relationships and hinder understanding as much as illuminate it. Along these lines, Hart (1990) lamented the tendency to use the concept of groupthink, ‘‘loosely and indiscriminately as a symbolically powerful pejorative label . . . a kind of analytical garbage can for commentators and analysts


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in need of a powerful metaphor’’ when trying to explain ill-fated institutional or organizational actions (p. ix). Even to this day, groupthink remains among the most influential metaphors for understanding major policy fiascoes. As Tetlock (1995) aptly noted, ‘‘Janis’ case studies represent the most sustained effort to apply work on group dynamics to elite political settings’’ (p. 46). The evidence assembled here suggests there is value in revisiting such theories and the qualitative evidence in their favor, lest we (paraphrasing George Eliot) get our thoughts hopelessly ‘‘entangled in metaphors,’’ and ‘‘act fatally on the strength of them’’ (quoted in Hardin, 1980, p. 261).

NOTES The initial development of these ideas was stimulated by a series of animated discussions with the late Irving Janis, while he and I were members of a small research group that met at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (see Kahn & Zald, 1990, for the final report of our efforts). I owe a special thanks to Irv for his encouragement and enthusiasm in pursuing these ideas. I also owe a special debt to Robert McNamara, Carl Kaysen, Alain Entoven, the late Jack Valenti, the late McGeorge Bundy, the late John Gardner, and the late Richard Neustadt for their generosity and willingness to discuss their recollections of the Kennedy and Johnson Vietnam decisions with me. I appreciate the support of the John F. Kennedy School of Government and in particular its Center for Public Leadership, while I was researching this paper during visits in 2001 and 2006. Finally, the librarians at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library were extremely helpful in locating pertinent documents for this research. 1. A preliminary analysis of the Bay of Pigs decision-making process was reported earlier in Kramer (1998). However, the completeness and validity of that analysis was limited by the unavailability of several key reports, including the critical CIA study and an independent study commissioned by the Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (the so-called Taylor Study). Those documents have now been declassified and their major findings incorporated into this chapter. 2. Such political calculations undoubtedly influenced Kennedy’s assessment of the so-called ‘‘disposal problem’’ (i.e., what to do with the fully trained guerrillas if they were not used). Janis viewed Kennedy’s assessment of this issue as a major example of defective appraisal. The disposal problem, however, had a number of significant political ramifications in Kennedy’s calculus. Once it became public knowledge that the young president had failed to carry through on an invasion plan designed by the master of invasion plans—four star General Eisenhower—he appeared weak and inexperienced, just as Nixon had repeatedly asserted during the presidential campaign. 3. In fairness to him, Janis (1983) was very mindful of the role that political factors played in the Bay of Pigs (see, e.g., his discussion of the four-factor model, pp. 30– 32). However, from the standpoint of the newly available evidence, the political factors he considered were too narrow and afforded too little weight.

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REFERENCES Allison, G., & Zelikow, P. (1999). Essence of decision (2nd ed.). New York: AddisonWesley. Burke, J. P., & Greenstein, F. I. (1989). How presidents test reality: Decisions on Vietnam, 1954 and 1965. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Burns, J. M. (2006). Running alone: Presidential leadership from JFK to Bush II (Why it has failed and how we can fix it). New York: Basic Books. Cronin, T. E., & Greenberg, S. D. (1969). The presidential advisory system. New York: Harper & Row. Dallek, R. (2003). An unfinished life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. New York: Little, Brown. Farnham, B. (1994). Avoiding losses/take risks: Prospect theory and international conflict. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Frankel, M. (1994, December 22). ‘‘Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, is dead at 85.’’ Obituary, New York Times, pp. A1 and A16. Fursenko, A., & Naftali, T. (1997). One hell of a gamble: The secret history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964. New York: Norton. George, A. (1980). Presidential decision-making in foreign policy: The effective use of information and advice. Boulder, CO: Westview. Hackman, R. (2003). Leading teams. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Hardin, G. (1980). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 43, 257–264. Hart, P. ’t (1990). Groupthink in government: A study of small groups and policy failure. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Higgins, T. (1987). The perfect failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIA at the Bay of Pigs. New York: Norton. Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of groupthink. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Janis, I. L. (1983). Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes (2nd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Kahn, R. L., & Zald, M. (1990). Organizations and nation-states. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Kennedy, R. F. (1988). In his own words: The unpublished recollections of the Kennedy years. New York: Bantam Press. Kornbluh, P. (1998). Bay of Pigs declassified: The secret CIA report on the invasion of Cuba. New York: The New Press. Kramer, R. M. (1989). Windows of vulnerability or cognitive illusions? Cognitive processes and the nuclear arms race. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 79–100. Kramer, R. M., Meyerson, D., & Davis, G. (1990). How much is enough? Psychological components of ‘‘guns versus butter’’ decisions in a security dilemma. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 984–993. March, J. G. (1995). A primer on decision making. New York: Free Press. Moorehead, G. (1991). Group decision fiascoes continue: Space shuttle Challenger and a revised groupthink framework. Human Relations, 44, 539–550. Naftali, T. (2001). The presidential recordings of JFK. New York: Norton.


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Neck, C. P. (1992). Jury deliberations in the trial of U.S. v. John DeLorean: A case analysis of groupthink avoidance and an enhanced framework. Human Relations, 45, 1077–1091. Neustadt, R. E., & May, E. R. (1986). Thinking in time: The uses of history for decision makers. New York: Free Press. Raven, B. H. (1974). The Nixon group. Journal of Social Issues, 30, 297–320. Reedy, G. E. (1970). The twilight of the presidency: An examination of power and isolation in the White House. New York: World. Reeves, R. (1993). President Kennedy: Profile of power. New York: Simon & Schuster. Schlesinger, A. M., Jr. (1965). A thousand days. New York: Fawcett. Schlesinger, A. M., Jr. (2007). Journals: 1952–2000. New York: Penguin. Stein, J. G., & Pauly, L. W. (1993). Choosing to cooperate: How states avoid loss. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Sternberg, R. J. (1985). Beyond IQ: A triarchic theory intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sternberg, R. J., Wagner, R. K., Williams, W. M., & Horvath, J. A. (1995). Testing common sense. American Psychologist, 50, 912–927. Strober, G. S., & Strober, D. H. (1993). Let us begin anew: An oral history of the Kennedy administration. New York: Harper. Tetlock, P. E. (1991). An alternative metaphor in the study of judgment and choice: People as politicians. Theory and Psychology, 1, 451–475. Tetlock, P. E. (1995). Social psychology and world politics. In D. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 868–912). New York: McGraw-Hill. Thomson, J. C. (1968, April). How could Vietnam happen? An autopsy. Atlantic Monthly, 221, 47–53. Turner, M. E., Pratkanis, A. R., Probasco, P., & Leve, C. (1992). Threat, cohesion, and group effectiveness: Testing a social identity maintenance perspective on groupthink. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 781–796. Turner, M. E., Pratkanis, A. R., & Struckman, C. K. (2007). Groupthink as social identity maintenance. In A. R. Pratkanis (Ed.), The science of social influence (pp. 223–246). New York: Psychology Press. Valenti, J. (1975). A very human president. New York: Norton. Wagner, R. K., & Sternberg, R. J. (1986). Tacit knowledge and intelligence in the everyday world. In R. J. Sternberg & R. K. Wagner (Eds.), Practical intelligence: Nature and origins of competence in the everyday world. New York: Cambridge University Press. White, M. J. (1999). The Kennedys and Cuba: The declassified documentary history. New York: Ivan Dee. Whyte, G. (1989). Groupthink reconsidered. Academy of Management Review, 14, 40–56.

15 Self-Regulation and Leadership: Implications for Leader Performance and Leader Development SUSAN ELAINE MURPHY, REBECCA J. REICHARD, AND STEFANIE K. JOHNSON

Leader behavior is a social influence process and, as such, requires an understanding of social factors that affect perceptions. Social cognitive theory has been used in the past to describe followers’ perceptions of leader behavior, effectiveness, and prototypicality. However, much less research has examined how social cognitive views of leader self-perception impact leader behavior. This chapter explores the continued and potential contribution of theories of self-regulation for leadership performance and development. Social psychological principles explaining both the structure and function of the self have vast implications for leadership; therefore, we overview theorizing incorporating ideas of the self, including leader self-schema and identity, as well as components of self-regulation such as self-efficacy and self-awareness within current theories of leadership. Goal-driven, self-motivated, accomplishment-oriented, self-disciplined are common words used to describe successful individuals, and especially individuals who rise to positions of organizational and political leadership. Underlying these concepts is the belief that the key to success lies in one’s own hands. Although popular writing underscoring preferred leadership skills and abilities identifies both the self-regulation of goal-directed behaviors and

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emotions as important components of success, little research has investigated the role of self-regulation in leadership theory (Boyatzis, Goleman, & McKee, 2002). Self-determination and self-management are major topics explained by a social psychological self-regulative view of motivation and have important implications for the study of leadership. This chapter examines specific components of self-regulation that play a role in effective leadership, including leadership self-efficacy, leader self-schema, and the role of self-awareness. We discuss the effects of these constructs on both leader performance and leader development within a model of self-regulation of leadership. Social cognitive theory focuses on how people perceive both others and themselves in social situations (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Given that leadership is a social activity that includes both leaders and followers, perceptual processes are important. In leadership and management, social cognitive theory has been used to understand followers’ perceptions of leader behavior, including the affective and cognitive processing strategies used in the social perception of leaders (Lord & Emrich, 2001). Specifically, leaders whose behavior and attitudes match leadership prototypes are perceived more positively than leaders whose behavior and attitudes do not (Lord & Maher, 1993). Hogg’s (2001) recent work on the Social Identity Theory of Leadership (SITL) supports the idea that the group is more likely to perceive a prototypic leader as an effective leader, and finds that group members will endorse leaders who behave in a prototypical manner (see also Hogg, Chapter 4 in this volume). A recent study has used SITL to investigate a specific leadership theory, that of charismatic leadership, showing that one becomes a charismatic leader when the group agrees that he or she, in fact, looks like a charismatic leader (Platow, D. van Knippenberg, Haslam, B. van Knippenberg, & Spears, 2006). Somewhat neglected in this social cognitive ‘‘revolution’’ of leadership research has been the role of social cognitive factors from the leader’s perspective. In other words, what effects do leaders’ perceptions of their own behavior have in leadership situations? How do social cognitive factors affect how leaders think about themselves and how they engage in behaviors to enact the leadership role? Two broad areas of study with respect to the self provide some answers to these questions and have important implications for leader behavior (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). The first refers to the structure of the self and includes a person’s personality attributes, social roles, past experiences, and future goals. Cantor and Kihlstrom (1987) argue that the mental representation of the self consists of a hierarchy of context-specific selfconcepts with each representing one’s beliefs about oneself in a different set of situations. This specific structure of the self is often called a person’s selfschema or the ‘‘cognitive-affective structure that represents a person’s experience in a given domain’’ (Fiske & Taylor, 1991, p. 182). Knowledge about the

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self can develop through socialization, reflected appraisals through others’ views of us, explicit feedback from others, and from a process of social comparison (Taylor, Peplau, & Sears, 2006). The second broad area of study in relation to the self is how the self enacts behavior, revises behavior, and alters the environment through selfregulation (Markus & Wurf, 1987). Self-regulation recognizes that individuals have self-control over their actions by setting internal standards and also by evaluating the discrepancy between the standard and personal performance (Carver & Scheier, 1998). Individuals control their actions through goal setting, cognitive strategies of planning or rehearsing, and monitoring goal attainment. In the next section we overview the effects of the structure of the self on leadership performance.

STRUCTURE OF THE SELF: DEVELOPING PERCEPTIONS OF SELF-SCHEMA AND LEADER IDENTITY A small number of leadership researchers have utilized theories of the self for understanding leader behavior, although little empirical work has been done in this area. An early theoretical contribution came from Gardner and Avolio’s (1998) dramaturgical view of charismatic leadership in which they outlined the role of the self system (specifically, leader identity, or selfschema for leadership) for a leader’s ability to manage followers’ impressions and to demonstrate particular leader behaviors. In addition to a thorough review of the self literature as applied to leadership, Gardner and Avolio suggested ideas for future research. For example, they propose that leaders’ perceptions of situations and audiences are directly affected by their leader identity. That is, those who strongly identify themselves as leaders would readily pick out followers in a group or others who need their leadership guidance. Another important contribution in this area came from a review of cognitive psychology’s contribution to leadership research by Lord and Emrich (2001) who proposed that these same structures of leader identity were important, but went further to suggest that how one thinks about himself or herself as leader, or metacognitive processes, affect changes in leader behavior. As an example of these metacognitive processes, Wofford, Joplin, and Comforth (1996) showed that a leader ’s script for leadership changed depending upon situational demands. Furthermore, leaders who regularly interact with group members must behave in connection with some predetermined self script or schema that is part of their working self-concept (Wofford & Goodwin, 1994). A study by Wofford, Goodwin, and Whittington (1998), in fact, showed that a leader’s behavior is dictated by leader self-schema; specifically, leaders with a transformational leader self-schema were seen as


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more transformational by their subordinates than those whose leadership schema did not match the features of transformational leadership. Murphy and Ensher (in press) found some support for this idea in a qualitative investigation that showed specific types of leadership schema as articulated in leader interviews were important for charismatic leader behavior. Recent theorizing on the self has also been incorporated into models of authentic leadership (Chan, Hannah, & Gardner, 2005; Gardner, Avolio, Luthans, May, & Walumbwa, 2005). According to authentic leadership theory as developed by Luthans and Avolio (2003), authentic leaders display transparency, openness, and trust, provide guidance toward worthy objectives, and take an active role in follower development. In fact, to be an effective leader, authentic leadership researchers argue that one must be genuine with respect to his or her identity through self-awareness and self-acceptance. Therefore, within authentic leadership theories issues of the self become very important for effective leadership. In understanding the application of leader self-schema or identity to our understanding of leadership effectiveness, researchers must also consider the complex nature of these constructs. Leader schemata or leader identity are most likely multifaceted, exist at multiple levels, and change over time as leaders engage in leadership developmental experiences that build leadership skills as well as the ability to view the complexity of leadership challenges. Building on work by Brewer and Gardner (1996), Lord and Brown (2004) identified three levels within leader identity that are important to leader behavior. These are individual level, relational identity, and collective leader identities. To some extent these are also considered developmental levels as Lord and Hall (2005) assert that the individual level, where one is emphasizing ‘‘their uniqueness and differentiation of the self from others,’’ is usually held by novice leaders. As one becomes more comfortable in the relationship, leader identity is expected to take on a more relational emphasis that is manifested in specific roles or relationships, where, as Lord and Hall put it, ‘‘the leader include[s] others in the definition of one’s own selfidentity.’’ Finally, as leaders develop and become responsible for larger groups or causes, a collective identity will develop, as well as the qualities that are prototypical of these collectives. In other words, collective identity is characterized by a leader who adopts and manifests the agreed upon behaviors of the group. The ideas surrounding self-construal, especially independent versus interdependent self, may also affect leader identity and behavior (D. van Knippenberg, B. van Knippenberg, De Cramer, & Hogg, 2004). For example, it may be that leaders with extreme independent self-construals will find it difficult to connect with followers along either relational or collective identities because of their overwhelming motivation to see followers and leaders

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as being independent (Sedikides & Brewer, 2001). It may be that in addition to a changing schema surrounding how a leader might behave in general, there may also be a deeper schemata surrounding how relationships work that is important to leadership effectiveness. Leaders who think of themselves as more intertwined with the fate of their group members (interdependent selfconstrual) may be more effective at leading teams.

FUNCTION OF THE SELF: SELF-REGULATION AND LEADER PERFORMANCE In his social cognitive theory, Albert Bandura (1997) portrayed a triadic model of reciprocal causation by stating that (1) the person, (2) the environment, and (3) past behavior have reciprocal impacts on one another. Selfregulation is one of the five human capabilities outlined in social cognitive theory (symbolizing, forethought, observational, self-regulatory, and selfreflective) that affect individuals’ behavior by enabling them ‘‘to exercise some control over their thoughts, feelings, motivation, and actions’’ (Bandura, 1991, p. 249). According to Bandura, the process of self-regulation begins with the level of self-awareness in which individuals observe their thoughts and behaviors (Bandura, 1986). Next, they make judgments of their capabilities within a domain—or estimates of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is defined by Bandura (1986) as ‘‘judgments of capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances’’ (p. 391; Bandura, 1991). High self-efficacy has been shown to lead to increased performance in a wide range of situations (Bandura, 1997). Differences in levels of self-efficacy also explain individual reactions to discrepancies between personal standards and attainments. For those individuals low in self-efficacy, failure to attain a personal standard is discouraging, whereas for those individuals high in self-efficacy, it is motivating (Bandura & Cervone, 1983; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). Finally, they engage in the thoughts, affect, motivation, and action. Murphy (2002) introduced a model of self-regulation for leaders based on ideas of the self, especially focused on the role that leadership self-efficacy would play in leader performance when leaders were faced with situational challenges that produced stress. The model, adapted from Markus, Cross, and Wurf (1990) begins with the structure of the self with respect to the domain of leadership. The structure requires that a leader holds a prototype of the role of leaders in general and second, must hold a self-schema with respect to his or her own required behavior in that role. Those who either choose or find themselves in a leadership role must understand role requirements and make an assessment of their current complement of skills to fulfill that role. With respect to the leadership domain, the leader must make


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self-efficacy assessments of his or her capabilities to fulfill the leadership role under various conditions or situations (Murphy, 1992). Leadership self-efficacy has been shown to be related to leader effectiveness and group effectiveness. For example, Murphy and Ensher (1999) found that female supervisors with higher self-efficacy were rated as more effective than those with low self-efficacy, whereas self-efficacy made no difference for male supervisors. Hoyt, Murphy, Halverson, and Watson (2003) showed that leadership self-efficacy increased collective self-efficacy of followers. Therefore, not only did self-efficacy work to increase the leader’s effectiveness, it in turn increased the self-efficacy of followers. In these studies, leadership selfefficacy was centered around the task of small group leadership. Paglis and Green (2002) found that leadership self-efficacy, specific to leading change, predicted leader effectiveness. Recently, Foti and Hauenstein (2007) found that even general self-efficacy was predictive of leader emergence and ratings of leader effectiveness. In addition to the key role of self-efficacy in understanding leadership effectiveness, another important component is found in the work on self-management. Techniques including self goal-setting, rehearsal, selfobservation, and self-reward and self-punishment have been shown to be effective ways to change workplace behavior (Manz, 1986). For example, self-management strategies have been shown to reduce absenteeism (Frayne & Latham, 1987; Latham & Frayne, 1989); increase sales performance (Frayne & Geringer, 2000); and improve newcomers’ organization socialization (Saks & Ashforth, 1996). As the leader moves to organize behavior and plan actions, issues of self-management become even more important. Selfmanagement has been show to be an effective tool for understanding leadership effectiveness (Manz & Sims, 1989), improving joint venture general manager performance (Frayne & Geringer, 1994) and enhancing team effectiveness (Cohen, Chang & Ledford, 1997; Uhl-Bien & Graen, 1998). Given the consistent effects of self-management techniques for employees in general, the application to leadership provides an important addition to current theorizing.

THE SELF AND MOTIVATION TO DEVELOP LEADERSHIP While the concepts of self and self-regulation are important for leadership performance, they each also have implications for leadership development. Because the responsibility of leadership development has largely shifted from the organization to the individual, leader self-development is becoming a key strategy for leader development (Reichard & Murphy, 2008). Based on social cognitive theory, Reichard (2006) defined leader self-development as any self-initiated and/or self-structured developmental activity of a leader

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focused on expanding his or her leadership. Leader self-development covers a broad range of behaviors and thoughts and can be differentiated from other types of leader development. Specifically, as contrasted to formal training, leader self-development offers a continuous, flexible strategy to develop leaders in today’s complex organizational environment. Given the high levels of self-initiation and self-control needed to engage in leader self-development, self-regulation plays a central role in this process as well. An important precursor to engaging in leader self-development behaviors is the level of motivation to develop possessed by the individual. Maurer and Lippstreu (2005) asserted that participation in leader development activities, such as leadership training, is predicted by one’s motivation to develop leadership, which is different from motivation to lead. These authors stated that motivation to develop leadership capability is defined as ‘‘the desire to develop or improve leadership skills and attributes through effort’’ (Maurer, Weiss, & Barbeite, 2003). Motivation is needed to drive a leader to improve. A leader with high motivation to develop expends large amounts of energy on development and persists in the face of failure. As a key predictor of the success of leader self-development, the intensity and direction of a leader ’s motivation to develop may be the result of two interrelated yet distinct self-processes: selfdiscrepancy and leader identity. First, motivation to develop can be described in terms of self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987). According to self-discrepancy theory, there are three domains of the self: actual, hoped for, and feared. While the actual self refers to one’s representation of the attributes believed to be actually possessed, the hoped-for possible self is one’s representation of the attributes one would ideally like to possess and the feared possible self represents what the leader wishes to avoid becoming (Markus & Nurius, 1986a). These latter two possible selves allow leaders to be ‘‘active producers’’ of their own development by trying out different ‘‘provisional selves’’ (Markus & Nurius, 1986b; Ibarra, 1999). By contrasting the hoped for or feared leader self to the actual leader self, salience is placed on the discrepancy resulting in motivation for improvement (Cross & Markus, 1991). Therefore, the salience of the discrepancy between actual and possible leader selves may be one explanation for the intensity of one’s motivation to develop leadership. Specifically, the actual-to-possible self-discrepancy may impact a leader’s motivation to develop through the desire to reduce tension caused by the discrepancy. When the gap between one’s actual leadership ability and one’s possible leadership ability becomes salient, tension results. Related to cognitive dissonance theory, the size of the discrepancy impacts the amount of tension felt (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). The tension provides a basis for energy, direction, and persistence—that is, motivation to develop (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Therefore, tension created from the increased salience of the


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actual-to-possible self-discrepancy will motivate the leader to develop in order to reduce the tension or uneasiness. It is in this way that enhanced self-awareness serves as a tool for evaluation of current leadership skills and abilities and a springboard for development (Hall, 2004). Second, the intensity and direction of motivation to develop leadership may be a result of the strength of one’s leader identity. As Lord and Hall note: Identity is a central focus because it (a) provides an important structure around which relevant knowledge can be organized; (b) is a source of motivational and directional forces that determine the extent to which the leader voluntarily puts himself or herself in developmental situations; and (c) may provide access to personal material (i.e., stories, core values, etc.) that can be used to understand and motivate subordinates. (p. 592)

Reichard found that leader identity strength, defined as the number of leader behaviors that the leader endorsed as characteristic of him or her self, was positively and significantly correlated with motivation to develop leadership (Reichard, 2006). Those who see leadership as central to their identity were better versed in the various behaviors involved in leadership than individuals who thought only a handful of behaviors were descriptive of their leadership. Therefore, as an alternative to focusing on a self-discrepancy as a key motivational factor behind self-development, future researchers may want to focus on building individuals’ positive identity as a leader, which includes a range of behaviors both positive and negative. Building a strong leader identity may include such things as opportunities to experience more and difficult leadership challenges, enhancement of leader self-efficacy through success, verbal persuasion, and observation of similar role models, and an increase in knowledge about various leadership styles. Although an individual identifies as a leader, the likelihood that he or she actually engages in leader self-development may be dependent on efficacy beliefs, both in terms of developmental efficacy and means efficacy. While one’s belief in his/her ability to develop leadership skills is an internal efficacy belief (Maurer, Weiss, & Barbeite, 2003), means efficacy, an external efficacy belief, refers to one’s belief in the tools available to perform a task (Eden & GranatFlomin, 2000). The level of developmental efficacy may be influenced by one’s beliefs regarding the stability of leadership ability. High developmental efficacy requires that the individual holds the assumption that leaders are made rather than born, also referred to as an incremental theory of ability. Developmental efficacy may also increase through successful attempts at development or observation of such in similar others. Similarly required for effective leader self-development, individuals with high means efficacy are confident that the tools and resources to which they have access will work effectively in improving their leadership. In fact, Reichard demonstrated that means efficacy was a

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significant moderator of the relationship between the quality of leader selfdevelopmental goals and intentions to self-develop (Reichard, 2006). Taken together, important ‘‘self’’ variables for leader development, especially selfdevelopment, include leader identity, self-discrepancy, motivation to develop leadership, and both developmental and means efficacy.

SELF-AWARENESS IN LEADERSHIP PERFORMANCE AND DEVELOPMENT A final important aspect in issues of self and self-regulation as applied to leadership is self-awareness. Within leadership and managerial performance and development, many employees receive formalized feedback from multiple sources. How they use this feedback, however, varies. Some may disregard it, while others use the information to further develop their skills. According to Gardner et al. (2005) feedback makes one aware of both one’s strengths and weaknesses, along the many facets of leader identity, which could include one’s unique values, identity, emotions, goals, knowledge, talents, and/or capabilities. Wicklund’s (1975) theory of self-awareness suggests that self-aware persons attend more to others’ perceptions of them and, therefore, can utilize this information to appropriately change their behavior. More recently, selfawareness has been conceptualized as the similarity or difference between the way one sees oneself and the way he or she is seen by others (Atwater, Roush, & Fischthal, 1995; Atwater & Yammarino, 1992). The information used to assess self-awareness often stems from the 360-degree evaluation process, in which leaders rate themselves on a variety of dimensions and receive ratings from peers, subordinates, and supervisors. Estimates suggest that 12–29 percent of organizations use 360-degree feedback based on the assumption that providing leaders with feedback on how others view them will facilitate the improvement of their performance (Church, 2000). The research on self-awareness has offered insights into the relationship between self-awareness and other individual differences, leadership performance, and the use of feedback. In terms of self-awareness and individual differences, more self-aware individuals also tend to be higher in intelligence, achievement status, and internal locus of control (Mabe & West, 1982). Researchers Atwater and Yammarino (1992) also suggest that self-ratings provide some insight into raters’ traits or dispositions, such as self-esteem or self-consciousness. However, self-ratings are not generally seen as accurate predictors of performance and often suffer from a leniency bias (Harris & Schaubroeck, 1988; Hough, Keyes, & Dunnette, 1983; Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). But, when coupled with information from others’ ratings, they can provide information about the raters and their leadership performance.


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Self-aware individuals also report greater levels of trust than others, while individuals who underestimate their abilities tend to elicit lower levels of trust (Sosik, 2001). Further, self-aware leaders (those whose self-ratings are in agreement with others) tend to receive higher leadership ratings than others, followed by underraters (those who rate themselves lower than others rate them) and overraters (those who rate themselves higher than others rate them) who receive the lowest ratings (Atwater, Roush, & Fischthal, 1995; Atwater & Yammarino, 1992). Sosik also found that self-aware individuals display greater levels of charismatic leadership that relate positively to ratings of managerial performance by superiors (Sosik, 2001). In addition, Ostroff, Atwater, and Feinberg (2004) found that self-aware individuals earned more money than less self-aware individuals. In terms of using feedback, Atwater and Yammarino (1992) suggest that self-aware individuals are better able to incorporate others’ assessments into their self-perception and, therefore, are better able to adjust their behavior and improve their shortcomings. Conversely, overraters and underraters may avoid seeking feedback and, therefore, are less able to make selfimprovements. Further, overraters’ confidence causes them to ignore feedback from others and makes them unlikely to set self-improvement goals (Fedor, Rensvold, & Adams, 1992). In one study, Johnson and Ferstl (1999) examined the effects of receiving subordinate feedback on managers’ selfassessment and performance over a year-long period. They found that overraters decreased their self-ratings after receiving 360-degree feedback, whereas their subordinates’ ratings increased. Underraters tended to have higher self-ratings but lower subordinate ratings after receiving feedback. Finally, self-aware individuals decreased their self-ratings over time, although their subordinate ratings increased. Self-awareness, then, is another important concept surrounding the self with social cognition that has implications for both leadership behavior and leadership development. Because, as we noted earlier, leaders and managers receive feedback on their leadership behavior, how they choose to use that information in behavior change or as an impetus for development is important. Coupled with a leader’s level of self-efficacy, and perhaps strength of leadership identity, feedback and increasing self-awareness become important tools for improving behavior.

IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND LEADERSHIP In this chapter we sought to explore the importance of self-regulation for leadership performance and leadership development. We overviewed ideas of the self including leader identity and self-schema, which are important

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components of leadership, but have been somewhat overlooked in many theories of leadership. We also briefly overviewed ideas of self-regulation including the role of leadership self-efficacy and self-regulation techniques for increasing leadership performance and provided specific examples of these concepts as applied to leader self-development. This chapter, however, has merely scratched the surface of the possible contribution of social psychology with respect to social cognitive theories of leadership from the leader’s perspective. We are encouraged that researchers are beginning to incorporate these ideas into their leadership research, but there is still more that could be done. As we noted earlier in the chapter, Gardner and Avolio presented a comprehensive list of research studies that would explore many of the ideas they proposed in their dramaturgical model of charismatic leader behavior. Their research suggestions are not limited to charismatic leadership theory, but also have implications for further research in transformational leadership theory as well as other popular theories such as leader member exchange. For example, it is easy to imagine the difficulty in developing high quality leader member exchanges characterized by fairness, similarity in values, or employee development when the leader has no leader self-schema around those concepts but instead considers leadership as a tool exclusively for personal gain. The contribution of the self especially in understanding leadership behavior underscores the importance of appropriately matching leader self-schema and the leadership culture required within an organization. Within this chapter we did not, however, address issues of self-presentation or impression management, but we recognize the large role they play in all social interactions, and possibly to an even larger extent in leadership situations. A final area for continued research is on the development of leadership identity and schema. Understanding initial leadership identity development and how identity progresses from an individual, relational, and collective level has implications for improving leadership effectiveness and leadership development. There are a few existing roadblocks to full utilization of social psychology in current leadership theorizing. First, it remains difficult to generalize the results of the type of laboratory research that needs to be done to ‘‘real’’ organizational leaders. However, continued programs of research such as that done by Wofford and colleagues that move from laboratory to field studies will make worthwhile contributions. Second, vast research literatures in leadership may be unintentionally ignored by social psychologists when conducting leadership research, and similarly, leadership researchers fail to consider applicable social psychological research. Researchers are making inroads in addressing this problem, and this volume represents an important step. And finally, theoretical offerings as applied to particular leadership


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theories sometimes fail to integrate understanding of self-concepts and selfregulation because the ideas were introduced within a particular leadership theory and it is not always clear how the concepts might apply to other theories. One exception to this trend comes from Lord and his colleagues, who provide theoretical explanations within cognitive and social cognitive theory that transcends specific leadership theories. Comprehensive modeling of leadership self-regulation across leadership theories could make an invaluable contribution to the field.

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Ostroff, C., Atwater, L. E., Feinberg, B. J. (2004). Understanding self-other agreement: A look at rater and rate characteristics, context, and outcomes. Personnel Psychology, 57, 333–375. Paglis, L. L, & Green, S. G. (2002). Leadership self-efficacy and managers’ motivation for leading change. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23, 215–235. Platow, M. J., van Knippenberg, D., Haslam, S. A., van Knippenberg, B., & Spears, R. (2006). A special gift we bestow on you for being representative of us: Considering leader charisma from a self-categorization perspective. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45(2), 303–320. Podsakoff, P., & Organ, D. (1986). Self-reports in organizational research: Problems & prospects. Journal of Management, 12, 531–544. Reichard, R. J. (2006). Leader self-development intervention study: The impact of selfdiscrepancy and feedback. Unpublished doctoral dissertation: University of Nebraska. Reichard, R. J., & Murphy, S. E. (2008). Leader self-development as organization strategy. Manuscript submitted for publication. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68–78. Saks, A. M., & Ashforth, B. E. (1996). Proactive socialization and behavioral selfmanagement. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 301–323. Sedikides, C., & Brewer, M. B. (2001). Individual self, relational self, collective self. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press. Sosik, J. J. (2001). Self-other agreement on charismatic leadership: Relationships with work attitudes and managerial performance. Group & Organization Management, 26, 484–511. Stajkovic, A. D., & Luthans, F. (1998). Self-efficacy and work-related performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 240–261. Taylor, S. E., Peplau, L. A., & Sears, D. O. (2006). Social psychology (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Uhl-Bien, M., & Graen, G. B. (1998). Individual self-management: Analysis of professionals’ self managing activities in functional and cross-functional work teams. Academy of Management Journal, 41(3), 340–350. van Knippenberg, D., van Knippenberg, B., De Cramer, D., & Hogg, M. (2004). Leader, self, and identity: A review and research agenda. Leadership Quarterly, 15, 825–856. Wicklund, R. (1975). Objective self-awareness. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 8, pp. 233–275). New York: Academic Press. Wofford, J. C., & Goodwin, V. L. (1994). A cognitive interpretation of transactional and transformational leadership theories. Leadership Quarterly, 5, 161–186. Wofford, J. C., Goodwin, V. L., & Whittington, J. L. (1998). A field study of a cognitive approach to understanding transformational and transactional leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 9, 55–84. Wofford, J. C., Joplin, J. R. W., & Comforth, B. (1996). Use of simultaneous verbal protocols in analysis of group leaders’ cognitions. Psychological Reports, 79, 847–858.

PART IV

INTERACTIONS BETWEEN LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS


16 Evolution and the Social Psychology of Leadership: The Mismatch Hypothesis MARK VAN VUGT, DOMINIC D. P. JOHNSON, ROBERT B. KAISER, AND RICK O’GORMAN

An evolutionary perspective on leadership assumes that leadership consists of a constellation of adaptations for solving different coordination problems in human ancestral environments, most notably pertaining to group movement, social cohesion, and intergroup relations. Our evolved leadership psychology influences the way we think about and respond to modern leadership, which creates the potential for a mismatch between leadership requirements in modern versus ancestral environments. This chapter provides some evidence for this mismatch hypothesis and notes some implications for leadership theory and practice. When Tony Blair stepped down as prime minister of Britain in 2007 after a decade in office, most British voters were glad to see him go. Despite his numerous contributions to reforms of the health care system, education, civil law, and government, he will be remembered mostly for his decision to send British troops into Iraq. Matters of life and death ultimately determine the historical judgment of leadership. In times of crises we turn to leaders to give us comfort, hope, and a sense of direction—and if they fail, they must go. Leadership failure is common in modern society. Scholars estimate a 60 to 75 percent failure rate in business and political leadership with sometimes dire consequences for the welfare of followers (Hogan, Curphy, & Hogan, 1994). Why does modern leadership fail so often and sometimes so

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spectacularly? There are many possible answers but we focus on one here. Perhaps the failure of modern leadership is a consequence of it sometimes being at odds with aspects of our evolved leadership psychology (Van Vugt, Hogan, & Kaiser, in press). It is argued that we have a ‘‘natural way’’ of thinking about and responding to leadership that has been shaped by several millions of years of human evolution. But because modern human environments are so dramatically and suddenly different from ancestral environments in which leadership and followership evolved, this creates the potential for a mismatch. As a result, the way leaders and followers interact in modern societies might not always produce adaptive outcomes. This mismatch hypothesis can explain many counterintuitive findings in leadership research with various implications for leadership theory and practice.

EVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Evolutionary social psychology has its roots in social psychology, evolutionary psychology, and evolutionary biology (Schaller, Simpson, & Kenrick, 2006). Evolutionary social psychology (ESP) is based on the Darwinian assumption that human psychology is the product of evolution through natural selection in the same way that natural selection has shaped human physiology. Because the environment in which humans evolved was primarily social—humans are first and foremost a group-living species (Dunbar, 2004)—ESP proposes that the human mind is essentially social, comprising many functional psychological adaptations specifically designed to solve particular adaptive problems of ancestral group life. Examples of such adaptations include parental care, language, social cooperation, and social intelligence (Buss, 2005; Van Vugt & Schaller, in press). Individuals possessing these traits would have been better equipped to extract valuable resources from group life needed for their survival and reproduction. This then enabled these traits to spread through the population and reach fixation. Here we entertain the possibility that leadership and followership have evolved as adaptive solutions to a range of group problems.

EVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS OF LEADERSHIP The human species is estimated be 2 to 2.5 million years old. For most of this period, humans probably lived in small kin-based bands in savannahtype environments (Dunbar, 2004; Johnson & Earle, 2000). These familylevel groups were connected to others, forming clans and tribes that came together at seasonal gatherings to exchange mates, goods, and information (Richerson & Boyd, 2006). For ancestral humans, group life was the best

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survival strategy in a hostile environment in which predation by animals as well as aggression by other human groups was high and resources scarce (Alexander, 1987; Foley, 1997). Collective action in the form of hunting, sharing food, and defending the group may have provided a buffer against these threats and created a niche for leadership to organize group activities (Van Vugt, 2006). For instance, in planning a group hunt people must decide who will join the hunting party, where they will go, when they go, and when they return. Such decisions create coordination problems that can be better solved if an individual initiates and coordinates the group’s decision-making process. In recent papers (Van Vugt, 2006; Van Vugt, Hogan, & Kaiser, in press) we have identified three ancestral coordination problems for which leadership would have been critical—group movement (e.g., hunting), group cohesion (e.g., promoting cooperation, managing conflict), and intergroup politics (e.g., warfare, peacemaking). There is some suggestion that leadership predates humans. The phylogenetic evidence suggests that preadaptions for leadership and followership— such as the waggle dance in honey bees and flying formations in migrating bird species (Van Vugt, 2006)—are found in quite primitive social species. These examples suggest that species lacking complex cognitive capacities can display followership using a decision rule as simple as ‘‘follow the one who moves first.’’ Leadership is also observed in our closest genetic relative, the chimpanzee, with whom we shared a common ancestor approximately 5–7 million years ago. Chimpanzees live in fission-fusion societies of about 30–50 individuals in a large territory. They frequently form coalitions with each other for activities such as hunting and foraging, internal politics, and protecting territory boundaries. Leadership is prominently displayed in these situations by usually the most dominant troop member, the alpha male (Boehm, 1999; De Waal, 1996).

Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness The social complexity of leadership most likely increased with the arrival of early humans some 2 million years ago. This period marks the beginning of the Pleistocene period, which ended as recently as 13,000 years ago with the agricultural revolution. This period is sometimes referred to as the environment of evolutionary adaptedness or EEA for humans (Foley, 1997; Van Vugt, Hogan, & Kaiser, in press).1 Modern hunter-gatherer societies such as the !Kung San of the Kalahari desert, the Shoshone of the American Great Basin, the Yanomamo¨ of the Amazon river basin, the Inuit of the Arctic coasts, and the Aborigines in Northern Australia may provide the best model we

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have for human social organization in this stage (Boehm, 1999; Chagnon, 1997; Johnson & Earle, 2000). Extrapolating from this evidence, conditions in the EEA were largely egalitarian and there was no formal leadership structure. There were so-called ‘‘Big Men,’’ often the best hunters or warriors in the band, who could exercise disproportionate influence on group decision making within and sometimes even outside their domain of expertise, but their power was severely curtailed (Diamond, 1997; Johnson & Earle, 2000). Attempts by Big Men to dominate group discussion—dominance is a legacy of our primate past—were met with fierce resistance from the rest of the group. Anthropologists talk about a reversal of the dominance hierarchy to indicate that, unlike in nonhuman primates, subdominants can band together and limit a leader’s power through various strategies—so-called ‘‘leveling mechanisms’’ (Boehm, 1999; Bowles, 2006). For instance, to keep overbearing leaders in place, they use instruments such as gossip, ridicule, criticism, ostracism, and the threat of punishment and sometimes even assassination (Boehm, 1999). Across evolutionary time these leveling mechanisms may have paved the way for a more democratic, participatory group decision-making process in which dominance hierarchies were replaced by a more consensual leader-follower decision structure (Van Vugt, Hogan, & Kaiser, in press).

THE MISMATCH HYPOTHESIS We believe that the EEA reflects our natural way of thinking about and responding to leadership and that there are substantial implications for modern leadership theory and practice. If humans are mostly adapted to Pleistocene environments, this means that some aspects of our evolved leadership and followership psychology may not be very well adjusted to modern environments. Remember that human psychological mechanisms evolved because they produced reproductive and survival benefits in ancestral environments. Because genetic evolution tends to be a slow cumulative process, such mechanisms might not produce adaptive behaviors in modern environments, particularly if these environments differ in important ways. This logic applies particularly to human activities because our social and physical environments have changed dramatically in the past 13,000 years or so since the agricultural revolution (Diamond, 1997). The discrepancy between modern and ancestral environments potentially creates a mismatch between aspects of our evolved psychology and the challenges of modern society. This may have substantial implications for a range of social traits such as leadership. Mismatch theory is an evolutionarily informed concept. It applies to all organisms possessing traits (including behavioral, cognitive, and biological) that have been passed down through


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generations favored by natural selection because of their adaptive advantages in a given environment. Yet the evolutionary environment may be quite unlike the current environment. Therefore, traits that were adaptive in ancestral times are often no longer adaptive in the new environment. As Pinker writes, ‘‘our ordeals come from a mismatch between the sources of our passions in evolutionary history and the goals we set for ourselves today’’ (2002, p. 219). We illustrate this mismatch hypothesis with two examples from human psychology that can be interpreted as supportive evidence. One classic example is the fear of snakes and spiders, which were common threats for humans in ancestral environments. But in modern societies like the United States they kill less than 20 individuals per year, most of whom are owners of dangerous snakes and spiders. In contrast, car accidents kill about 40,000 to 50,000 people a year (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2005). Yet decades of research has shown that fear of snakes and spiders is more readily learned than fear of more lethal, recent dangers such as cars, guns, or electrical appliances (Ohman & Mineka, 2001). Another example of a potential mismatch is our trust in strangers (Burnham & Johnson, 2005; Hagen & Hammerstein, 2006). Lab research shows that people readily cooperate with anonymous strangers in one-shot prisoner dilemma games (De Cremer & Van Vugt, 2002). This defies fundamental assumptions of economic and evolutionary theory—people are expected to maximize their personal payoffs in anonymous exchanges because their altruism could be exploited. However, single encounters with strangers were presumably very rare for ancestral humans. They probably mostly interacted with family members and therefore did not evolve the cognitive machinery to deal with novel situations like interacting with strangers. Our research shows that people are more likely to trust strangers if they look familiar—for instance, if they share the same facial features, speak the same language, or wear the same clothes (Park, Schaller, & Van Vugt, in press). Thus behaviors that were adaptive in ancestral environments—sharing resources with people who looked and behaved like you—may have potentially maladaptive consequences in present society.

CONTEMPORARY EVIDENCE FOR ANCESTRAL LEADERSHIP PSYCHOLOGY Our leadership psychology evolved over several million years during which time people lived in small, kin-based egalitarian bands where leadership was informal, consensual, and situational. Since the agricultural period there has been a steady increase in the size and complexity of societies. Simple band structures have been replaced by complex social structures of

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chiefdoms, states, nations, and empires in which thousands or even millions of people must live and work peacefully together. Such problems, brand new on an evolutionary time scale, create new leadership challenges to which our evolved leadership psychology may not be well adjusted (Van Vugt, Hogan, & Kaiser, in press). Next we review evidence for the influence of our ancestral past in the way we evaluate and respond to modern leadership challenges. To the extent that these challenges are novel in an evolutionary sense, there exists the potential of a mismatch with negative implications for leadership practice and group welfare.

Prototypical Band Leadership Since humans evolved in small scale societies without any formal leadership structure and almost equal power relations between (adult male) group members, it should in theory be reflected in the way modern humans evaluate leadership. In particular, there should be universal agreement on what followers regard as positive leadership qualities. These qualities should then closely match the prototype of band leadership. The GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) research project data are useful to test this hypothesis (http://www.thunderbird.edu/wwwfiles/ms/ globe/). In a study of leadership in 61 cultures GLOBE researchers found that leaders, across many cultures, were described in certain terms, many of which were positive. Examples of terms people used are integrity—good leaders can be trusted; fairness—good leaders are just and equitable; diplomatic—good leaders handle conflict well; decisiveness—good leaders make sound and timely decisions; intelligence and competence—good leaders contribute to the group’s performance; and, finally, vision—good leaders can describe a desirable future (Den Hartog, House, Hanges, Ruiz-Quintanilla, & Dorfman, 1999; see also Epitropaki & Martin, 2004; Hogan & Kaiser, 2005; Lord & Maher, 1993). These leader prototypes closely match the perception of respected Big Men in traditional band societies (Boehm, 1999; Johnson & Earle, 2000; Sahlins, 1963).

Dominance Is the Antithesis of Leadership An important aspect of band leadership is that, except in special circumstances, one band member cannot tell others to do something they do not want to do. Members of hunter-gatherer societies are fiercely autonomous. It is not uncommon for them to ignore or disobey a person who assumes too much power and authority. Anthropologists report that the rank and file sometimes simply ignore chiefs who issue commands as opposed to making


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suggestions (Freeman, 1970). If a chief becomes too bossy, group members sometimes literally ‘‘vote with their feet’’ and leave the overbearing individual behind (Moore, 1972). Echoing our ancestral past there should be a general aversion against bossy, self-centered leaders in modern environments. Again, the GLOBE project data are useful here. Tyranny, dominance, and selfishness are universally regarded as negative leader attributes (Den Hartog et al., 1999; Epitropaki & Martin, 2004; Hogan & Kaiser, 2005). But why do such leaders emerge in modern organizations? One explanation derived from the mismatch hypothesis is that, unlike in traditional Big Men societies, in modern organizations leaders often do not emerge from the bottom up but are imposed on a group by people higher up the hierarchy. Top-down selection may produce leaders who have other types of qualities and, therefore, we sometimes find examples of leaders and managers who are the antithesis of good leadership (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005). Indeed, hiring decisions for executive leaders are more likely to be successful if subordinates of the position are given an active role in the hiring process (Sessa, Kaiser, Taylor, & Campbell, 1998). Herein lies an important lesson for leadership practice.

Leadership Is Prestige-Based In hunter-gatherer societies, the person who gets to lead is determined by his ability to help the group move toward specific goals. For instance, the best hunter exercises more influence on hunting decisions and the best warrior exercises more influence on warfare decisions. Positions of power and influence are often attained through leading by example, putting the concept of leadership firmly within the domain of prestige (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001). This prestige theory suggests that leaders are innovators who allow other individuals—followers—to learn from them and, in return, they earn prestige, which is paid out in greater reproductive opportunities. The prestige dimension of leadership is echoed in modern life with effects that are sometimes beneficial, sometimes detrimental. In the world of business, politics, and warfare, individuals who have shown great expertise within that domain are more likely to be endorsed as leaders. Low task ability often automatically disqualifies people from certain leadership positions (Palmer, 1962). In modern complex environments the emphasis on task skills may backfire, however, because leadership roles are arguably more varied and complex, involving such diverse activities as coaching, communicating, motivating, problem solving, planning, making decisions, acting as a figurehead, and so forth. Thus, there is the potential for a mismatch when an individual has gained status by demonstrating skill in one domain but upon

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promotion to a leadership position must be skilled in a number of other, possibly unrelated, domains (cf. Berger’s expectation-states theory, 1977). Good examples of prestige-based leadership can be found in sports and politics. In team sports like football (soccer) the best players earn a lot of prestige, giving them an edge in the competition for management jobs when they retire from active play. However, there is little or no evidence to suggest that good players actually make good managers. Quite the contrary, in fact. Some of the best managers in English football—Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, Sven-Goran Eriksson at Manchester City —were mediocre players themselves and began their management careers at an early age. Similarly, in ancestral warfare good warriors often made good commanders by leading from the front in battles and raids. Today, however, good soldiers often falter once elevated to the entangling webs of Washington politics (Wrangham, 1999).

Leadership in Intergroup Relations In traditional societies an important function of leadership is to manage relationships with neighboring groups. Forming alliances with other bands and clans is essential for exchanging resources and defending territories against mutual enemies. Raiding and warfare were indeed common threats in ancestral environments, leading to the extinction of many bands and societies (Keeley, 1996; Van Vugt, De Cremer, & Janssen, 2007). In traditional societies that frequently experience intergroup conflict (e.g., Yanomamo¨ in the Amazon Basin) there is evidence of a more authoritarian leadership structure with Big Men roles often being occupied by fierce warriors (Chagnon, 1997). Intergroup conflict requires a highly coordinated group. Some degree of coercion might be necessary to maintain group unity, which paves the way for a more aggressive leader (Van Vugt, 2007). The tribal function of ancestral leadership still plays a role in modern society with sometimes devastating consequences because the scale of warfare has grown dramatically. There is good evidence for changing leadership perceptions during intergroup conflict (Hogg, 2001). During intergroup threats groups prefer ingroup over outgroup leaders—even when it is clear to all that the latter are more competent (De Cremer & Van Vugt, 2002). Leaders have been known to strengthen their power base by starting a conflict with another group (Rabbie & Bekkers, 1978). Intergroup threats increase the support for prototypical leaders who share the norms and values of the ingroup (Hogg, 2001). And when reminded of their mortality, people are more likely to endorse a charismatic leader (Cohen, Solomon, Maxfield, Pyszcynski, & Greenberg, 2004). In analyzing the U.S. presidential elections McCann (1992) discovered that at times of crises voters were more supportive of a hawkish


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president. Finally, the well-known rally phenomenon describes how a leader’s approval rating can spike dramatically when a nation is under attack, as with Franklin D. Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor and George W. Bush after 9/11 (Johnson & Tierney, 2006). Although it could have been adaptive in small scale ancestral societies to endorse a more aggressive leader during times of war, this may not be the case anymore because the costs of modern warfare are so much greater—even for the winning side. Hawkish leaders can increase the probability of war without increasing the probability of reaping any benefits (Johnson, 2004). Also, remember that ancestral leadership was essentially situational, and once the threat had gone, a person lost his influence. However, in modern environments leadership positions are often formalized, and once the threat is gone, societies may be stuck with these leaders for a long time. Many figures from Stalin to Musharraf in Pakistan offer examples of military leaders who refused to shed their power once they attained it.

Separating the Person from the Role of Leader Another example of a potential mismatch is that modern humans may have difficulties separating the role of the leader from the person occupying the role. Extrapolating from the hunter-gatherer evidence, there were no formally recognized leadership roles in ancestral times, and there was little distinction between private and public life. In fact, a person’s personality and his personal norms, values, and ambitions were critical in determining whether he should get the chance to lead the group because this was the only information available. In modern society we may be consciously aware that, for instance, middle-level managers have only limited influence because they are simply following the orders of senior management. Because our psychological machinery is not very well adapted to these complex multilayered group hierarchies, we nevertheless tend to make trait inferences whenever we see leaders or managers act in certain ways. This distortion is akin to the fundamental attribution error (Tetlock, 1985), which might be another product of our ancestral past in which group environments were arguably less complex. Clearly such attribution errors can undermine group objectives when leaders are held responsible for successes or failures that were beyond their control (cf. Hackman & Wageman, 2007).

Odd Correlates of Leadership The mismatch hypothesis might also explain why leadership correlates consistently with seemingly irrelevant factors such as age, height, weight, and health. Traditional leadership theories have some difficulty explaining

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these correlations and tend to see them as spurious (Bass, 1990). An evolutionary perspective might provide answers. In ancestral environments making a bad leader choice was potentially so costly that any significant beneficial personal trait would be taken into consideration in following a particular individual. The possession of some piece of specialized knowledge would have been extremely useful, like knowing about a long-forgotten water hole in case of a drought (Boehm, 1999). This knowledge was more likely to be held by older, more experienced individuals, so age was associated with prestige and leadership.2 In modern society, the relation between age and leadership is still observed in professions that require a considerable amount of specialized knowledge such as science, technology, and arts (Bass, 1990). For leadership activities requiring physical strength and stamina, like a group hunt or warfare, our ancestors would presumably pay attention to indices of physical fitness, and someone’s height, weight, energy, and health might have been important markers. However, this might cause a potential mismatch in modern leadership environments. Although the physical aspects of modern-day leadership may seem relatively less important to the task at hand, it still matters a great deal in terms of the perception of leadership. For instance, men who are more physically fit and taller have an edge in leadership elections although there is little evidence that these traits are beneficial for the kind of jobs they are supposed to do (Ilies, Gerhardt, & Le, 2004; Judge & Cable, 2004). The health status of leadership candidates also plays an important role in their election— for example, for presidential elections in the United States—and that is perhaps why negative health information is very likely to be suppressed (cf. Simonton, 1994).

Gender and Leadership Our ancestral leadership psychology might also explain why male leadership is still the norm in modern societies, essentially for two reasons. In hunter-gatherer societies, leadership often included a physical component, for example, leading group hunts, organizing raids, and breaking up group fights. In light of the obvious physical differences between men and women, the chances for men to emerge as leaders in these situations would have been considerably higher. In addition, the different reproductive interests of men and women would favor male leadership emergence. In ancestral environments men’s social status was probably a good predictor of their reproductive success. Evidence from band societies, like the Yanomamo¨, indicates a link between male social status and number of wives and offspring (Chagnon, 1997). One way to enhance social status is to earn prestige in a valued domain, for example, through taking on a leadership role.


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The evolved differences in status sensitivity between men and women might contribute to an even greater male bias in leadership emergence in modern environments. In modern societies the payoffs for leaders are often so much higher than for followers that men will go to extreme lengths to attain such positions (e.g., in modern American corporations, average salaries for CEOs are almost 200 times the average pay for workers). It remains to be seen how adaptive this male leadership bias is in the modern world since interpersonal skills and network building are emphasized as primary leadership functions (Eagly & Carli, 2003). There is some evidence that females have better empathy and communication skills (Van Vugt, 2006) and are more likely to adopt a democratic leadership style (Eagly & Johnson, 1990). However, the male leadership bias may be difficult to overcome if one assumes that it is part of an evolved leadership psychology. Research indicates that when women and men work together on group tasks men are quicker to assume leadership roles—even if the women are better qualified for the job (Mezulis, Abramson, Hyde, & Hankin, 2004). Regardless of talent, men are also more likely to assume leadership roles when being observed by women, perhaps because women prefer status in potential mates (Campbell, Simpson, Stewart, & Manning, 2002). Finally, women are sometimes penalized for excelling at stereotypically masculine tasks, and leadership might be an example of a masculine task (Eagly & Karau, 2002; Heilmann, 2001).

Importance of Charisma A final example of a potential mismatch is the role of charisma in modern leadership. Research on traditional societies suggests that Big Men are often extremely charismatic (Johnson & Earle, 2000; Nicholson, 2005). Being intimate, inspiring, persuasive, and visionary would have been important attributes of aspiring leaders in small face-to-face groups. In large modern organizations it is extremely hard to achieve the same levels of intimacy between leaders and followers. Yet even in large bureaucratic organizations we still demand from our leaders that they adopt a personalized style of leadership (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985). The media obviously plays a large role in reducing the distance between leaders and followers in modern society. This, however, creates opportunities for charismatic leaders to exploit followers’ susceptibility to their influence to sometimes devastating effects (e.g., Adolf Hitler).

CONCLUSION Our main argument is that modern leadership is influenced by key aspects of our evolved leadership psychology, which has been shaped by millions of

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years of human evolution. Because society today is much larger and socially more complex, there is the potential for a mismatch between our innate leadership psychology that was shaped in small scale societies and modern leadership requirements. However much we may employ our intellect, our cognition remains constrained by ancestral adaptations for conducting, perceiving, and responding to leadership and followership. We reviewed several lines of leadership research that offer support for the ancestral leadership hypothesis. A broader aim of this chapter is to start a constructive dialogue between social psychologists and other behavioral scientists studying leadership who have hardly influenced each other. Evolutionists theorize about the origins of leadership based on the principle of natural selection but have not collected much data to support their claims. In contrast, social psychology has gathered a wealth of reliable empirical nuggets about leadership, but this has not produced many overarching conceptual frameworks that can make sense of the richness of data (Van Vugt, 2006). In our view, evolutionary theory provides an excellent integrative framework that can explain the diversity of empirical findings and generate many novel testable hypotheses about leadership. Any proximate psychological theory of leadership must ultimately turn to evolutionary theory to explain its own assumptions (e.g., why people have selfish or tribal motives, or where leader prototypes come from). A more specific contribution of our work is to show that our evolved leadership psychology is still influencing modern leadership today. We have identified several areas where there is some evidence for a mismatch between ancestral and modern leadership requirements such as in the influence of charisma and the relation between leadership emergence with age, height, and gender. We are not in support of the idea that leadership and followership adaptations are somehow set in stone. Evolution has afforded humans a great deal of flexibility to adapt successfully to novel environments—such as through culture, social learning, and general intelligence—and this is why humans can function in environments that seem so radically different from our Pleistocene past. This should be reflected in the diversity of leadership and followership styles that emerge in response to local environmental and cultural factors (Van Vugt, Hogan, & Kaiser, in press). More research on the evolution of leadership is obviously needed. It would be interesting to see, for example, if leadership systematically varies with the ancestral group problems that we have identified (e.g., group movements, group cohesion, and intergroup relations). We suspect that leadership and followership should emerge more quickly in these evolutionarily relevant situations. Also, we believe that perceptions of leadership will vary with the nature of these threats. For instance, a preliminary experimental study by


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one of us revealed that the presence of an intergroup conflict automatically activates a male leadership prototype but that an intragroup conflict activates a female leadership prototype (Van Vugt & Spisak, in press). From an applied perspective we believe that organizations will fare better if they take into account our evolved leadership psychology and find ways to work either with or around its limitations. For instance, the knowledge that men are more likely to compete for leadership positions when the status benefits are high suggests that a reduction in the rewards might encourage more women to assume leadership roles. Finally, some modern organizations, such as GoreTex, Virgin Group, and ABB, are already discovering the utility of an evolutionary approach by mimicking aspects of traditional band leadership. They delegate substantial responsibility to managers far down the chain of command so that the actual unit size that is being managed does not exceed about 150 people—precisely the size of a typical hunter-gatherer band.

NOTES 1. The term environment of evolutionary adaptedness refers to the environment to which a particular evolved mechanism is adapted. Evolutionary psychology proposes that the majority of human psychological mechanisms are adapted to reproductive problems frequently encountered in Pleistocene environments in which humans spent 95 percent of their history. These problems include those of mating, parenting, social coordination, and cooperation. 2. Group movement in nomadic species like baboons and elephants is indeed often decided by the older troop members.

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17 Harnessing Power to Capture Leadership ADAM D. GALINSKY, JENNIFER JORDAN, AND NIRO SIVANATHAN

Napoleon once said, when asked to explain the lack of great statesmen in the world, that ‘‘to get power you need to display absolute pettiness; to exercise power you need to show true greatness.’’ Such pettiness and such greatness are rarely found in one person. —From The Contender motion picture (Lurie, 2001) This chapter examines the relationship between the related yet distinct constructs of power and leadership. Although power (asymmetric control over valued resources) is often a foundation of leadership (influencing and motivating a group of individuals toward achieving a common goal), we consider power to be neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the emergence of leadership. We distinguish power from leadership along a number of dimensions and highlight that the relationship between power and leadership lies in power’s psychological effects. A number of the psychological properties of power—action, optimism, abstract thinking—can be seen as part and parcel of effective leadership. Other psychological consequences of power—diminished perspectivetaking, risk-taking, overconfidence, and the tendency to objectify others by perceiving them through a lens of self-interest—are often associated with malfeasance and are the antithesis of leadership. Our model of power and leadership contends that an effective leader is one who is able to harness the positive psychological effects of power while mitigating the negative ones. Thus, the best leaders are action-oriented, optimistic

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perspective takers who see the big picture. We discuss how the springboard of power combined with perspective taking can be a particularly constructive force that allows for the emergence of effective leadership. The world has long been populated by powerful people striving to satisfy their personal predilections, but leaders are an altogether rarer species. Despite their intimate relationship, power and leadership are not synonymous: the mere possession of power does not qualify one as a leader and one can lead others without possessing power. The aim of this chapter is threefold. First, we define and distinguish between the constructs of power and leadership. We then summarize research documenting the psychological effects, both positive and negative, of power on cognition and behavior. Finally, we develop a model proposing that effective leadership requires harnessing the positive psychological consequences of power while mitigating its insidious and destructive psychological effects.

DISTINGUISHING POWER FROM LEADERSHIP Leadership is a subject that has long captured the interest of researchers and practitioners. In conducting a search of the psychological literature, we found that more than 16,000 articles have been published on the topic of leadership since 1990. Although this sustained interest has led to a plethora of research, agreement on how to define and operationalize leadership remains elusive. This problem was best captured by Stogdill (1974) who commented that ‘‘there are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept’’ (p. 259). Despite the lack of consensus on how to define leadership, we define it as influencing, motivating, and enabling a group of individuals to contribute to the success of a common goal or shared purpose (House et al., 1999; see also Hemphill & Coons, 1957; Rauch & Behling, 1984). According to our definition, leadership is a social phenomenon—one that requires the presence of others; a leader must have members to influence, motivate, and mobilize. Many definitions of power involve control over resources, and we define power as the control over important or valued resources—our own and others’ (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003; Lammers & Galinsky, in press; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). From this perspective, dependence is the inverse of power; the powerless are dependent on the powerful to achieve their desired outcomes. For example, subordinates must obtain approval from their bosses to embark on new initiatives and children must obtain permission from parents before they can partake in desired activities. In contrast, those who possess power depend less on the resources of others and are therefore more easily able to satisfy their own needs and desires. From this control over valued resources, power affords the capacity to influence others despite

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resistance (French & Raven, 1959; Weber, 1947) and, it could also be said, that power provides the capacity to be uninfluenced by others (Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, Whitson, & Liljenquist, in press). Without power—when one’s outcomes are determined by others—one is constrained. But with power, one is relatively free of such constraint. The asymmetric interdependence of power makes it an inherently social phenomenon. Power and leadership share two common threads. First, both constructs involve influence. A leader is, by definition, someone who influences others; influence also often emerges from control over valued resources. Second, both constructs involve a focus on goals. A leader motivates a group of individuals toward a shared objective, and numerous research findings demonstrate that power increases a focus on goals and facilitates goal-directed behavior (Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003; Guinote, 2007a; Smith, Jostmann, Galinsky, & van Dijk, 2008). But power and leadership are not synonymous, and they diverge on a number of important dimensions. First, power’s influence is derived from the ability to provide or withhold resources or administer punishments (Keltner et al., 2003). In contrast, the influence of leadership emerges not from the lure of incentives but by inspiring through rhetoric and being the exemplar of desired behavior (Avolio & Bass, 1988). Likewise, although the concept of a powerless leader may seem anomalous, one can motivate others toward a shared goal in the absence of control over resources or the ability to administer rewards or punishments. For example, Nelson Mandela galvanized his fellow citizens to take up the fight against South African apartheid despite a 27-year imprisonment, and Rosa Parks inspired a nationwide fight for civil rights despite having neither tangible rewards to dispense nor the threat of punishments to wield. Second, power and leadership often differ on the ultimate purpose or goal of wielding one’s influence. Power’s influence is often directed toward satisfying personal desires (Keltner et al., 2003; Kipnis, 1976). In contrast, leaders exert influence to help the group reach a shared goal. Thus, power is often egocentric, exercised in the service of the self, whereas leadership is directed toward elevating the common good for all its members. As a result, a power holder will often examine subordinates’ assets and skills through a lens of self-interest—to discern how those strengths might be harnessed to serve his or her personal objectives. For example, a powerful male looking for female companionship may choose to have attractive female subordinates work on a task with him even if their talents are not well suited for the specific task. In contrast, a leader will seek to capitalize on subordinates’ assets and skills to meet a shared objective and not for the purpose of satisfying personal desires. Within the corporate setting, such shared goals can include launching a new product or entering a new market, and within the political

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realm, these goals can include altering oppressive practices or producing a comprehensive immigration or health-care policy. Third, partially as a result of these disparate goals (personal versus collective), subordinates are subjected to markedly different experiences as the targets of influence by leaders and the powerful. Since power involves rewards and punishments as vehicles of influence, members are likely to view their own behavior as externally demanded and therefore the product of extrinsic motivation. As a consequence, once the powerful’s punishments or rewards are no longer present, the ability to influence will diminish and the previous displays of motivation will evaporate. In contrast, a leader moves members toward a goal through intrinsic motivation, transforming individuals through choice and commitment. Fourth, leadership connotes status and respect, whereas such privileges do not necessarily accompany the possession of power. By virtue of a leader’s ability to harness members’ intrinsic motivation to reach a shared goal, a leader earns deference and esteem. The use of power, in contrast, does not guarantee positive impressions from subordinates or observers. These distinctions between power and leadership, based in findings from empirical research, are consistent with seminal theories on what attributes define a leader. For example, Burns (1978) distinguishes between leaders and what he refers to as ‘‘power wielders.’’ In contrast to those who ‘‘mobilize . . . resources so as to arouse, engage, and satisfy the motives of followers’’ (p. 18), mere power wielders prioritize their own motives, regardless of whether those motives are shared by the individuals they seek to influence. Similarly, Bass and Avolio (1994) define transformational leaders as those who consider followers’ needs before their own, motivate rather than coerce, and arouse interest in a shared goal. In this section, we distinguished power from leadership on a number of dimensions, from types of goals (personal versus collective) to the type of motivation they inspire (extrinsic versus intrinsic). In the next section, we explore how power transforms individuals’ psychological processes and alters their psychological landscape. We contend that power relates to leadership through its ability to alter an individual’s cognition and behavior. Whether power leads to the emergence of leadership depends on whether the positive psychological effects of power engulf the more deleterious effects.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSTRUCT OF POWER Power has often been considered a foundational force that governs social relationships. Because power is so critical, it not only regulates social interactions but it also alters individual psychological states. Kipnis (1976) was one


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of the first empirical social psychologists to argue that possessing power has metamorphic consequences, and a review of the power literature by Keltner and colleagues (2003) provided ample evidence to support the idea that individuals are transformed by the experience of power. Indeed, a number of researchers have argued that because of its transformative properties, power and its effects come to reside psychologically within individuals (e.g., Bargh, Raymond, Pryor, & Strack, 1995; Chen, Lee-Chai, & Bargh, 2001; Galinsky et al., 2003; Magee, Galinsky, & Gruenfeld, 2007). An important implication of this conceptualization of power is that its effects can persist beyond the context where power was initially experienced (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006; Chen et al., 2001; Galinsky et al., 2003; Gruenfeld, Inesi, Magee, & Galinsky, 2008; Guinote, 2007a; Smith & Trope, 2006). As a result, being given control over resources (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002; Galinsky et al., 2003) or even being asked to recall a time when one had power over others (Anderson & Galinksy, 2006; Galinsky et al., 2003, in press) are all sufficient to trigger power’s psychological and behavioral effects. Our model of power is influenced by the power-approach theory (Keltner et al., 2003), which has inspired a deluge of research on how power transforms and directs individuals’ psychological states. According to this theory (Keltner et al., 2003), possessing power affects the relative activation of two complementary neurobiological forces—the behavioral approach and inhibition systems—that combine to drive behavior and cognition. Power triggers behavioral approach, which is posited to regulate behavior associated with rewards. In contrast, powerlessness activates the behavioral inhibition system, which has been equated to an alarm system that triggers avoidance and response inhibition. As a result of the relative activation of these two systems, power has a number of predictable effects on cognition and behavior. In understanding how power relates to leadership, we argue that the foundation of this relationship lies in power’s psychological effects. Our model asserts that how individuals conceive or construct their ability to control important outcomes has meaningful implications for their ability to effectively lead others. What matters most are the psychological effects of power, which often constitute the proximate and driving force on the behavior of potential leaders. A number of these psychological effects of power can be seen as part and parcel of effective leadership. Other psychological manifestations of power are associated with malfeasance and are the antithesis of leadership. Thus, we contend that an effective leader is one who is able to harness the positive effects of power while mitigating the negative effects. In the next two sections, we highlight how power alters the psychological state of

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individuals, beginning with the positive effects and concluding with the negative effects.

THE POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF POWER Power Increases Action One of the most robust effects of possessing and experiencing power is that it directly translates into action. For example, Galinsky et al. (2003) found that participants who had high power in an organizational task (i.e., were managers) were more likely to ‘‘hit’’ in a simulated game of blackjack (an example of an action orientation) than were participants who had low power (i.e., were subordinates). The powerful are more likely to decide to negotiate an offer than to simply accept an initial proposal and are also more inclined to make the first offer in a negotiation compared to those without power (Magee et al., 2007). Both of these strategies have been repeatedly shown to garner significant financial gains to the individual (Galinsky & Mussweiler, 2001; Small, Gelfand, Babcock, & Gettman, 2007). Finally, the powerful are more likely to help in emergencies; whereas others sit back, trapped by diffusion of responsibility (thinking others will help so they do not have to) or by looking to the nonresponding pack to guide their own behavior (thinking since others are not helping, they should not either), the powerful spring into action and help those in distress (Whitson, Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, & Liljenquist, 2008).

Power Makes People Optimistic Power increases a general sense of optimism, with the powerful feeling more hopeful about their own future (e.g., getting a good job or avoiding gum disease) (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006). Power-induced optimism even extends to outcomes outside an individual’s own life: power increases attention toward positive aspects of the environment and decreases attention to negative aspects of the environment. As a result, the powerful view the world as a less dangerous and threatening place. The powerful see mostly opportunity dancing in front of them, whereas the powerless are more likely to see potential hazards lurking about.

Power Increases Abstract Thinking Power leads to a focus on the global rather than the local features of stimuli (Guinote, 2007b) and results in information being processed at higher levels of abstraction (Smith & Trope, 2006). As a result, the powerful compared to the powerless focus less on the details and more on the ‘‘big picture.’’ They


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are better able to perceive patterns and to capture the gist of information (Smith & Trope, 2006). They are also more likely to focus on and attend to task-relevant information (Overbeck & Park, 2001). All of these psychological effects of power allow the powerful to see, create, and articulate a broad vision of the world—one that could potentially inspire others. By seeing the forest, the powerful are not constrained by the gnarled branches of the trees.

Power Increases Goal-Directed Behavior Power channels thought and behavior toward accomplishing one’s goals in a wide variety of situations (Bargh et al., 1995; Chen et al., 2001; Galinsky et al., 2003). Compared to those who are powerless, individuals who experience power are more likely to engage in behaviors that are consistent with currently held goals, and as a result, their observable behavior is more closely aligned with their internal states. For example, Galinsky et al. (2003) induced discomfort in participants by having a fan blow directly onto them. The experimenters constructed the situation so that the purpose of the fan was unclear to participants, thereby creating uncertainty about whether it was permissible to take action against the fan by moving it or turning it off. In their study, the powerful were more likely to remove that stimulus and satisfy their goal of reducing physical discomfort. One consequence of this increased goal direction is that the powerful, compared to the powerless, often do not show decrements in executive functioning, which reflect attentional control mechanisms that coordinate various cognitive subprocesses (Miyake, Friedman, Emerson, Witzki, & Howerter, 2000). Proper executive functioning requires effective goal focus and impairments result from difficulty in actively maintaining a goal (Duncan, Emslie, Williams, Johnson, & Freer, 1996). As a result, lacking power produces goal neglect, which impairs executive functioning (Smith et al., 2008).

THE PERNICIOUS PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF POWER Based on the above effects of power, an image emerges of the powerful as focused, optimistic individuals with broad visions geared toward action. Power, however, does not always lead to beneficial outcomes (e.g., Burns, 1978). In a social context, power can also lead to dangerous and destructive behaviors. In this section we explore the less desirable consequences of power.

The Powerful Ignore Other’s Perspectives and Emotions The powerful appear to be particularly poor perspective takers. Indeed, power appears to reduce social attentiveness, placing a blind spot on

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considering the unique vantage points of others. Galinsky, Magee, Inesi, and Gruenfeld (2006) found that high-power participants were less likely to spontaneously adopt another’s visual perspective, less likely to take into account that another person lacks their privileged knowledge, and less accurate in judging others’ facial expressions of emotion. For example, Galinsky et al. asked participants to draw the letter ‘‘E’’ on their foreheads with a marker. Those who had been made to feel powerless were more likely to draw the ‘‘E’’ so that it was legible to someone facing them. Those made to feel powerful, however, drew the letter so that it looked correct from their internal perspective but was backwards from the point of view of someone facing them. Possessing power seems to almost instantly impair the ability to see things from other people’s points of view. Similarly, the powerful have difficulty recognizing and adjusting for the fact that others do not share this privileged perspective. For example, the same semantic content (e.g., ‘‘nice suit!’’) can be received as a compliment or a thinly veiled insult, depending on knowledge of the speaker’s tastes and previous interactions. Galinsky et al. presented participants with a message that on its face seemed sincere (‘‘About the restaurant, it was marvelous, just marvelous’’), but privileged background knowledge about the speaker’s intentions suggested a sarcastic interpretation. They found that the powerful inaccurately predicted that others would see the world as they saw it (i.e., that the message was sarcastic) even though these others lacked access to the private knowledge held by the powerful participants. High-power negotiators are also less accurate in perceiving (Galinsky et al., 2006) and less influenced by the emotions of others (Van Kleef, De Dreu, Pietroni, & Manstead, 2006). For example, Van Kleef et al., found that lowpower negotiators conceded more to an angry opponent than to a happy one. In contrast, high-power negotiators were often uninfluenced by the type of emotion displayed by their opponents.

The Powerful Objectify Others Power increases objectification, or the tendency to view others as a tool for one’s own purpose (Gruenfeld et al., 2008). In essence, power heightens the tendency to conceive of individuals in one’s social environment as possessing an instrumental and utilitarian purpose. As a result, the powerful approach and attend to useful others who will help them complete their goals (Gruenfeld et al., 2008). For example, Gruenfeld et al. assigned male participants to either a manager or subordinate and then primed half of these individuals with words related to sex (e.g., stiff, wet, bed, skin, sweat). They found that the managers (the high-power participants) wanted to work with an attractive female but only after being exposed to words related to sex.


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This tendency toward instrumental attention was captured in a series of studies by Overbeck and Park (2006). They found that when the powerful were assigned goals related to making their workplace comfortable, they took greater effort to learn about their subordinates and remembered more distinct information about them. But when they were assigned goals related to making their workplace particularly efficient, they recalled less correct information about their subordinates and were less able to distinguish their unique characteristics. All in all, power is associated with instrumental attention driven by one’s most salient, currently held goal. This relationship between power and instrumental attention is not always undesirable. It can be dysfunctional for social relationships but functional for reaching many organizational goals. Within the corporation, as is true in nonhuman hierarchies, superiors are expected to use subordinates to complete important tasks and this power-induced tendency toward instrumental attention can improve efficiency. For example, Gruenfeld et al. (2008) found that when choosing among job candidates, high-power participants were more likely to select the candidate who best matched the position qualifications and requirements compared to those primed with low power. Similarly, instrumental attention can lead to efficient division of labor and the optimization of individual talents, and ultimately result in the maximization of wealth. By optimizing talents, the powerful can allow for and produce feelings of selfgrowth among subordinates. Of course, instrumental attention and behavior become less appropriate when a superior delegates professional tasks to someone who is not a direct report or delegates personal chores to or pursues his own personal desires with a professional subordinate (Bargh et al., 1995). Seeing others through the lens of self-interest can lead those others to feel alienated. Indeed, research on sexual objectification illustrates a variety of negative psychological effects for women when they are sexually objectified by men (Frederickson & Roberts, 1997; Frederickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, & Twenge, 1998).

The Powerful Are Overconfident The powerful are also vulnerable to being overconfident in their judgments and decisions (Sivanathan & Galinsky, 2007). Overconfidence refers to an individual’s tendency to overestimate his or her abilities or the accuracy of his or her thoughts and decisions. Sivanathan and Galinsky found converging evidence that power affected the three common strands of overconfidence—the tendency to overstate one’s skills relative to the average (better than average effect, Alicke, Kotz, Breitenbecher, Yurak, & Vredenburg, 1995); the belief that chance events are subject to personal control (illusion of control, Langer, 1975); and the tendency to be overconfident in the precision of

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one’s answers (miscalibration, Lichtenstein, Fischhoff, & Phillips, 1982). These empirical results support pejorative comments about numerous powerful CEOs and politicians making decisions fueled by hubris and a boundless sense of overconfidence.

The Powerful Are Risk Takers Possessing power not only makes one optimistic and overconfident but it also increases people’s proclivity for risk (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006). When people experience power, they attend more to information related to rewards and as a result, when presented with a risky course of action, the powerful are likely to direct their sights on the potential payoffs. At the same time, the powerful, with a subdued behavioral inhibition system, are less likely to focus on the potential threats or downsides of a risky choice. Thus, the dual focus on rewards and a lack of attention to potential dangers encourages the powerful to engage in risky choices. Across a set of five studies using myriad contexts, Anderson & Galinsky (2006) demonstrated a clear link between power and risk, such that the powerful were more likely to show greater risk preferences, make riskier gambles and choices, find risky sexual activity more attractive, and resort to risky tactics in negotiations. One of the important implications of these findings lies in the taken-forgranted assumption that powerful individuals like CEOs engage in questionable behaviors, from unethical personal dealings or questionable corporate mergers and acquisitions, because of power’s corrupting influence. Instead, as Anderson & Galinsky (2006) note, it may be an optimistic take on risk, rather than any inherent depravity, that leads power holders to engage in seemingly questionable acts. The observed link between power, optimism, and risk taking has implications for how power, once attained, is maintained or lost. Positive illusions can lead people to achieve unlikely accomplishments by embarking on lowprobability journeys and persisting when others would quit (Taylor & Brown, 1988). Such unbridled confidence can lead the powerful to make the seemingly impossible possible and, in the process, achieve leadership. The relationship between power, overconfidence, and risk taking, however, could also contribute directly to losses in power. For example, financial investments driven by overconfidence could lead to large losses, with overconfidence being one way that power often ‘‘leads to its own demise’’ (Winter & Stewart, 1983).

Selecting the Right Leader: Power Increases the Correspondence between Traits and Behavior Power increases the correspondence between traits and behavior (Bargh et al., 1995; Chen et al., 2001) by reducing the strength of the situation that


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usually exerts pressure on and constrains the behavior of individuals (Galinsky et al., in press). Because power reduces the constraining influence of the situation on thought and expression, the personalities of high-power individuals are better predictors of their expressions and behavior than are the personalities of low-power individuals. For instance, the personalities of high-status members of a group predict the expression of both positive and negative emotions, but no such correspondence occurs for low-status members (Anderson, John, Keltner, & Kring, 2001). This research suggests that power does not make the person but reveals the person. For example, Chen et al. (2001) found that the possession of power led those with a communal orientation to demonstrate greater generosity, but drove those with an exchange orientation to engage in more self-serving behaviors. This difference, however, was not found when individuals lacked power. Similarly, for men with a tendency to sexually harass or aggress, the psychological sense of power automatically leads to the activation of concepts associated with sex and to the perception of their female work partners in sexual terms (Bargh et al., 1995). With power, the aggressive will become more fierce, the generous more magnanimous, and the flirtatious even more amorous. Because power leads to behavior that is consistent with existing dispositions and idiosyncratic tendencies, people should know the predispositions of those they would endow with power in hopes that they will emerge as leaders.

MODERATING THE EFFECTS OF POWER: LEGITIMACY AND CULTURE Although our preceding analysis of the psychological effects of power suggests that power is a unitary construct with invariant effects, we posit that how power is conceptualized by the powerful and by the powerless will lead to differential downstream effects on behavior and cognition. Specifically, two variables have emerged as important moderators of the effects of power: legitimacy and culture. These moderating effects emerge from both the meaning attributed to the power relationship and the way power is acquired and exercised.

Legitimacy The view of power as either a constructive or a destructive force often depends on whether power differences are considered to be inherently legitimate or illegitimate. Legitimate power is acquired through consensually agreed upon means and is exercised within certain established parameters. Lammers, Galinsky, Gordijn, and Otten (2008) conducted a series of studies

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demonstrating that the legitimacy of power determines how the powerful and the powerless think, feel, and behave. Across their studies, legitimate power consistently led to more action and risk taking than legitimate powerlessness. But when power was conceived or expressed under the shadow of illegitimacy, the powerful no longer were more likely than the powerless to embrace risk and action. For example, in one study, power was manipulated by assigning participants to either a manager or a subordinate role, and legitimacy was manipulated either by basing these assignments on merit (the person assigned to the role of manager had scored well on a leadership questionnaire) or by explicitly violating merit (the person assigned to the role of manager had scored poorly on a leadership questionnaire but the experimenter wanted that person’s gender in the role of manager). After being assigned to their roles but before engaging in the managerial task, participants were presented with a scenario in which they could pick a certain or risky option. Legitimate power led participants to choose a risky plan more often than legitimate powerlessness, which replicated the results of Anderson and Galinsky (2006), but this difference disappeared under illegitimacy. Importantly, the effect of legitimacy had equal and opposite effects on approach, risk, and cooperation for the powerful and for the powerless. This relationship between legitimacy and power may be one explanation for why individuals who rise to power through spurious (e.g., President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan) or corrupt (e.g., President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe) pathways face resistance rather than acceptance from their subjects.

Culture In every culture, power is an important determinant of thought and behavior; however, cultures vary in their conceptualizations of power (Zhong, Magee, Maddux, & Galinsky, 2006). As a result, the associations between power and attention to rewards and assertive action are culturally circumscribed—dependent on how cultures define the ‘‘self.’’ In some cultures, such as those found in the West, the self is defined though independent selfconstruals and people think of themselves as autonomous individuals defined by unique personal traits. In contrast, members of cultures in which individuals have interdependent self-construals, such as countries in East Asia, are more likely to think of themselves as embedded in social relationships and define themselves in terms of their group memberships and relationships with others. Zhong et al. found that the basic associations with power differed by cultural background. Westerners who were subliminally primed with the word ‘‘power’’ (versus the word ‘‘paper’’) responded more quickly to reward-related words but more slowly to responsibility-related words, whereas East Asians showed the exact opposite strength of


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association with power: greater accessibility of responsibility-related words and weaker accessibility to reward-related words. In another study, power led to decreased cooperation for Westerners but increased cooperation for East Asians.

HARNESSING POWER TO BECOME AN EFFECTIVE LEADER Power activates a number of positive psychological processes: it increases action and agency, optimism, and confidence. Because leaders inspire through rhetoric and action, these consequences of power may help motivate individuals toward a common goal. Indeed, visions are most effective at capturing attention and motivating behavior when they are optimistic, forecasting a better world (Bass, 1985, 1990; Berson, Shamir, Avolio, & Popper, 2001). In addition, their action orientation may inspire others to act alike, using the leader’s behavior as a guide to direct their own behavior. However, unbridled overconfidence and the attractiveness of potentially costly risks must also be tempered for power to be converted into leadership. Similarly, diminished perspective taking and the myopic vision and task focus of power that propel individuals to psychologically objectify others and dismiss the non-task-related aspects of their humanity must also be reigned in, without negatively impacting a focus on the vision for the group. We believe that a key to more effective leadership is to make perspective taking part and parcel of legitimate power. We offer the metaphor of driving a car to understand how power can be transformed into effective leadership. The agency of power is akin to pressing the gas pedal. Without acceleration, one is left standing still, unable to move forward. But one also needs a steering wheel, and the acumen for using it, to avoid crashing into obstacles along the way. Perspective taking without agency is ineffective and agency without perspective taking is dangerous and irresponsible. Effective leaders require acceleration and prudent steering—power coupled with perspective taking. We believe that the springboard of power combined with perspective taking is a particularly constructive force. The best leaders are action-oriented, optimistic, perspective takers. One way to turn power into leadership is to make the powerful accountable because accountability increases perspective taking (Tetlock, Skitka, & Boettger, 1989). Thus, American presidents who preside over a divided government (and thus have reduced power) might be psychologically predisposed to consider alternative viewpoints more readily than those who preside over unified governments. For example, President George W. Bush clearly showed greater capacity and readiness to integrate a wider spectrum of views after the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006. Because the

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American government’s powers are separated into different branches, the President is dependent on and accountable to Congress and the Judiciary, and vice versa; as a result, each branch of government has incentives to consider the perspectives of the other branches. In fact, the beauty of the American constitutional system of divided government and separated powers may be that it often creates powerful perspective takers, turning presidents from potential demagogues into potential leaders. In contrast, power that lacks accountability can lead to dangerous and foolish acts. The recent debacle involving American-hired private security contractors in Iraq illustrates this lethal combination. Unlike the U.S. military, the behavior of private security contractors has been accountable to neither the United States nor the Iraqi government and populous. This lack of accountability coupled with extreme power may have been the catalyst for the contractors’ unprovoked killing of unarmed Iraqi civilians. Some evidence to support the interaction between power and accountability in producing leadership comes from a study by Winter and Barenbaum (1985). They found that those with a high need for power—characterized by a desire to have influence and to maintain prestige—generally engaged in self-serving and self-satisfying profligate behaviors, including gambling and sexual promiscuity. However, a high need for power was transformed into responsible and socially supportive actions when those individuals faced life events—becoming a parent or having younger siblings—that increased their sense of responsibility. A high need for power combined with feelings of responsibility led individuals both to reign in their selfish desires and to display community-minded behaviors such as volunteering. Leadership may be prevented from emerging not only when the powerful are unaccountable but also when power is achieved precipitously, without proper incubation. In the famous Stanford Prison study, for instance, volunteers who were suddenly thrust into the role of all-powerful prison guards abused their position to such an extent that the experimenters were forced to prematurely end the study (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973). Similarly, Sivanathan, Pillutla, and Murnighan (2008) found that individuals overreacted to sudden increases in power, exercising their newly obtained control against the weak. Given that contemporary organizational life often involves dramatic increases in power, future research should examine the effect of a sudden vertical advancement in the organizational hierarchy. To become a true leader, promoted individuals will need to harness the positive elements afforded by power, while mitigating the insidious negative effects. By understanding how to bring together the acceleration of the gas pedal (i.e., the agency of power) with the guidance of the steering wheel (i.e., perspectivetaking), hopefully we can understand why some individuals abuse and


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squander their power, whereas others harness their power in leading others toward a new horizon and a promising tomorrow.

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Overbeck, J. R., & Park, B. (2001). When power does not corrupt: Superior individuation processes among powerful perceivers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 549–565. Overbeck, J. R., & Park, B. (2006). Powerful perceivers, powerless objects: Flexibility of powerholders’ social attention. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, 227–243. Rauch, C. F., & Behling, O. (1984). Functionalism: Basis for an alternate approach to the study of leadership. In H. Hunt (Ed.), Leaders and managers: International perspectives on managerial behavior and leadership (pp. 45–62). New York: Pergamon Press. Sivanathan, N., & Galinsky, A. D. (2007). Power and overconfidence. Unpublished manuscript. Sivanathan, N., Pillutla, M. M., & Murnighan, J. K. (2008). Power gained, power lost. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 105, 135–146. Small, D. A., Gelfand, M., Babcock, L., & Gettman, H. (2007). Who goes to the bargaining table? The influence of gender and framing on the initiation of negotiation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 600–613. Smith, P. K., Jostmann, N. B., Galinsky A. D., & van Dijk, W. W. (2008). Lacking power impairs executive functions. Psychological Science, 19, 469–475. Smith, P. K., & Trope, Y. (2006). You focus on the forest when you’re in charge of the trees: Power priming and abstract information processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 578–596. Stogdill, R. M. (1974). Handbook of leadership. New York: Free Press. Taylor, S., & Brown, J. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193–210. Tetlock, P. E., Skitka, L., & Boettger, R. (1989). Social and cognitive strategies for coping with accountability: Conformity, complexity, and bolstering. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 632–640. Thibaut, J. W., & Kelley, H. (1959). The social psychology of groups. New York: John Wiley. Van Kleef, G. A., De Dreu, C. K. W., Pietroni, D., & Manstead, A. S. R. (2006). Power and emotion in negotiation: Power moderates the interpersonal effects of anger and happiness on concession making. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36, 557–581. Weber, M. (1947). The theory of social and economic organization (A. M. Henderson & T. Parsons, Trans.). New York: Oxford University Press. Whitson, J., Galinsky, A. D., Magee, J. C., Gruenfeld, D. H., & Liljenquist, K. A. (2008). Power and overcoming obstacles: Implications for obedience and bystander intervention. Manuscript submitted for publication. Winter, D. G., & Barenbaum, N. B. (1985). Personality and the power motive in women and men. Journal of Personality, 53, 335–355. Winter, D. G., & Stewart, A. J. (1983). The power motive. In H. London & J. E. Exner (Eds.), Dimensions of personality (pp. 391–447). New York: Wiley. Zhong, C., Magee, J. C., Maddux, W. W., & Galinsky, A. D. (2006). Power, culture, and action: Considerations in the expression and enactment of power in East Asian and Western societies. In E. A. Mannix, M. A. Neale, & Y. Chen (Eds.), Research on Managing in Teams and Groups: 9 (pp. 53–73). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

18 Morality as a Foundation of Leadership and a Constraint on Deference to Authority LINDA J. SKITKA, CHRISTOPHER W. BAUMAN, AND BRAD L. LYTLE

Stanley Milgram’s classic experiments led to the widely accepted conclusion that the perceived duty and obligation to obey legitimate authorities overwhelms people’s personal moral standards. We argue that this conclusion may be premature; it is impossible to know whether people are willing to compromise their moral convictions to comply with authorities’ dictates unless researchers measure or manipulate the extent that people perceive a given situation to have moral relevance. Moreover, recent research supports two basic hypotheses derived from an integrative theory of moral conviction: (a) people are more likely to reject rules, commands, and decisions when they are incompatible with personal moral convictions rather than their nonmoral preferences (the authority independence hypothesis), and (b) moral decision-making contexts serve as crucial tests of the true legitimacy of authorities and authority systems (the litmus test hypothesis). Taken together, this research suggests that authorities’ ability to lead rather than simply coerce compliance is tied closely to subordinates’ perceptions of whether authorities share their moral vision. Milgram’s (1965, 1974) experiments often are cited as examples of the potential destructive power of obedience to authority (e.g., Kelman & Hamilton, 1989). In Milgram’s studies, an authority figure commanded participants to inflict painful shocks on another person. More often than not, participants complied with the authority’s commands and gave what they believed to be

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increasingly powerful shocks, even when the presumed victim protested that the shocks were not just uncomfortable, but were aggravating a preexisting heart problem. Milgram (1974) interpreted the results of these studies in the following way: Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. (p. 6)

One commonly expounded implication of Milgram’s studies is that people are easily exploited puppets in the hands of authorities. People feel compelled to obey authorities, and this compulsion can trump even their normal sense of conscience or morality. What does it mean to call something ‘‘moral’’ or ‘‘immoral,’’ and how do people distinguish moral from nonmoral judgments and beliefs? People who read about the Milgram (1965, 1974) studies, for example, may interpret participants’ obedience in the experiments as being ‘‘immoral’’ because it violated the commonly accepted rule to ‘‘do no harm.’’ An open question, however, is whether Milgram’s participants perceived the choice between defying and complying with the experimenter ’s requests to have moral implications (Doris, 1998). After all, the experimenter—a scientist—had informed them that although the shocks were painful, they did not cause harm. Therefore, it is unknown whether the pressure to obey the authority caused participants to transgress their moral standards because Milgram did not explicitly test whether the participants perceived the situation as a choice between upholding versus violating a personal moral value. Moreover, this interpretive ambiguity is common in the empirical literature because researchers often assert that a given behavior was or was not moral based on philosophical or theoretical grounds, but they typically do not provide any evidence that people themselves saw the situation, issue, or behavior in moral terms (e.g., Hartshorne & May, 1929; Turillo, Folger, Lavelle, Umphress, & Gee, 2002). We believe that perceptions of morality and immorality exist as subjective judgments in the minds of perceivers, and that different people will not always see the same situations as relevant to their personal sense of morality. Moreover, whether people have a moral stake in a given situation is not something that can always (or even often) be accurately identified by third party judges without inquiry into the target’s perceptions or state of mind. Therefore, to study morality, one needs to assess whether perceivers see a given situation, dilemma, or issue in moral terms. Moreover, to know whether people

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feel stronger needs to obey authorities than to live up to their personal moral standards, one first has to know whether people feel their personal moral standards are at stake in that given situation. The goal of this chapter is to review research that has tested the ability of authorities and institutions to compel people to obey and to accept actions, decisions, or rules that are at odds with their personal moral standards. Before turning to a review of this research, we first discuss an integrated theory of moral conviction that explains how moral convictions differ from other kinds of attitudes or preferences, and we present specific propositions associated with the idea that there are moral limits on people’s deference to authority.

AN INTEGRATED THEORY OF MORAL CONVICTION To begin to scientifically address the psychological function and form of morality and moral convictions, we take an empirical approach to studying whether and how moral thoughts, feelings, and behavior differ from otherwise equivalent but nonmoral actions and reactions. Our theory of moral conviction begins with one key and important assumption, that is, that people can accurately report on the degree to which a given feeling or belief reflects a moral conviction (Skitka, Bauman, & Sargis, 2005). Working from this basic assumption, the task of morality research is to explore the antecedents and consequences of people’s self-reported degree of moral conviction. Our integrated theory of moral conviction (ITMC) posits a number of ways that attitudes held with strong moral conviction likely differ from equally strong but nonmoral attitudes. Our theory is an ‘‘integrated theory’’ because the basic framework is a synthesis of various other theories from the fields of philosophy, moral development, cultural anthropology, and psychology. One central proposition of our theory is that people tend to believe that their personal moral standards ought to apply to everyone. If one has a strong moral conviction that female circumcision is wrong, for instance, one is likely to believe that the practice is wrong not only in one’s culture of origin, but in other cultures as well (e.g., Dudones, 2007; Turiel, 1983). Therefore, people should be more intolerant of diversity of opinion about attitude objects they associate with strong rather than weak moral conviction. Consistent with this idea, people prefer not to associate with morally dissimilar others, and this preference holds regardless of whether the potential relationship with the other person is intimate (e.g., marry into the family) or distant (e.g., store owner). People even sit farther away from an attitudinally dissimilar other when the dissimilarity is related to a moral as compared to a nonmoral attitude (Skitka et al., 2005).


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Another distinguishing feature of people’s self-identified moral convictions is that people treat their moral beliefs as if they were readily observable, objective properties of situations. For example, if you ask third-party observers why Milgram’s participants should not have obeyed the experimenter, they might respond by saying something like, ‘‘Because it’s wrong!’’ The ‘‘fact’’ that it is wrong is as psychologically self-evident to perceivers as 2 + 2 = 4. Moreover, the perceived objectivity people associate with their personal moral convictions motivates them to defend their moral beliefs and feel justified for doing so, even though recognitions of fact typically do not include a motivational component (a Humean paradox; Mackie, 1977; Smith, 1994). In short, the ITMC predicts and our research finds that strong moral convictions are more motivating and are more predictive of behavior than equally strong but nonmorally convicted attitudes1 (Skitka & Bauman, 2008; Skitka et al., 2005). In summary, unlike attitudes rooted in social norms or personal preferences people perceive their personal moral convictions to be self-evident and motivating. As a result, people are likely to believe that others should be easily persuaded to share their moral point of view if only they were exposed to and fully appreciated the ‘‘facts’’ of the matter. Moreover, attitudes high in moral conviction are more likely to be motivating and lead to attitude-behavior correspondence than attitudes low in moral conviction (see Skitka & Bauman, 2008). The ITMC also predicts that attitudes held with strong moral conviction are likely to differ from nonmoral attitudes in the magnitude if not also the type of emotion that people experience in conjunction with them. Although considerable debate exists regarding whether emotion is a cause or an epiphenomenon of moral judgment, there is overwhelming agreement that moral issues are emotionally charged. Of course, nonmoral issues can elicit a wide range of emotions, but moral issues appear to always be accompanied by intense affect. In particular, judgments of immorality are associated with strong feelings of anger, contempt, and especially disgust (Haidt, 2003a). On the other side of the same coin, positive emotions such as ‘‘elevation’’ and ‘‘awe,’’ are feelings associated with particularly moral actions that may be unique to the moral domain (Haidt, 2003b). Taken together, it is clear that moral affect is a potent experience that differs from feelings associated with nonmoral beliefs and events, and affect aroused in conjunction with moral convictions can have a powerful influence on people’s subsequent thoughts, feelings, and behavior (e.g., Mullen & Skitka, 2006a). Especially important to the goals of the current paper, another distinction between moral and equally strong but nonmoral attitudes is that moral convictions are thought to be authority independent (e.g., Nucci, 2001; Nucci & Turiel, 1978). People sometimes behave in ways that might be judged by

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others as ‘‘moral’’ because they respect and adhere to the rules in a given context. However, obeying the rules may be simply behaving according to normative pressure and not because of any real personal moral commitment to those rules. For example, someone might feel that it is wrong for a 20year-old to consume alcohol. This person’s feeling about this issue would be authority dependent if it were based on a desire to adhere to the rules and legal norms of what constitutes underage drinking, or by a desire to avoid authority sanction for breaking these rules. If the rules changed, so too would this person’s view about the behavior at hand. Therefore, this person’s position is authority dependent. Someone whose view about this behavior was based on a sense of personal morality, however, would still think the behavior was wrong even if the rules were changed (e.g., if the legal drinking age changed to 18). In summary, attitudes rooted in moral conviction theoretically are more authority independent than otherwise strong, but nonmoral, attitudes.

THE AUTHORITY INDEPENDENCE AND LITMUS TEST HYPOTHESES The ITMC leads to at least two novel predictions in the context of people’s relationships and interactions with leaders, authorities, and institutional controls: the authority independence and the litmus test hypotheses. The authority independence hypothesis predicts that people will be more likely to reject and protest decisions made by legitimate authorities if the decisions are at odds with perceivers’ core moral convictions than their equally strong but nonmoral preferences. The authority independence hypothesis is consistent with considerable anecdotal evidence in the context of moralized politics. For example, abortion remains a hotly contested issue that is hardly ‘‘settled’’ in the minds of those who oppose it, even though the imprimatur of the state (in the form of its highest legitimate authority) should have firmly settled the question with the 1974 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. Another example is the public’s reaction to the verdict of the 1992 trial of the White Los Angeles police officers who beat and arrested Rodney King, a Black motorist. An onlooker captured the beating on videotape from his apartment window and released it to the press. Because of the videotape, most Americans believed that the officers were guilty of using excessive force against King (Cannon, 1999). When the police officers were acquitted of charges, riots broke out in Los Angeles that left 54 people dead, 2,000 injured, and more than 800 buildings burned (Cannon, 1999), all despite President George H. W. Bush’s public announcement that, ‘‘The jury system has worked. What’s needed now is calm respect for the law’’ (Mydans, 1992). In summary,


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authority wielded by the court system and even the President appeared unable to contend with people’s moral outrage about the verdict.2 The litmus test hypothesis predicts that people use leader, authority, and institutional decisions relevant to personal moral convictions to check or verify authorities’ legitimacy. People recognize that legitimate authority systems facilitate social cooperation and coordination. Therefore, people are generally willing to sacrifice a certain amount of immediate self-interest and risk exploitation to work within these systems because doing so serves their longterm self-interest (Thibaut & Walker, 1975). Due process and other procedures for handling conflict provide a way to make decisions in the absence of perfect information. When one knows with certainty, however, what the correct answer is to a given decision, this knowledge provides an opportunity to check how well the system works. Failure to arrive at a correct decision leads to a loss of faith in the system. The litmus test hypothesis therefore proposes that when people have strong moral convictions about the rightness or wrongness of a given decision, the legitimacy of any authority system that decides otherwise becomes suspect. The Rodney King incident also provides anecdotal support for the litmus test hypothesis. Specifically, in addition to leading to charges against the specific police officers involved in the incident, public outrage about it prompted an independent investigation of the Los Angeles Police Department. The independent commission yielded a scathing report on the failures of the system and its leader, police commissioner Daryl Gates. Gates was ultimately forced to resign his post because of the incident (Cannon, 1999).

RESEARCH SUPPORT FOR THE AUTHORITY INDEPENDENCE AND LITMUS TEST HYPOTHESES In addition to anecdotal support for the authority and litmus test hypotheses, a number of studies have recently found empirical support for these predictions. For example, one study examined people’s reactions to the Eliań Gonza´lez case as it unfolded over time (Skitka & Mullen, 2002). Five-yearold Eliań became the center of a widely publicized custody battle after he was rescued off the Florida coastline in November 1999. Eliań’s mother and 10 others died when their small boat sank as they tried to travel from Cuba to the United States. Although Eliań’s Cuban father petitioned the United States to return Eliań to his custody, Eliań was put in the temporary care of Miami relatives, who filed a petition to grant him political asylum in the United States. After months of court decisions, appeals, and fruitless negotiations, federal agents took Eliań by force from his Miami relatives’ home. Eliań finally returned to Cuba with his father in June 2000. The Eliań case aroused incredible public interest and passions on both sides of the issue. Some felt

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that Eliań should stay in the United States to grow up in freedom, whereas others felt strongly that he should be returned to his father, and therefore to Cuba. Skitka and Mullen (2002) collected data from a nationally representative sample in the United States to assess public reactions as the case unfolded over time. Judgments were collected several weeks before the federal raid, immediately after the raid, and several weeks later when Eliań ultimately was returned to Cuba. Perceptions that the justice department and other legal authorities were fair and legitimate prior to the raid did not soften the blow of people’s anger if they perceived the outcome went the ‘‘wrong’’ way; moreover, perceptions that authorities were behaving unfairly did not undermine people’s relief and acceptance if they perceived the outcome of the case went the ‘‘right’’ way. Analysis of open-ended comments indicated that 83 percent of people with strong moral convictions about the outcome of the case made at least one critical comment about the U.S. government, compared with only 12 percent of those without strong moral convictions. The return-Eliań-toCuba group with strong moral convictions tended to lambast authorities for taking too long to act, whereas the stay-in-the-U.S. group with strong moral convictions criticized either specific authorities (e.g., the INS or U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno) or the decision to use force to remove Eliań from his relatives’ home. In summary, the results of the Eliań study supported the authority independence and litmus test hypotheses. People’s reactions to the case—both their decision acceptance and postdecision levels of trust and faith in the system—were shaped primarily by their moral convictions about the ‘‘correct’’ decision in the case and not by pre-raid perceptions of the fairness or legitimacy of the authorities and authority systems involved. Moreover, strong moral convictions about the outcome led people to be quite critical of authorities, rather than to blindly accept or reject authorities’ decision in this case. Other evidence that supports the authority independence and litmus test hypotheses comes from another field experiment that explored people’s reactions to the U.S. Supreme Court before and after it made a ruling on a case that effectively would decide whether individual states can legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS; Gonzales v. the State of Oregon). Skitka (2006) assessed perceptions of the Supreme Court before and after it ruled in the case, in addition to collecting predecision measures of moral conviction about PAS, participants’ religiosity, and a host of other variables. Analyses investigated two levels of reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision in the case: People’s reactions to the specific decision (decision fairness and acceptance) as well as their pre- and postdecision perceptions of the Court’s legitimacy (assessed with three measures: trust, procedural fairness, and a direct measure of legitimacy).


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Results of the PAS study supported the authority independence and litmus test hypotheses. Predecision levels of moral conviction about PAS uniquely predicted people’s perceptions of decision fairness and acceptance. People whose support for PAS was held with strong moral conviction thought the decision in the case was fair, and they were quite prepared to accept it as the final word on the issue, whereas those whose opposition to PAS was held with strong moral conviction thought the decision was unfair, and they were unwilling to accept the Court’s decision on the issue. Moreover, results failed to support the notion that obedience to authority would dominate people’s judgment. Predecision levels of legitimacy of the Court were unrelated to perceived fairness and decision acceptance of the Court’s ruling. All results for moral conviction emerged even when controlling for variables such as individual differences in participants’ degree of religiosity. Perhaps even more interesting than people’s reactions to the decision itself was the impact the decision had on people’s perceptions of the Supreme Court. As predicted by the litmus test hypothesis, predecision strength of moral conviction predicted people’s postdecision perceptions of the Court’s legitimacy. People who morally supported PAS thought that the Supreme Court was more legitimate, whereas those who morally opposed PAS thought that the Supreme Court was less legitimate after its ruling in the PAS case. Moreover, these results were unique effects of moral conviction that remained robust even when controlling for a number of alternative explanatory variables, such as strength and direction of political orientation and religiosity. In summary, when the Supreme Court ruling was at odds with people’s moral convictions, they rejected the decision and perceived the Court to be less legitimate, trustworthy, and fair. In an experimental test of the authority independence hypothesis, Bauman and Skitka (2007) assessed student participants’ reactions to a decision rendered by university authorities on whether to use student fees to fund abortions at a student health clinic. Results indicated that participants who morally disagreed with the decision were prepared to petition, protest, withhold tuition and fees, and ‘‘make trouble’’ for the university administration, irrespective of whether they perceived the authorities as legitimate or illegitimate. Conversely, participants were fully prepared to accept a decision made by fundamentally illegitimate authorities and processes when the decision was consistent with their moral convictions. Other studies provide further support for the litmus test hypothesis. When people were exposed to unjust laws or legal decisions, they were more likely to report intentions to flout other unrelated laws in the future (Nadler, 2005). Mullen and Nadler (2008) further tested the flouting hypothesis in an experiment that involved exposing people to legal decisions that supported, opposed, or were unrelated to participants’ personal moral convictions.

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Following exposure to the legal decision, participants received a pen and a questionnaire, and were asked to return both at the end of the experimental session. Consistent with the prediction that moral transgressions erode perceptions of authorities, theft of the pens was highest when the legal decision opposed rather than supported or was unrelated to participants’ moral convictions. In summary, a host of evidence indicates that people reject authorities’ decisions when they are at odds with their personal moral convictions. Moreover, people use authorities’ decisions in morally relevant situations as legitimacy litmus tests: When authorities make decisions, rules, or policies that are consistent with perceivers’ moral convictions, perceivers accept the decision and see it as evidence of legitimacy, but when decisions, rules, or policies are inconsistent with perceivers’ moral convictions, perceivers reject the decision and see it as evidence that authorities are illegitimate. Importantly, the delegitimizing effects of violating people’s moral convictions generalizes: People do not just reject the decision itself, they clearly reject the authority or system that made it, and they are even less likely to comply with other unrelated laws, rules, or standards of behavior as well (Mullen & Nadler, 2008; Nadler, 2005).

MORALITY AND LEADERSHIP Research in support of the authority independence and litmus test hypotheses complements and extends current perspectives on leader effectiveness. The litmus test hypothesis overlaps at least partially with theories that assert that leaders can induce compliance with their requests by linking tasks and values in the minds of followers. For example, transformational leaders access stakeholders’ underlying ideals and engage the deeper concerns of the people around them. They move beyond instrumentalism (i.e., brokering exchanges between stakeholders) and attempt to provide a vision that aligns activities with a higher sense of purpose (e.g., Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978). Somewhat similarly, charismatic leaders successfully link tasks and values in the minds of followers and promote identification with the leader or the group (e.g., Conger, 1999; Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993). Research from both perspectives has demonstrated that leaders who tap into followers’ values increase motivation, performance, commitment, satisfaction, trust, and group promoting actions (e.g., Bass, 1985; Lowe, Kroeck, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996; Rowold & Heinitz, 2007). In sum, dominant approaches to leadership are consistent with the prosocial implications of the litmus test hypothesis, and reveal the benefits of value congruence between leaders and followers. The ability to establish a link between values and behavior is so important that some have identified it as a characteristic that differentiates leaders from


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authorities and allows leaders to elicit more from their followers than what they could demand based on their power alone (Fairholm, 1998; Heifetz, 1994). Much more is known about the benefits of value-congruent leadership than about the potential liabilities of value-incongruent leadership (Conger, 1999). Although some researchers consider the deleterious effect caused by leader inauthenticity or disingenuousness (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999; Cha & Edmondson, 2006; Price, 2003), the ITMC emphasizes that that value incongruence may go beyond limiting leader effectiveness to also affect more extreme reactions, such as outright rebellion or exiting the group (Bauman & Skitka, 2007). In addition, although theories of leadership mention the importance of values, they do not make distinctions as a function of value content (e.g., Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978; Conger, 1999; Shamir et al., 1993). Differences in the extent that leaders and followers value material gain, power, or status may have very different consequences than differences between leaders’ and followers’ conceptions of moral right and wrong (Skitka et al., 2005). Moreover, values are abstractions, whereas moral convictions represent concrete attitude positions or stands (Skitka et al., 2005). Two people may share a commitment to the sanctity of life, but may not share positions on physician-assisted suicide, capital punishment, or abortion. In short, value congruence between leaders and followers does not ensure moral congruence with respect to specific decisions, policies, or outcomes. In summary, the ITMC approach complements and extends current conceptions of leadership. Moreover, the ITMC approach suggests that future research on value-driven leadership may benefit by (a) taking value content into account and exploring whether there are important differences between perceivers’ and followers’ congruence or incongruence of moral as compared to nonmoral values, and (b) exploring whether value congruence and incongruence as a construct might be more profitably examined at less abstract levels of analysis.

IMPLICATIONS The goal of this chapter was to revisit the notion that the duty or obligation to obey authority can easily overwhelm people’s personal moral standards or beliefs. Although Milgram’s (1965, 1974) experiments were powerful demonstrations of the tendency to obey legitimate authorities, they were less persuasive demonstrations of the power of authorities to overwhelm people’s personal sense of morality because morality was not directly measured or manipulated. Our review indicates that individual conceptions of morality do appear to work as safeguards against destructive obedience, at least in some situations. Specifically, when authorities or authority systems make

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rules or decisions that are inconsistent with people’s core moral beliefs, people both rejected the decision and used this information to revise their appraisal of the authority or system’s legitimacy. Even when we experimentally manipulated a situation so that there were virtually no grounds to question authorities’ legitimacy predecision, people nonetheless were enraged when authorities made a decision at odds with their moral beliefs. Moreover, they were willing to take a stand against and even leave the group because of it (Bauman & Skitka, 2007). In sum, these results suggest that there may be moral limits on the power of destructive obedience. When personal moral standards are at stake, individuals are less likely to fall prey to pressures to blindly accept authority dictates. Therefore, it is very important to know whether people perceive a given situation in moral terms. Not everyone, for example, has a moral investment in whether abortion is or is not legal. Some people might support legalized abortion simply because they prefer to have a backstop birth control method, and not because they have any particular moral agenda. Others may oppose abortion for normative or conventional reasons, for example, because it violates the dictates of their religion. If the church reversed its position on the issue, then these people likely would have no problem supporting legalized abortion instead of opposing it. In short, our approach suggests that it is important to determine whether people have a moral investment in a given situation rather than make assumptions, even in situations like abortion that are normatively understood to be moral. Of course, there are a number of important differences between our approach and Milgram’s (1965, 1974). The physical presence of authorities in Milgram’s studies may have reinforced the perceived obligation to obey or reduced the extent that people perceived themselves to be responsible for their actions, each of which could have increased levels of obedience and compliance (cf. Bandura, 1999). Although there is still room for additional research to test the generalizability of our findings to situations that more closely parallel Milgram’s, our results suggest that enhancing legitimacy by attending only to structural and interactional aspects of decision processes misses an important element in how people judge the legitimacy of these systems and decide whether to cooperate versus openly rebel. Leaders and authorities should be mindful about the content of their decisions, not just the procedures they use to make them. People are not so blinded by duty and obligations to obey that they do not evaluate whether the substance of decisions and laws meets the standards of personal moral litmus tests, and they will use these tests to decide whether authority systems are legitimate. Some of our current work has begun to test hypotheses about some of the underlying processes that give rise to the ‘‘moral mandate effects’’ we have identified in our tests of the authority independence and litmus test


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hypotheses. Specifically, Mullen and Skitka (2006a) explored whether due process considerations were less important to people when they had a moral stake in decision outcomes and tested the role of three processes that may have contributed to the effect. One process they investigated was whether people with moral convictions about outcomes were motivated to justify their preferred outcome, and therefore actively distorted the way they processed available information about procedures or authorities in an effort to support their preferred conclusions. A second process they examined was whether people with moral convictions about outcomes identified or disidentified with people who shared or did not share their moral convictions, which in turn led to distributive biases that affected their perceptions of how these people deserved to be treated. A third process Mullen and Skitka evaluated was whether moral conviction about outcomes led to so much anger when authorities ‘‘got it wrong’’ that it subsequently biased their judgments of other aspects of the decision, such as whether authorities acted in procedurally fair ways. Results of two studies supported the notion that affect aroused by whether authorities got it ‘‘right’’ or ‘‘wrong’’ played a pivotal role in shaping people’s perceptions when people had a moral stake in decision outcomes. When authorities ‘‘got it wrong,’’ resultant anger explained not only the extent that people rejected the nonpreferred outcome, but also rejection of the procedures and the authorities that yielded them (Mullen & Skitka, 2006a; see also Bauman & Skitka, 2007; Skitka, 2006). Other research suggests that people may become more cognitively rigid when thinking about their moral convictions than when they are thinking about other topics or issues (Lytle & Skitka, 2007), suggesting that cognitive processes may also play a role in the effects reviewed here. Although much more research is necessary to fully understand the cognitive and motivational underpinnings of moral mandate effects, these results suggest that emotion and context-specific levels of cognitive rigidity are psychological processes that underlie these results. In closing, we should point out that it is possible to put different value spins on the conclusion that personal morality influences people’s willingness to follow authority dictates. For example, rules and authorities help coordinate behavior and create social order by regulating the distribution of both the benefits and burdens of social cooperation (e.g., French & Raven, 1959; Heifetz, 1994). To be effective, however, authorities and their rules need to influence the behavior of their constituent members; followers must accept and comply with rules and dictates for authorities to have any impact on the coordination problems that are inherent in social and organizational life. Systems in which people feel free to personally decide which rules to follow and which to ignore are less likely to reap the rewards of social coordination and cooperation and may be vulnerable to chaos if not anarchy. Therefore, one

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spin one could place on our results is that personal moral standards pose a threat to cooperative social systems, order, and basic social cohesion. A more positive spin on our results is that personal moral standards create a social form of checks and balances against potential exploitation on the part of malevolent authorities. People and institutions could create the artful appearance of legitimate and fair procedures without attending to the truth value, justice, or morality of what they produce and the consequences of those products for people’s everyday lives. Personal moral standards may therefore act as a canary in the mine of everyday life—an early warning system that protects people from potential exploitation and protects authority systems from forgetting that authority is always at the mercy of the consent of the governed.

NOTES Preparation of this chapter was facilitated by grant support from the National Science Foundation to the first author (NSF-0518084, NSF-0530380). Thanks to William McCready for comments on a previous draft of this manuscript and to Nick Aramovich, Edward Sargis, and the other members of the political and moral psychology lab group at the University of Illinois at Chicago for discussions about these and related ideas. Correspondence about this article should be directed to Linda J. Skitka, University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Psychology, m/c 285, 1007 W. Harrison Street, Chicago, IL 60607-7137, [email protected]. 1. Attitudes are surprisingly weak predictors of behavior (see Wicker, 1969, for a review). 2. Interestingly, a content analysis of editorials and letters to the editor of several national newspapers three months before and after the verdicts were announced revealed virtually no mentions of concerns about trial procedures (e.g., the change of venue to Simi Valley, or the racial composition of the jury) until after the verdict was announced (Mullen & Skitka, 2006b).

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About the Editors and Contributors THE EDITORS Donelson R. Forsyth holds the Colonel Leo K. and Gaylee Thorsness Chair in Ethical Leadership in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. His research focuses on leadership, group processes, the social psychology of morality, environmentalism, and social cognition. He was the founding editor of the journal Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice. He is the recipient of the Virginia Council of Higher Education’s Outstanding Faculty Award. George R. (Al) Goethals holds the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professorship in Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. Previously at Williams College, he served as chair of the Department of Psychology, founding chair of the Program in Leadership Studies, and Provost. With Georgia Sorenson and James MacGregor Burns, he edited the Encyclopedia of Leadership (2004) and, with Sorenson, The Quest for a General Theory of Leadership (2006). Goethal’s recent scholarship explores rooting for the underdog, image making in presidential debates, and the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant.

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About the Editors and Contributors

Crystal L. Hoyt is an assistant professor at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. She completed her doctorate in social psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her research interests include examining the effects of stereotypes and discrimination on women and minority leaders. Her research has appeared in journals including Psychological Inquiry, Group Dynamics, Small Group Research, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Group Processes and Intergroup Relations.

THE CONTRIBUTORS Scott T. Allison is the MacEldin Trawick Professor of Psychology at the University of Richmond. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1987. Dr. Allison has published over 60 articles and chapters on topics relating to group dynamics, social cognition, and individual and collective decision making. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice. He is the recipient of the University of Richmond’s Distinguished Educator Award and the Virginia Council of Higher Education’s Outstanding Faculty Award. Christopher W. Bauman received his Ph.D. in social psychology in 2006 from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and he spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Dispute Resolution Research Center at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Management and Organization at the Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. His research interests include moral conviction, justice, power, leadership, and negotiations. Martin M. Chemers is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Dr. Chemers came to UC Santa Cruz in 1995 to accept an appointment as the Dean of Social Sciences and Professor of Psychology. At UC Santa Cruz, he also served as Interim Executive Vice-Chancellor and Provost (December 2003–April 2004) and as Acting Chancellor (April 2004– February 2005). Prior to his tenure at UC Santa Cruz, he was the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology and Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College. Since receiving his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Illinois in 1968, he has been an active researcher and has published widely on leadership, culture, and organizational diversity. Florette Cohen completed her doctoral studies at Rutgers University in 2008. She is now assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology at The College of Staten Island of The City University of New York. She investigates how reminders of mortality influence a wide


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range of attitudes and behaviors, and is also interested in the psychological underpinnings of prejudice, particularly subtle forms of anti-Semitism. Susan T. Fiske is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology, Princeton University (Ph.D., Harvard University; honorary doctorate, Universite´ Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium). She investigates emotional prejudices at cultural, interpersonal, and neural levels. Her expert testimony was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1989 decision on gender bias. In 1998, she testified before President Bill Clinton’s Race Initiative Advisory Board, and in 2001– 2003, she co-authored the National Academy of Science’s Methods for Measuring Discrimination. She edits the Annual Review of Psychology (with Daniel Schacter and Robert Sternberg) and the Handbook of Social Psychology (with Daniel Gilbert and Gardner Lindzey). She wrote Social Beings: A Core Motives Approach to Social Psychology (2004) and Social Cognition (1984, 1991, 2008, with Shelley Taylor). She won the American Psychological Association’s Early Career Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues’ Allport Intergroup Relations Award for ambivalent sexism theory (with Peter Glick), and Harvard’s Graduate Centennial Medal. She was elected President of the American Psychological Society and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Adam D. Galinsky is the Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Decision in Management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. His research focuses on power and status, negotiation and auction behavior, multicultural experience and creativity, intergroup relations, and counterfactual thinking. Jeff Greenberg is currently Professor of Psychology and Director of the Social Psychology Program at the University of Arizona. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Kansas in 1982. His primary focus is on how basic psychological motives influence mental processes, social behavior, political preferences, and psychological health. Dr. Greenberg has over 200 publications, including four academic books. He is co-creator of the biased hypothesis testing model of human inference, the self-regulatory perseveration theory of depression, and terror management theory. He is also co-developer of a recent subdiscipline within psychology, Experimental Existential Psychology. Lisa M. V. Gulick is completing her doctoral studies in the industrial/ organizational psychology program at George Mason University. She currently works as a Consortium Research Fellow at the U.S. Army Research Institute and teaches in the George Mason School of Management. Her primary research interests include topics related to leadership, teams, diversity, and culture.

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Michael P. Haselhuhn received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Haselhuhn’s research focuses on the motivational and emotional facets of human interaction, particularly as they relate to bargaining and negotiation. His work has been published in such outlets as Cognitive Brain Research and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Graeme A. Haynes obtained his Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of Western Ontario in 2008. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Graeme’s primary research interests are in the areas of attitudes, judgment and decision making, justice, and social cognition. He is a member of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Michael A. Hogg is Professor of Social Psychology at Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles, and an honorary professor of psychology at the University of Kent, United Kingdom, and the University of Queensland, Australia. He is a fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. He is the editor of Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, an associate editor of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and senior consulting editor for the Sage Social Psychology Program. Hogg’s research focuses on group processes, intergroup relations, and the selfconcept and is closely associated with social identity theory. He has published 250 books, chapters, and articles on these topics. His most recent leadership book, with Daan van Knippenberg, is Leadership and Power: Identity Processes in Groups and Organizations (2003). Dominic D. P. Johnson is a lecturer in international relations at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. He has a D.Phil. in biology from Oxford University, and a Ph.D. in political science from Geneva University. Drawing on both disciplines, his research centers on the role of evolutionary psychology on decision making, cooperation, and conflict behavior. He has two books with Harvard University Press: Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions (2004) and, with D. Tierney, Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics (2006). Stefanie K. Johnson completed her Ph.D. at Rice University in 2004 and is currently an assistant professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Her research interests include leadership, teams, gender, and emotions at work, as well as the intersection between these domains. Jennifer Jordan is a research fellow for the Ford Center for Global Citizenship at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. She previously served as


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the Allwin Initiative for Corporate Citizenship Postdoctoral Fellow at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School. Her research interests include moral leadership, awareness, and decision making within business, as well as power and executive behavior. She co-edited (with R. J. Sternberg) A Handbook of Wisdom: Psychological Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2005). Her other writings have appeared in journals such as Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and Journal of Genetic Psychology. Jordan is the 2005 recipient of the Academy of Management Social Issues Division Best Dissertation Award. Robert B. Kaiser is a partner with Kaplan DeVries Inc. and was previously at the Center for Creative Leadership. He has over 90 publications and presentations on leadership. His work with Bob Kaplan on leadership versatility won runner-up for article of the year in MIT Sloan Management Review in 2004; they also received a U.S. patent for their innovative approach to assessing leadership. Rob also has a leadership consulting practice, specializing in developing high potentials for the executive suite. He also provides unique research-based services, which includes developing custom leadership models and assessment tools for organizations like Motorola, Unilever, and ConAgra Foods. Vivek P. Khare is completing his doctoral studies in the industrial/organizational program at George Mason University. He teaches courses pertaining to leadership and management in both the Psychology Department and the School of Management, and his research interests include leadership and group behavior, decision making, situational influences on behavior, and self-development. Roderick M. Kramer is the William R. Kimball Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Business School. Kramer received a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California Los Angeles in 1985. Kramer is the author or co-author of more than 100 scholarly articles and essays. His work has appeared in leading academic journals, such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Administrative Science Quarterly, and the Academy of Management Journal, and has published in popular journals, such as the Harvard Business Review. He is the author or co-author of numerous books, including Negotiation in Social Contexts, The Psychology of the Social Self, Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research, Power and Influence in Organizations, Psychology of Leadership, Trust and Distrust Within Organizations, and Trust and Distrust: Progress and Promise in Theory and Research. Laura J. Kray is the Harold Furst Associate Professor of Management Philosophy and Values at the Walter Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Washington and applies this lens to her research on negotiations, gender stereotypes, counterfactual thinking, and organizational justice. She has

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published over 25 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and her work has been funded multiple times by the National Science Foundation and received ‘‘Best Paper’’ awards from the Academy of Management and the International Association of Conflict Management. She is currently on the editorial board of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Matthew B. Kugler is a graduate student in psychology at Princeton University. His research interests include presidential debates, the psychology of law and public policy, and political attitudes. He is currently investigating punitiveness in the United States and Europe, strict liability standards in civil cases, and the effects of mortality salience on legal decision making. Tiane L. Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Psychology at Princeton University (M.A. and B.A., Stanford University). A transplant of Myanmar and California, she is fascinated by diversity and intergroup dynamics, reflected in her research interests. She studies stereotypes of immigrants and minority groups; cultural understandings of friendship experiences; and the relation between close relationship preferences and ambivalent gender ideologies. She is a recipient of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Diversity Fund Award. She was elected as a Graduate Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Paulo N. Lopes holds a B.A. in Economics and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Yale University and is a former Fulbright fellow. As Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Surrey, he teaches social psychology with a focus on emotion and interpersonal interaction. As Visiting Assistant Professor at the Catholic University of Portugal, he teaches both MBA and executive education courses and workshops on emotional intelligence and managing people. Lopes has also taught at INSEAD, in France, as Adjunct Professor of Organizational Behavior. His research focuses on the development of interpersonal and emotional competencies in adulthood, and he has published more than 15 journal articles and book chapters on these topics. Before starting his academic career, he worked for 13 years in business and journalism, and co-directed an award-winning documentary film. Brad L. Lytle is a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests include understanding the psychological antecedents and consequences of moral conviction, and procedural, distributive, and retributive justice. Susan Elaine Murphy is Associate Professor of Psychology and Associate Director of Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College. Her research interests include self-mechanisms for leadership including selfefficacy, self-management, and stereotype threat, as well as follower


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perceptions. She is currently editing a book from the 2007 Kravis de Roulet conference on The Early Seeds of Leadership: Developing the Next Generation of Leaders. Her most recent book, Power Mentoring: How Successful Mentors and Prote´ge´s Get the Most Out of Their Relationships (with Dr. Ellen Ensher), was published by Jossey-Bass. Judith L. Nye is Associate Professor of Psychology and Associate Vice President for the First-Year Experience at Monmouth University, New Jersey. Her specialization is in experimental social psychology with primary interests in social cognition and group processes. Her current research focuses on leadership as viewed through the eyes of the follower, college transitions, and how students make sense of their world. Rick O’Gorman is a lecturer in psychology at Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom. His research topics include leadership, cooperation, prosociality, morality, and evolutionary models of altruism. He has published in both social and evolutionary journals including Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Evolution and Human Behavior, and Human Nature, as well as providing commentary to the BBC. He has served as a reviewer for a variety of journals (British Journal of Social Psychology, Group Dynamics, Human Nature, and Adaptive Behavior) and for the National Science Foundation. James M. Olson obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Waterloo and has been a faculty member at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, since 1978. Jim served as Chair of the Psychology Department from 1998 to 2003. Jim has conducted research on many topics, including attitudes, justice, social cognition, and humor. He has published more than 100 articles and chapters and has edited 10 books. He is a co-organizer of the Ontario Symposium on Personality and Social Psychology, a well-known series of conferences on various topics in personality and social psychology. Jim has served as an associate editor of three scientific journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Attitudes and Social Cognition Section) from 1995 to 1998. He is a fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Tom Pyszczynski received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Kansas in 1980 and is currently Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and Director of Research for the University’s Trauma, Health, and Hazard Center. He, along with Sheldon Solomon and Jeff Greenberg, has been involved in the development and testing of Terror Management Theory, which explores the role played by the fear of death in cultural beliefs and values, self-esteem, and diverse forms of human behavior. His work is currently especially focused on applying the theory to the issues of terrorism, political extremism, and rigidity in thinking. He is

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co-author of The Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology, In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror, and Hanging on and Letting Go: Understanding the Onset, Progression, and Remission of Depression, along with numerous articles in professional journals. Rebecca J. Reichard is Assistant Professor in the School of Leadership Studies at Kansas State University. She earned her doctorate in business from the Gallup Leadership Institute at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She also completed a fellowship with the U.S. Army Research Institute’s Leader Development Research Unit in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and served as postdoctoral research fellow of leadership and organizational psychology at the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College. Rebecca’s research emphasizes aspects of the self as related to leader development. Specifically, her dissertation examined the impact of self-discrepancy and feedback on leader self-development in the U.S. military. Heidi R. Riggio is Assistant Professor of Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles. She earned her Bachelor and Master of Arts in Psychology at California State University, Fullerton, and her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at Claremont Graduate University. She also received a two-year postdoctoral fellowship from the Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children at Claremont McKenna College (with Dr. Diane Halpern). Her research interests include attitudes in personal relationships, family relationships in young adulthood (including adult sibling relationships), social identity and persuasion, features of the family of origin (including maternal employment and parental divorce) and outcomes in young adulthood, and critical thinking. She has also published teaching materials focusing on critical thinking and industrial/organizational psychology. Ronald E. Riggio is the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology and Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College. He received his BS in psychology from Santa Clara University and MA and Ph.D. in social/personality psychology from the University of California, Riverside. Professor Riggio is the author of over 100 books, book chapters, and research articles in the areas of leadership, assessment centers, organizational psychology, and social psychology. His research work has included published studies on the role of social skills and emotions in leadership potential and leadership success, the use of assessment center methodology for student outcome assessment, empathy, social intelligence, and charisma. His most recent books are The Practice of Leadership (JosseyBass, 2007), Applications of Nonverbal Behavior (co-edited with Robert S. Feldman; Erlbaum, 2005), and Transformational Leadership (2nd ed.), coauthored with Bernard M. Bass (Erlbaum, 2006).


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Peter Salovey completed his undergraduate work in psychology and sociology at Stanford University and his doctorate in psychology at Yale University, where he was appointed to the faculty in 1986. He is now Dean of Yale College and the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology. Salovey has authored or edited 13 books translated into seven different languages and published about 300 journal articles and essays, focused primarily on human emotion and health behavior. With John D. Mayer, he developed the framework called ‘‘Emotional Intelligence,’’ the theory that just as people have a range of intellectual abilities, they also have a range of measurable emotional skills that profoundly affect their thinking and action. Salovey and his collaborators have developed ability tests of emotional intelligence now in use around the world. In his research on health behavior, Salovey investigates the effectiveness of health promotion messages in persuading people to change risky behaviors relevant to cancer and HIV/AIDS. Dean Keith Simonton is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Davis. After earning a BA in psychology from Occidental College, he obtained a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University. His research concentrates on various aspects of genius, creativity, and leadership—the leadership studies focusing on the performance of U.S. presidents. He has authored over 340 publications, including nine books. He has been honored with the William James Book Award, the George A. Miller Outstanding Article Award, the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Contributions to Psychology and the Arts, the Theoretical Innovation Prize in Personality and Social Psychology, the Sir Francis Galton Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Study of Creativity, the President’s Award from the National Association for Gifted Children, the Award for Excellence in Research from the Mensa Education and Research Foundation, and the Robert S. Daniel Award for Four Year College/University Teaching. Niro Sivanathan is a Ph.D. candidate in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. His research focuses broadly on the impact of psychological and economic incentives on judgments and behavior, with interests in trust development, dynamics of power, reputation mechanisms, and methods to de-bias decisions. His current work examines scurrilous competitive behaviors that arise from promotion tournaments. His research has appeared or is set to appear in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes and the Journal of Applied Psychology. Linda J. Skitka received her Ph.D. in 1989 from the University of California at Berkeley. She is presently a full professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and her research interests include political psychology, procedural and distributive justice, and the study of moral conviction. She is currently the president of the International Society for Justice Research, and serves on numerous editorial boards, including the Journal of Personality and

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Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and Basic and Applied Social Psychology. Sheldon Solomon is Professor of Psychology and Ross Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore College. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Kansas in 1980. As an experimental social psychologist, his interests include the nature of self, consciousness, and social behavior. His work with Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski exploring the effects of the uniquely human awareness of death on individual and social behavior has been supported by the National Science Foundation and Ernest Becker Foundation and was recently featured in the award-winning documentary film Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality; he is co-author of In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror (2003, American Psychological Association Books) and co-founder of The World Leaders Project. Mark Van Vugt is Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. He studies leadership from an evolutionary perspective. He is the chief editor of the book Cooperation in Society: Promoting the Welfare of Communities, States, and Organisations with M. Snyder, T. Tyler, and A. Biel (Routledge, 2000), and co-author of the student textbook Applying Social Psychology: From Problems to Solutions (Sage Publishers, 2008). His work on leadership has appeared in major journals in psychology (including the American Psychologist and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) and in the media, and it has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, and the British Academy. He sits on the editorial boards of various journals in social psychology and is chair of the Evolution and Social Sciences group at the University of Kent. Stephen J. Zaccaro is a professor of psychology at George Mason University. He has published widely in the areas of leadership, leader development, and team dynamics. He also serves on the editorial board of Leadership Quarterly. He has written a book titled, The Nature of Executive Leadership: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis of Success (2001) and has co-edited three other books, Occupational Stress and Organizational Effectiveness (1987), The Nature of Organizational Leadership: Understanding the Performance Imperatives Confronting Today’s Leaders (2001), and Leader Development for Transforming Organizations (2004). He has also consulted with the Army and various other organizations on issues related to both leadership development and team dynamics.

Index ABB, 279 Abdollahi, A., 55 Abilities. See Competence Ability model, 79–80 Aborigines, 269–70 Abortion, 304, 307, 310 Absolute monarchs, 137 Abstract conceptualization, 23, 288–89 Accountability, 295–96. See also Evaluation of leaders; Selfregulation Acton, Lord, 9 Adaptation. See Evolutionary social psychology Aditya, R., 17–18 Adjective Check List, 138 Adolescents, 90 Affect, defined, 93 n.1 Affirmative actions, 175–76, 178 African Americans, 166, 175–76. See also Minorities Afterlife, 47

Age and leadership, 275–76 Agreeableness, 18–19 Alcohol, 304 Alexander the Great, 33 Alger, Horatio, 184 Ali, Muhammad, 185 Allen, M., 206 Alliger, G.M., 15 Allison, S. T., 184–85 Allport, G. W., 1–2, 150 The Allure of Toxic Leaders (Lipman-Blumen), 57 Alsop, Marin, 170 American Psychological Association, 88–89 Ancestral environments. See Hunter-gatherer societies Anderson, C., 292, 294 Animals, 269, 279 n.2 Ann Hopkins, Price Waterhouse v., 172 Anxiety. See Terror management theory (TMT)

326 Appearances (of influence), 67, 275–76. See also Perceiving leaders Appearances (physical), 123, 204, 210 Apple Inc., 33–34 Appraisals. See Evaluation of leaders Aronson, E., 2, 13, 192 Arthur, M. B., 36 Articulation skills. See Speaking and communications skills Arvey, R. D., 20 ASA (Attraction-Selection-Attrition) model, 20 Asch, S., 120 Assassinations, 5, 105, 132, 136–41, 142– 45, 188, 270. See also Martyrs; Sympathetic figures as inspirational leaders Assessments. See Evaluation of leaders Assumptions. See Implicit leadership theories (ILTS) Attachment theory, 55 Attila the Hun, 57 Attitudes, 200, 312 n.1. See also Morality/moral convictions Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) model, 20 Attractiveness of leaders, 123, 204, 210 Attributional ambiguity, 176–77 Attribution errors, 32, 275 Atwater, L. E., 258, 259 Authentic leaders, 16, 253 Authority independence hypotheses, 303–8. See also Obedience to authority Automobile accidents, 271 Autonomy, 18–20 Avolio, B. J., 16, 252, 253, 259, 286 Baboons, 279 n.2 Bacon, Francis, 187 Bailey, T. A., 134, 135 Bakan, D., 106 Bales, R. F., 121–22 Bandura, A., 8, 254 Barenbaum, N. B., 296 Barrick, M. R., 18

Index Bass, B. M., 16, 40, 286 Batson, C. D., 183 Bauman, C. W., 307 Bay of Pigs invasion, 7, 230–47; CIA’s assessments and advice, 236–40; concern for Kennedy’s reputation, 243; as imperfect example of groupthink, 245; Kennedy as a cold warrior, 240–41, 244, 246; Kennedy as pragmatic intellect, 246; Kennedy on failure of invasion, 235–36; Kennedy on presidential decision-making process, 231; Kennedy’s advisors, 233– 34; participants’ self-censorship, 241– 42; as ‘‘perfect failure’’ in decision making, 233; planning of the invasion, 233–34; political risks and considerations, 236–37, 239, 240–42, 243– 44; reassessing the Janis brief, 233–44; simultaneous or co-occurring events, 234–35; skepticism expressed by Kennedy, 236–37, 238–40; theoretical and practical implications of research on, 244–47. See also Groupthink Beaty, J. C., Jr., 18–19 Becker, Ernest, 46–47, 49, 56 Bees, 269 Behaviors: attitudes as predictors of, 312 n.1; increased by power, 287–88, 292–93; moral convictions as predictors of, 303. See also Implicit leadership theories (ILTS) Beliefs: in cultural worldviews, 47–48; defined, 200; as focus of social cognitive perspectives, 102; implicit morality beliefs, 222–23; moral convictions reflected by, 302; of negotiators, 215, 217–27; responses to people with different beliefs, 47–48. See also Morality/moral convictions; Religion Bentsen, Lloyd, 150, 160, 162 Bergeron, D. M., 175 Berke, R., 50 Bias: in assessing presidential greatness,

Index 134–35; implicit leadership theories (ILTS), 123–25; in self-judgments, 81– 83, 88, 91, 127, 258, 259 Biden, Joseph, 150, 162, 172 Big-L leadership, 133 Big Men in traditional band societies, 270, 272, 273, 274, 277. See also Hunter-gatherer societies Bin Laden, Osama, 53 Bird, C., 13 Birds, 269 Bissell, Richard, 236, 237–39 Blacks, 166, 175–76. See also Minorities Blair, Tony, 267 Blessing, T. H., 135, 137, 138, 145 Blink (Gladwell), 167–68 Bloomberg, Michael, 185 Boadecia, 69 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 283 Bono, J. E., 16 Born leaders (fixed abilities), 3, 7, 218, 257 Bowles, Chester, 237, 242, 243 Boyatzi, R. E., 21 Bray, D. W., 21 Brewer, M. B., 253 Brown, D. J., 253 Buchanan, James, 134 Bundy, McGeorge, 241–42 Burke, Edmund, 192 Burns, J. M., 63, 243, 286 Bush, George H. W., 155, 157, 304 Bush, George W.: as charismatic leader, 46, 50–53, 55, 275; divided government presided over, 295–96; Kerry compared to, 35, 52–53; MS studies, 50–53, 55, 56–57; presidential debates, 151, 156–59, 162; support as result of Americans’ fear of death, 46, 50–53, 55, 275; as top dog leader, 185; as wartime leader, 35 Cacioppo, J. T., 201–2 Calder, B. J., 125 Cantor, N., 251

327 Car accidents, 271 Carli, L. L., 166 Carnahan, Melvin, 182, 183, 187–88 Carter, Jimmy, 33 Carter Racing simulation, 224 Caruso, D. R. See Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) Castro, Fidel. See Cuba Celebrity status of leaders, 32 CEOs (chief executive officers), 32, 35, 166 Challenger disaster, 224 Challenges, overcoming. See Sympathetic figures as inspirational leaders Chan, K., 21 Charisma and charismatic leadership, 30–41; allure of, 49–56; attractiveness of leaders and, 32; attributes associated with, 16; behaviors and skills, 38–40; Christian roots of, 31; compared to predecessors, 35; as component of transformational leadership, 86; constructed by group processes, 68; crisis conditions and, 34–35, 274–75; of cult leaders, 31, 34, 35; diabolical examples of, 31, 36, 57; effects on self-concepts of followers, 35–36; history of analysis of, 31; importance in hunter-gatherer societies, 277; intelligence correlating to, 142; leader effectiveness and, 7; leader identity and, 252; litmus test hypothesis and, 308; overview of, 3– 4, 31; as positive role models, 33–34; presidential greatness ratings corresponding with, 142; relationships and, 35–38; risk-taking behavior by, 39; ‘‘romance of leadership,’’ 127–28; sacrifices by leaders, 39; saintly examples of, 31, 46, 57; saint or sinner spectrum of, 57–58; of self-aware leaders, 259; social psychological dynamics of, 32–34, 40t, 45–58, 68,

328 251; speaking skills of, 39–40, 204–5, 210; terror management theory (TMT), 3–4, 46–58, 188–89; as viewed by inner circles, 35; visionary leaders as, 39; Weber’s definition, 31–32, 34, 45, 46, 51, 56, 57, 127; women rarely at top of lists of, 41 n.1. See also Implicit leadership theories (ILTs); Personal characteristics of leaders; Transformational leaders Charters, W. W., 13 Chen, S., 293 Cheney, Dick, 50 Chief executive officers (CEOs), 32, 35, 166. See also Upper level leadership (executive) Children, 90, 120 Chimpanzees, 269 Choice, 18–20 Christianity, 190. See also Religion Chrysler LLC, 34 Churchill, Winston, 31, 35 Cleveland, J. N., 18–19 Clinton, Bill: age at presidency, 104; emotional connection with followers, 38; greatness rating, 140; New Hampshire primary, 160; presidential debates, 151, 155; sexual indiscretions of, 33, 140, 160 Clinton, Hillary, 165, 166, 170 CNN poll, 141 Cognitive dissonance theory, 192, 256 Cognitive perspectives of leaders, 5, 116, 123. See also Implicit leadership theories (ILTs) Cognitive underpinnings of moral mandate effects, 311 Cohen, F., 49–50, 52–53 Cohen, J. E., 140–41 Collective self, 64, 253 Comforth, B., 252 Communications skills. See Speaking and communications skills Competence, 5, 106–11, 210. See also Intelligence

Index Competition, 8 Compliance, 204. See also Obedience to authority Conducting orchestras, 170 Conflict resolution, 221–22, 274. See also Negotiators/negotiations; Problem solving Conger, J. A., 16, 38, 39, 86 Congress, 166 Conscientiousness, 18–19, 23 Consideration dimensions, 109–10 Constituents. See Followers The Contender (film), 283 Contextual performance, 18–19. See also Situational moderators Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness, 111 Controversies, 5, 9, 143. See also Morality/moral convictions Coordination, 63 Corruption from power, 9. See also Scandals Craig, D. R., 13 Credibility, 202, 203, 209 Crisis conditions, 32, 34–35, 45, 46, 271, 275. See also Problem solving; Situational moderators; Terror management theory (TMT) Crocker, J., 176 Cross, S., 254 C-Span Survey of Presidential Leadership, 140 Cuba: Cuban missile crisis, 7, 153; Gonza´lez, Eliań, 305–6. See also Bay of Pigs invasion Cult leaders, 31, 34, 35 Cultural worldviews, 47–49, 56, 108, 119, 188–89, 288, 294–95. See also Mortality salience (MS) Curiosity, 23 Darwin, Charles, 268 Das, E. H. H. J., 207–8 Davies, P. G., 173–74, 175 Day, D. V., 14, 17

Index Death, 46, 271, 275. See also Crisis conditions; Deceased leaders; Terror management theory (TMT) Debates. See Presidents, debates Deceased leaders: assassinations, 5, 6, 105, 132, 136–41, 142–45, 188, 270; death positivity bias, 187–88, 189, 191, 192–93; deification of, 182, 183– 89; frozen in time effect, 188; martyrs, 189–92; permanent positive remembrances of their leaders, 189, 192; posthumous legacies, crafting before death, 193; terror management theory (TMT) and, 188–89. See also Sympathetic figures as inspirational leaders Decision making: authority independence and litmus test hypotheses, 303–8; influenced by emotions, 81; by overconfident leaders, 291–92; as social events, 245– 46; unbiased, 224. See also Bay of Pigs invasion; Negotiators/negotiations; Problem solving De Cremer, D., 70–72 Deference to authority. See Obedience to authority Depersonalization, 65. See also Prototypes Despotic leaders, 8, 9 De Vader, C. L., 15, 118 De Wit, J. B. F., 207–8 Diana, Princess, 188 Dillard, J. P., 207 Disclaimers, 205, 210 Discrimination. See Stigmatized leaders Dole, Bob, 151, 156, 157–58 Dominance, 21, 22, 23, 272–73. See also Power and leadership Drasgow, F., 21 Droge, A., 189 Duck, J. M., 70–72 Due process, 311 Dukakis, Michael, 157, 158–59 Dulles, Allen, 236–37, 240

329 Duty. See Obedience to authority Dweck, Carol, 217, 222 Eagly, A. H., 124, 166 Eden, D., 118, 128 EEA (environment of evolutionary adaptedness), 8–9, 269–70 Effectiveness of leaders, 20–24, 308–12. See also Evaluation of leaders EI. See Emotional intelligence Eisenberg, N., 183 Eisenhower, Dwight: on Cuba, 234, 235– 36, 238, 239, 240, 241; Kennedy’s criticism of, 240; as war hero, 138, 143 Ekman, P., 89–90 Elaboration Likelihood Model, 156, 201 Elder, R. E., 138–39 Elections. See Presidents (U.S.) Elephants, 279 n.2 Emotional intelligence (EI), 78–93; ability model, 79–80; bias in self-judgments, 81–82, 83, 88, 91; broader views of, 82–83; described, 4, 78; difficulty in separating from social skills, 84; emotions as contagious, 80; full range leadership model, 86; implications for leader development, 89–92; influence of emotions on the way people think, 81; IQ vs., 78–79; Laissez-faire management, 86; leader-member exchange theory, 86–87; Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), 82, 84–85, 88; motivational states related to, 80; nonverbal communication, 80; problem solving facilitated by, 81; situational approach to leadership, 87; skills approach, 87; theory and research, 78–79, 81–90; 360-degree assessments, 83, 91, 258, 259; as a trained skill, 90–92; transformational leadership and, 86. See also Emotions Emotions: defined, 92–93 n.1; emotional communications, 39–40;

330 endorsements of underdogs, 6; of followers shaped by effective leaders, 37–38, 189, 192–93; implicit emotion beliefs, 222; leaders inspired by emotions of followers, 37–38; moral convictions associated with, 303; negative emotions used to build follower commitment, 41 n.2. See also Emotional intelligence (EI) Empathy, 183, 277. See also Emotions; Sympathetic figures as inspirational leaders Emrich, C. G., 128, 252 Encyclopedia of Leadership (Goethals et al.), 63 Endorsement from followers, 21 Ensher, E. A., 253, 255 Entity theorists, 217–27 Entrepreneurial organizations, 34–35 Environmental context, sensitivity to, 38 Environment of evolutionary adaptiveness (EEA), 8–9, 269–70 Epitropaki, O., 72, 118–19 Erickson, B., 205 Escape from Freedom (Fromm), 49 ESP (evolutionary social psychology), 268. See also Evolutionary social psychology Ethics. See Morality/moral convictions Ethnicity. See Cultural worldviews; Minorities Evaluation of leaders: feedback from multiple sources, 258–59; implicit leadership theories (ILTS), 120–23; prestige-based leadership, 273–74; self-judgments, 81–83, 88, 91, 127, 258, 259; self-monitoring dispositions, 21, 22; 360-degree assessments, 83, 91, 258, 259; of women, 123, 124– 26, 170–72. See also Accountability; Self-awareness Evolutionary social psychology, 267–79; contemporary evidence for ancestral leadership psychology, 271–77; described, 268; early human species,

Index 268–70; mismatch hypothesis, 268, 270–71, 273–74, 275; origins of leadership, 268–70; overview of, 8–9, 267–68 Executives. See Chief executive officers (CEOs); Upper level leadership Exemplars, 101, 104–5 Extraversion, 18–19, 21, 23 Facial expressions, 89–90. See also Nonverbal communication Failure of leaders, 8–9, 267–68. See also Scandals Fairness, 7 Faith, 47. See also Beliefs; Religion Faschingbauer, T. R., 140 Fazio, R. H., 151 Fear, 46, 271. See also Terror management theory (TMT) Feedback. See Evaluation of leaders Feelings. See Emotions Feinstein, J., 176 Female leaders. See Women Ferstl, K. L., 259 Fiedler, F. E., 15 Fielding, K. S., 70–72 First Ladies, 139 Fiske, S. T., 13–14 Five-factor model of personality and leadership, 16 Fixed abilities of leaders. See Born leaders Fixed pie belief, 215–16, 217 Fleishman, E. A., 22–23 Flores, Hector M., 167 Followers: authority independence and litmus test hypotheses, 304–8; destructive power of obedience to authority, 300–302, 309–10; dominance as the antithesis of leadership, 272–73; as focus of social identity theory, 64; implicit leadership beliefs, 224; implicit subordinate beliefs, 223–24; leveling mechanisms of, 270; Milgram’s

Index experiments, 300–301, 303, 309–10; prototypical band leadership, 272. See also Evolutionary social psychology Ford, Gerald, 138, 151 Forsyth, D. R., 118, 121–22, 125–26 Fortune 500 companies, 166. See also Chief executive officers (CEOs) Foti, R. J., 21, 22, 23–24, 118, 124, 255 Frankel, M., 242 Freud, Sigmund: on despotic leaders, 8, 9; Group Psychology and the Analysis of Ego, 2; on leaders’ articulation skills, 6; on perceptions of justice in effective leadership, 7; on personal qualities of leaders, 3; on self-assessments, 56; social identity theory-based approach, 4 Friedman, H. S., 37 Fromm, Eric, 49 Frozen in time effect, 188 Full range leadership model, 86 Fundamental attribution error, 32, 275 Galbraith, J. K., 56, 57 Galinsky, A.: on negotiators, 216–17, 225; on power and leadership, 288, 289, 290, 291–92, 293–94 Gallup polls, 169, 171 Gambling, 296 Gandhi, Mohandas, 31, 36, 46, 57, 63 Gardner, W. L., 16, 23, 252, 253, 258, 259 Gates, Bill, 185 Gates, Daryl, 305 Gender: ancestral leadership psychology, 276–77; competition for status benefits, 279; Gallup polls on, 169, 171; ILT influenced by, 120, 122, 124–26; leader images moderated by, 108; negotiation skills by, 216–17; perceptions and responses to stigmatized leaders, 169–72. See also Men; Stigmatized leaders; Women General Motors, 226 Genetic evolution. See Environment of evolutionary adaptiveness (EEA)

331 George, J. M., 87 Gerhardt, M. W., 16 Gestalt psychology, 102 Gibb, C. A., 14, 17 Gilbert, D. T., 13–14 Gladwell, Malcolm, 167–68 ‘‘Glass ceiling,’’ 166. See also Stigmatized leaders Global warming, 199–200, 203, 204–5, 208–9, 210 GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) research project, 119, 272, 273 Goals, 63, 218, 289. See also Self-regulation Goethals, G. R., 63, 161, 171 Goffman, E., 167 Goleman, D., 79 Gonzales v. the State of Oregon, 306–7 Gonza´lez, Eliań, 305–6 Goodwin, V. L., 252–53 Google, Inc., 34 Gordijn, E. H., 293–94 Gore, Al: debates, 151, 160; on global warming, 199–200, 203, 204–5, 208–9, 210 GoreTex, 279 Grant, Ulysses S., 134, 138 Greek culture, 188, 189 Green, S. G., 255 Greenberg, J., 48, 49–50, 52–53, 188 Group behavior: of animals, 269, 279 n.2; changing leadership during intergroup conflict, 274; ingroups, 65–66; intergroup conflict, 274, 279; as leveling mechanism, 270; motivation of followers, 36–37; outgroups, 65–66; perceived success of leaders connected to group outcomes, 123; Pygmalion effect, 36–37; within social identity theory, 64. See also Evolutionary social psychology; Bay of Pigs invasion Group Psychology and the Analysis of Ego (Freud), 2

332 Groupthink. See Bay of Pigs invasion Gruenfeld, D. H., 290, 291 Gubernatorial candidates MS study, 53–56 Hafer, C. L., 202–3 Hains, S. C., 70, 71f Hall, R. J., 253, 257 Halo effects, 83, 88. See also Bias Halverson, S. K., 255 Handbook of Social Psychology (Levine and Moreland), 17 Handbook of Social Psychology (Lindzey and Aronson), 2 Harding, F. D., 22–23, 135 Harding, Warren, 123, 134 Harley, K., 72 Hart, P. ’t, 246–47 Hauenstein, N. M. A., 22, 23–24, 255 Health status of leaders, 275–76 Hedges (in speech), 205, 210 Heider, F., 185–86 Heilborn, J., 184–85 Heilman, M. E., 170 Heroic glory, 32, 45–46. See also Crisis conditions; Wartime leaders Hierarchical organizations, 291 Higgins, T., 239 Hinduism, 190 Hiring decisions. See Selection of leaders Hispanics, 166, 176–77. See also Minorities Hitler, Adolf, 31, 35, 41 n.2, 46, 57, 277 Hoar, S., 72 Hogg, M. A., 70, 72, 169, 251 Hollander, Edwin, 33 Holmes, J. E., 138–39 Honey bees, 269 Hopkins, Ann, 172 House, R. J., 16, 17–18, 35, 36 House of Representatives, 166 Howard, A., 21 Howell, R. J., 34 Hoyt, C. L., 255

Index Hunter-gatherer societies: Big Men, 270, 272, 273, 274, 277; gender and leadership, 276–77; importance of charisma, 277; leadership within intergroup relations, 274–75; modern companies following model of, 279; odd correlates of leadership, 275–76; prestige-based leadership, 273–74; separating the person from the role of leader, 275. See also Evolutionary social psychology Huy, Q. N., 87 Iacocca, Lee, 34 Idealized influence. See Charisma and charismatic leadership Identification and persuasion, 204 Idiosyncrasy credit model, 33, 111 Ilies, R., 16 ILTs. See Implicit leadership theories Immoral behaviors. See Morality/moral convictions; Scandals Implicit leadership theories (ILTs), 116– 29; accuracy and bias, 123–26; being a leader and, 125–26; and the eye of the follower, 126–28; gender influenced, 120, 122; leadership appraisals, 120– 23; overview of, 105–6, 116–20; prototype-matching hypothesis, 121– 22, 124–25; qualities associated with, 118–19; revision of assessments, 128–29 Implicit negotiation beliefs, 215, 217–27; conflict handing styles, 221–22; described, 217–18; implicit emotion beliefs, 222; implicit morality beliefs, 222–23; implicit subordinate beliefs, 223–24 Imprisonment, 181, 182 An Inconvenient Truth, 199–200, 203, 204– 5, 208–9, 210 Incremental theorists, 217–27, 257 Independent self-construals, 253–54 Individual level within leader identity, 253

Index Ineffective leadership, 119 Inesi, M. E., 290 Influence. See Motivators/motivation; Power and leadership Ingroups, 65–66 Initiating structure dimensions, 109–10 Innovation, 24, 67–68, 111, 273 Inspiration. See Motivators/motivation; Sympathetic figures as inspirational leaders Instrumental attention, 290–91 Instrumentalism, 308 Integrated theory of moral conviction (ITMC), 302–3 Integrity, 16 Intelligence, 22, 78–79, 142, 144. See also Competence; Emotional intelligence (EI); Presidents (U.S.), predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings Interdependent self-construals, 253–54 Intergroup conflict, 274, 279 Internalization, 204 Intragroup conflict, 279 Inuit, 269–70 IQ, 78–79. See also Intelligence Iraq, 73, 296. See also Wartime leaders Islam, 190 ITMC (integrated theory of moral conviction), 302–3 Ivan the Terrible, 57 Jackson, Andrew, 138, 143 Jacobs, T. O., 19, 22–23 Jacobson, G. C., 50–51 Jago, A. G., 17 Jamieson, K. H., 156–57 Janis, I. L., 230, 231–47. See also Bay of Pigs invasion Jaques, E., 19 Jesus Christ, 46, 57, 190 Jobs, Steve, 33–34, 185 Johnson, Andrew, 105, 134 Johnson, D., 70, 71f Johnson, J. W., 259 Johnson, Lyndon B., 105, 160

333 Johnson, S. J., 24 Johnson, W., 20 Jones, Jim, 31, 34, 36, 38 Joplin, J. R. W., 252 Journalists. See Media Judaism, 190 Judge, T. A., 16, 21, 23 Judgments. See Decision making; Evaluation of leaders Jungian hero archetype, 184 Justice, 7 Kahn, R. L., 19 Kammrath, L. K., 222 Kanungo, R. N., 16, 38, 39, 86 Katz, D., 19 Kelman, H. C., 204 Keltner, D., 287 Kennedy, J. K., Jr., 118 Kennedy, John F.: age at presidency, 104; assassination, 105, 188; as charismatic leader, 30, 38; as a cold warrior, 240– 41, 244, 246; Cuban missile crisis, 7, 153; emotional connection with followers, 38; management style, 243–44; on negotiations, 7; Nixon compared to, 35, 150–52; perceived competency and legitimacy of, 9; as pragmatic intellect, 246; presidential greatness assessment, 134; sexual indiscretions of, 33; trait-focused spin, 156. See also Bay of Pigs invasion Kenney, P. J., 138 Kenny, D. A., 21 Kerry, John, 35, 52–53, 161–62 Kierkegaard, Soren, 189 Kihlstrom, J. F., 251 Kim, J., 186, 193 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 31, 36, 168, 185 King, Rodney, 304–5 Kipnis, D., 286–87 Kissinger, Henry, 116–18, 123–24, 128 Knowledge structure, 102. See also Social cognitive perspectives

334 Koresh, David, 31, 34 Kosloff, S., 53 Kraus, Sidney, 151–52 Kray, L. J., 216–17, 225 !Kung San, 269–70 Kynerd, T., 135 Laissez-faire management, 86 Lakoff, G., 55 Lammers, J., 293–94 Landau, M. J., 51 Laswell, H., 156 Latinos, 166, 176–77. See also Minorities Leadership: definitions of, 284, 285; leader-member exchange theory, 86– 87; leader role occupancy, 19, 20–22; leadership categorization theory, 105; leadership role seeking, 20–21; leadership substitutes theory, 19; management vs., 63; selection of, 123, 273 (see also Presidents (U.S.), elections); skills approach, 87 Leary, M. R., 125–26 Least Preferred Co-worker Scale (LPC), 111 Le Bon, G., 2, 4 Legacies, 193. See also Deceased leaders Legitimacy of leaders, 9, 67–68, 293–94 Leveling mechanisms, 270 Leviatan, U., 118, 128 Levine, J. M., 17 Light, P. C., 136 Likability, 2, 7, 204, 210 Lincoln, Abraham, 105, 134, 135, 187 Lindzey, G., 2, 13–14 Lipman-Blumen, J., 45, 57 Lippitt, R., 2 Lippstreu, M., 256 Litmus test hypothesis, 304–8 The Little Engine That Could, 184 Little-l leadership, 133 Living History (Clinton), 170 Lord, R. G.: on implicit leadership theories (ILTS), 118, 119, 121, 124; on leader effectiveness, 23; leadership

Index definition, 127, 169; on leadership identity development, 253, 257; on metacognitive processes, 15, 252, 261 Los Angeles, 167, 304–5 Los Angeles Times, 58 Lower level leadership, 17–18, 24 LPC (Least Preferred Co-worker Scale), 111 Luthans, F., 16, 253 Magee, J. C., 290 Maher, K. J., 127, 169 Major, B., 176 Malleable abilities of leaders, 7. See also Born leaders (fixed abilities) Management vs. leadership, 63 Managerial performance, 18–19 Mandela, Nelson, 36, 181, 182, 183, 185, 285 Mankad, A., 72 Mann, R. D., 15 Manson, Charles, 46 Maranell, G. M., 135, 136 March, J. G., 245 Markus, H., 254 Martin, R., 72, 118–19 Martinko, M. J., 23 Martyrs, 189–92. See also Deceased leaders; Sacrifices by leaders Masser, B., 70, 71f Mastery goals, 23–24, 218 Mathy, M., 49 Maurer, T. J., 256 Maxfield, M., 49–50 May, D. R., 16 May, E. R., 235, 236 Mayer, J. D., 78–79, 81–82. See also Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), 82, 84–85, 88 McCann, S. J. H., 274–75 McCarthy, Eugene, 160 McClelland, D. C., 21 McCown, N. E., 125–26

Index McGovern, George, 160 McGregor, H. A., 49 McGue, M., 20 McIver, S. B., 135, 139–40 McNamara, Robert, 235 Media: coverage of dead celebrity leaders, 187–88; distance between leaders and followers reduced by, 277; presidential debate coverage, 150–52, 156–57, 162, 163; pre-Watergate, 240 Meindl, J. R., 127–28 Men: competition for status benefits, 279; expectations as leaders, 108; ILTs of, 120, 122, 124–26; leader image-maintenance by, 125; as leaders of hunter-gatherer societies, 276– 77; male leadership prototype activated by intergroup conflict, 279; negotiation skills of, 216–17; self-efficacy ratings, 255. See also Gender Mental representations. See Perceiving leaders Meta-analysis, defined, 206 Metaphors, 207, 208, 210, 246–47 Micro Expression Training Tool, 89–90 Milgram, Stanley, 300–301, 303, 309–10 Military intervention, 136. See also Wartime leaders Mills, J., 192 Minorities: affirmative actions, 175–76, 178; bias attributions vs., 172–73; as chief executive officers (CEOs), 166; as nondominant leaders, 5–6; stereotypes used in judging the degree of prototypicality, 169. See also Stigmatized leaders Mischel, W., 18 Mismatch hypothesis, 268, 270–71, 273– 74, 275 Monarchs, 137 Mondale, Walter, 153–55, 157–58 Morality/moral convictions, 300–312; authority independence and litmus

335 test hypotheses, 303–8; behavior of constituent members influenced by, 311–12; behaviors of leaders predicted by, 303; cognitive and motivational underpinnings of moral mandate effects, 311; definitions of, 301, 309; diversity in, 302; emotions associated with, 303; implicit morality beliefs, 222–23; integrated theory of moral conviction (ITMC), 302–3; leadership effectiveness and, 308–12; Milgram’s experiments, 300– 301, 303, 309–10; moral stake of followers in decision outcomes, 311; as motivation, 303; overview of, 9; perceived objectivity of, 303; risk-taking behavior by powerful leaders, 292. See also Beliefs; Values Moreland, R. L., 17 Morrison, D., 72 Mortality. See Death Mortality salience (MS), 47–58; Bush studies, 50–53, 55, 56–57; effects on implicit anti-Arab prejudice and anti-immigration attitudes, 55–56; elections guided by, 58; liberals’ vs. conservatives’ evaluation of gubernatorial candidates, 53–56 Motivators/motivation: as component of transformational leadership, 86; Emotional intelligence (EI) related to, 80; martyrs as, 191–92; moral convictions related to, 303, 311; motivated communicators, defined, 24; to obtain leadership roles, 20–22; Pygmalion effect, 36–37; related dispositional variables, 21; self-development behaviors and, 256–57. See also Persuasion; Power and leadership Motyl, M., 55–56 Mount, M. K., 18 MSCEIT (Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test), 82, 83–85, 88 Mugabe, Robert, 294

336 Mullen, E., 306, 307–8, 311 Multiple personality attributes, 19–24 Mumford, M. D., 19, 22–23, 24 Murnighan, J. K., 296 Murphy, K. R., 18–19 Murphy, S. E., 253, 254, 255 Murphy, L. B., and Murphy, G., 13 Murray, R. K., 135, 137, 138, 145 Musharraf, Pervez, 275, 294 Muskie, Edmund, 160 Myers, David, 58 Nadler, J., 307–8 Napoleon, 283 Narcissism, 8–9 Need for Cognition (NFC), 156, 158–59 Negative leader attributes, 273 Negative stereotypes. See Stigmatized leaders Negotiators/negotiations, 213–27; effective negotiator beliefs, 216–17; fixed pie belief, 215–16, 217; implicit negotiation beliefs, 215, 217–27; importance of reputations, 225; Kennedy on, 7; negotiability beliefs, 216; overview of, 7; perceptions of high-power negotiators, 290; process described, 214–15; risk-taking behavior by powerful leaders, 225–26, 292; trade-off negotiators, 226; willingness to negotiate, 226–27. See also Conflict resolution Neuroticism, 18–19 Neustadt, R. E., 235, 236 New Hampshire primary, 160 The New York Times, 50, 162 NFC (Need for Cognition), 156, 158–59 9/11 Terror attacks, 35, 50, 191, 275 Nixon, Richard: criticism of Kennedy, 247 n.2; Kennedy’s criticism of, 240; Kissinger on, 116–18, 123–24, 128; presidential debates, 35, 150–52. See also Watergate Nondominant leaders. See Stigmatized leaders

Index Nonverbal communication, 80, 89–90. See also Emotional intelligence (EI) Norms and values of groups, 33 Norm theory, 104 Norton, M., 161 Nye, J. L., 118, 121–22 Obama, Barack, 166, 167 Obedience to authority: authority independence and litmus test hypotheses, 304–8; destructive power of, 300–302, 309–10; Milgram’s experiments, 300–301, 303, 309–10. See also Followers Obertynski, M. A., 202–3 Objectification by the powerful, 290–91 Ochsmann, R., 49 Offerman, L. R., 118 Ogilvie, D. M., 52–53 Ohio State University, 14, 127 O’Keefe, D. J., 206 Ones, D. S., 140 Openness, 23 Optimism, 288 Oratory skills. See Speaking and communications skills Orchestras, 170 Organizational adaptation, 23–24 Organization decision making. See Bay of Pigs invasion; Decision making Otten, S., 293–94 Outgroups, 65–66 Overbeck, J. R., 291 Overconfidence, 291–92 Paddock, L., 225 Paglis, L. L., 255 Palestinian suicide bombers, 190, 192 Park, B., 291 Parks, Rosa, 285 PAS (physician-assisted suicide), 306–7 Pattern approach to leadership and personality, 20, 24 Peoples Temple, 31, 34, 36, 38 Perceiving leaders: age of leaders, 276;

Index competence of leaders, 5, 106–11, 210; core dimensions in person perception, 106–11; exemplars, 101, 104–5; implicit leadership theories (ILTS), 116–29; leader image-maintenance, 125–26; moderated by culture and gender, 108; overview of, 4–6; performance cue effect, 123; roots of conferred influence, 116–29; schemas, 101, 102–6; warmth, perceptions of, 5, 106–11. See also Presidents (U.S.), predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings; Prototypes; Situational moderators; Social cognitive perspectives; Social identity theory; Stigmatized leaders Perceptions by leaders, 67, 127–28, 258, 289–90 Performance cue effect, 123 Performance goals and levels, 15, 18–19, 218. See also Evaluation of leaders Performance of followers, 192–93, 223–24 Personal appearances of leaders, 123, 204, 210 Personal characteristics of leaders, 13– 25; born leaders, 3, 7, 218, 257; five-factor model of personality and leadership, 16; historical review of research on, 13–17; innate temperamental dispositions as foundations of, 84; leader role occupancy, 19, 20– 22; leadership effectiveness and, 22– 24; likability, 7, 204, 210; multiple personality attributes, 19–24; nature of leadership situations, 17–20; overview of, 3–4; personality vs. situation typology, 17 (see also Situational moderators); poise, 7; self-assurance, 7; in small groups, 15. See also Charisma and charismatic leadership; Emotional intelligence (EI); Social identity theory Personality measures. See Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT)

337 Perspective taking, 295–96 Persuasion, 199–210; elaboration likelihood model, 201; implications for leaders, 209–10; message characteristics that increase, 205–10; Need for Cognition (NFC), 156, 158– 59; repetition as principle of, 6–7; source characteristics that increase, 203–5; types of, 201–3. See also Motivators/motivation; Speaking and communications skills Peter the Cruel, 57 Petty, R. E., 201–2 Physician-assisted suicide (PAS), 306–7 Pillutla, M. M., 296 Pinker, S., 271 Platow, M. J., 72 Plea bargaining, 202–3 Pleistocene period, 269–70 Poise, 7 Polite forms of speech, 205, 210 Political prisoners, 181, 182 Political social cognition, 5 Porteus, J., 49 Postman, L., 150 Power and leadership, 283–97; distinguishing from leadership, 284– 86; harnessing to become an effective leader, 295–97; leadership, defined, 284, 285–86; moderating the effects of, 293–95; as motivation to obtain leadership roles, 21; overview of, 283–84; pernicious psychological effects of, 289–93; positive psychological effects of, 204, 288–89; presidential greatness ratings corresponding with, 142, 143; psychological construct of, 286–88; as source characteristic that increases persuasiveness, 209. See also Dominance; Motivators/motivation Powerful speech, 205, 209, 210. See also Speaking and communications skills Powerless speech, 204–5, 210 Predecessors, 35

338 Predictors of leader role occupancy, 13 Prejudice. See Stigmatized leaders Presidential Greatness (Bailey), 134 Presidents (U.S.): ‘‘accidental presidents,’’ 142–43; assassinations, 5, 105, 132, 136–41, 142–45, 188; debates, 5, 149–63; debates, ambiguity of, 150; debates, evaluations of, 150–51; debates, importance of, 150; debates, media coverage of, 150–52, 156–57, 162, 163; debates, primaries vs., 160–61; debates, trait-focused spin (TFS), 156–60; debates, interactions of pre, 160–63; debates, simple conformity and debate perceptions, 152–55; elections, predictions of, 58; elections, primaries, 160–61; elections, shared prototype of being an American by polarized political groups, 73; idea leader trait studies, 109; perspective taking of presidents presiding over divided governments, 295–96; predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings, 132– 46; predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings, 1980s studies, 136–39; predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings, 1990s studies, 139; predictors of ’’greatness’’ ratings, 2000s studies, 139–41; predictors of ’’greatness’’ ratings, charisma correlating with, 142; predictors of ’’greatness’’ ratings, greatness ratings of First Ladies corresponding to, 139; predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings, individual vs. situational factors, 142–44; predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings, methodological issues, 141–42; predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings, objective performance vs. subjective attribution, 144–46; predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings, overview of, 5, 132–33; predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings, power motivation correlating with, 142; predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings, six variable prediction

Index equation, 132, 139–41, 142–46; predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings, theoretical interpretation, 142–46; predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings, criterion and methods of assessing, 134– 36; scandals, 5, 9, 33, 140, 143, 160, 296; social cognitive perspectives applied to, 102–3, 104–5; as viewed by inner circles, 35; wartime leaders, ancestral environments, 274; wartime leaders, as charismatic leaders, 30– 31, 35, 275; wartime leaders, greater support for leaders during, 35, 50, 275; wartime leaders, greatness predictors, 136–37, 138, 140, 141, 143, 144. See also specific presidents by name Prestige theory, 273–74 Price Waterhouse v. Ann Hopkins, 172 Problem solving, 22–24, 81. See also Crisis conditions; Decision making Procreation by leaders, 8 Prospect theory, 245 Protection motivation theory, 207–9, 210 Prototypes: described, 4, 65–66, 101, 103–4, 105; factors representing, 110; gender and ethnic stereotypes used in judging the degree of, 169; group members, 4; influence and effectiveness of leaders, 66, 70; lack of perfect leader image, 104, 107; mixed and unclear research results on, 107– 8; provided by ILTs, 121–22, 124–25; role requirements, 254–55; schemas vs., 103, 104; shared prototype of being an American by polarized political groups, 73; social identity theory and, 67–69, 251. See also Social identity theory Prototypical Band Leadership, 272 Psychological security. See Terror management theory (TMT) Psychologie des Foules (Le Bon), 2 Psychology, 1–3. See also specific disciplines by name

Index Public speaking. See Speaking and communications skills Pygmalion effect, 36–37 Pyszczynski, T., 49–50, 52–53, 55, 188

339

Quayle, Dan, 150, 160, 162

Rossiter, C. L., 134, 135 Rothschild, Z., 55 Rotundo, M., 20 Rubenzer, S. J., 140 Rusk, Dean, 237, 242 Russell, E., 70, 71f

Race. See Minorities Radio. See Media Ranney, A., 151 Readings in Social Psychology, 2 Reagan, Ronald: as charismatic leader, 30, 32–33; death of, 187–88; Gallup poll ranking, 187; media coverage of, 187–88; presidential debates, 150, 153–55, 162; as the ‘‘Teflon president,’’ 33 Reedy, G. E., 243 Reeves, R., 234, 236, 240 Reichard, R. J., 255–56, 257–58 Reid, S. A., 72 Relational identity, 253 Religion, 47, 190. See also Beliefs Religious cult leaders, 31, 34, 35 Remote Associates Test, 174 Reputations, 193, 225 Resources, 8 Responsibility. See Accountability Reverse discrimination, 173 Reynolds, K. L., 202–3 Rice, Condoleezza, 173 Rice, T. W., 138 Richardson, Bill, 166 Ridings, W. J., Jr., 135, 139–40 Riggio, R. E., 37 Risk-taking behavior, 39, 225–26, 292, 296 Rivalries, 8 Rogers, R. W., 207 Role modeling, 33, 34 Role schemas, 103. See also Schemas Roman culture, 189–90 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 173 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 31, 134, 275 Roosevelt, Theodore, 104

Sacrifices by leaders, 33–34, 39, 189–92. See also Deceased leaders Saints. See Martyrs Salovey, P., 78–79, 81–82. See also Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) Sanger, D., 50 Santayana, George, 181 Sashkin, M., 16 Satis, 190 Saturn cars, 226 Scandals, 5, 9, 33, 140, 143, 160, 296. See also Morality/moral convictions Scapegoats, 47 Schein, Virginia, 169–70 Schemas, 101, 102–6 Schlenker, B. R., 125–26 Schlesinger, A. M., 135, 137, 230, 238, 240, 242 Schneider, B., 20 Scientific psychology, 2 SCM (Stereotype Content Model), 106–7 Selection of leaders, 123, 273. See also Presidents (U.S.), elections Self, cultural definitions of, 294 Self-assurance, 7 Self-awareness, 35–36, 91–92, 254, 258– 59. See also Self-judgments Self-categorization, 65–67 Self-development, 252–54, 256–57 Self-discrepancy theory, 256–57 Self-efficacy, 22, 254–55, 257–58 Selfishness, 273 Self-judgments, 81–82, 83, 88, 91, 127, 258, 259. See also Evaluation of leaders; Self-regulation Self-management strategies, 255 Self-monitoring dispositions, 21, 22

340 Self-oriented behaviors, overview of, 7–8 Self-preservation, 47 Self-regulation, 250–61; Bandura’s theory, 8; defined, 252; developing perceptions of self-schema and leader identity, 252–54; implications for research in social psychology and leadership, 259–61; leader identity strength, 257; leader performance and, 254–55; the self and motivation to develop leadership, 255–58. See also Evaluation of leaders; Perceiving leaders; Self-awareness; Self-efficacy Self-report measures of emotional intelligence (EI), 81–82, 83, 88, 91 Self-schema, 8, 251–54 Self-transcendence, 16 Senate, 166 September 11 terror attacks, 35, 50, 191, 275 Sexual indiscretions, 33, 140, 160, 296 Shakur, Tupac, 188 Shamir, B., 34, 36 Shoshone, 269–70 Silicon Valley, 34–35 Similarity, 204, 210 Simmel, M., 185–86 Simon, L., 49 Simonton, D. K., 136–37, 138–40, 141 Sisyphus, King, 184 SITL (Social Identity Theory of Leadership), 251. See also Social identity theory Situational moderators: ambiguous situations, defined, 18–19; crisis conditions, 32; fundamental attribution error, 32, 275; historical review of research on, 14–15; ILT influenced by, 119–20; leader effectiveness and, 87; leadership role seeking precluded by, 22; lower level leadership, 17–18; overview of, 5; personality vs. situation typology, 17; presidential greatness predictors,

Index 142–44; self-schema and, 251–53; strong situations, defined, 18–19; upper level leadership (executive), 17–18; weak situations, defined, 18–20 Sivanathan, N., 291–92, 296 Skills approach, 87 Skitka, L. J., 306–7, 311 Small groups, 15 Smith, J. A., 22 Snakes, 271 Snyder, M., 40 Sociability, 23. See also Warmth, perceptions of Social cognitive perspectives, 101–12; Bandura’s theory, 254; core dimensions in person perception, 106–7; described, 251; focus on beliefs, 102; implicit leadership theories (ILTs), 105; lack of universal leader image, 107–9; leader images in trait studies, 109–10; situation-contingent leadership research and, 110–11. See also Perceiving leaders; Self-regulation Social exchange concepts, 33, 111 Social identity theory, 62–74; appearance of influence, 67; components of, 64–65; described, 64– 66, 169; emotions as contagious, 80; empirical evidence, 70–72; followship as focus of, 64; Freud’s approach, 4; gender and ethnic stereotypes used in judging the degree of prototypicality, 169; historical review of research on, 64– 66; identity strength, 257; leaders as entrepreneurs of identity, 68–69; leadership across multiple groups, 73; legitimacy, trust, and innovation, 67–68; prototypes and, 67–69, 251; salience raised or lowered by leaders, 69; social construction of charisma, 68; Social Identity Theory of Leadership (SITL), 251. See also Prototypes

Index Social judgment skills, 87 Social potency, 20, 21 Social problem solving, 22–24 Social psychology: evolutionary social psychology (ESP), 268; history and development of discipline, 1–3; roadblocks to full utilization in current leadership theorizing, 260– 61; Social Psychological Constructs Involved in Charismatic Leadership, 40t Social Psychology (Ross), 2 Social-role theory (Eagly), 124 Social scientific analyses, 31–32 Social stigma and leadership. See Stigmatized leaders Social vs. emotional skills, 84 Socioemotional leaders, 109–11 Socrates, 189–90 Sokolsky, E., 134, 135 Solomon, S., 49–50, 52–53, 188 Solon, 188 Sophocles, 188 Sopory, P., 207 Sorensen, Ted, 235 Sorenson, G. J., 63 Sosik, J. J., 259 Source credibility, 202, 203, 209 Spangler, W. D., 35 Speaking and communications skills: of charismatic leaders, 39–40, 204–5, 210; disclaimers, 205, 210; emotional intelligence (EI) and, 80; hedges, 205, 210; motivated communicators, 24; polite forms, 205, 210; powerful speech, 205, 209, 210; powerless speech, 204–5, 210; repetition as principle of powers of persuasion, 6– 7; selection of talkative leaders, 123; speech hesitations, 205, 210; of women, 277. See also Motivators/motivation; Persuasion Spencer, S. J., 173–74 Spiders, 271 Spin, 156–62

341 Stakeholders, 308 Stalin, Joseph, 275 Stanford Prison study, 296 State of Oregon, Gonzales v., 306–7 St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, 202–3 Steele, C. M., 173–74 Steele, Shelby, 175–76 Steeper, F. T., 151 Steinbrenner, George, 185 Stereotype Content Model (SCM), 106–7 Stereotypes, 5–6, 65, 173–74, 175. See also Prototypes; Stigmatized leaders Sternberg, R. J., 246 Stigmatized leaders, 5–6, 165–78; experiences of stigmatized leaders, 173–77; the glass ceiling turned labyrinth, 166–67; perceptions of and responses to stigmatized (subordinated) leaders, 168–73; social stigma, described, 167–68; stereotypes, 5–6, 65, 173–74, 175; underdogs, 6, 183–87, 191, 193. See also Gender; Minorities; Perceiving leaders Stockdale, James, 160 Stogdill, R. M., 284 Stranger anxieties, 271 Strategic risk. See Risk-taking behavior Stress, 254 Stroebe, W., 207–8 Strong speech. See Powerful speech Subordinated leaders. See Stigmatized leaders Subordinates. See Followers Succession, 35 Suffering. See Sympathetic figures as inspirational leaders Suicide, 190, 191–92. See also Martyrs Supino, A., 171 Svensson, A., 70, 71f, 72 Sympathetic figures as inspirational leaders, 181–93; characterization of, 182; deifying the dead, 182, 183–89; empathy, defined, 183; martyrs,

342 189–92; underdog leaders, 6, 183–87, 191, 193. See also Stigmatized leaders Sympathy. See Emotions Systematic Multiple Level Observation of Groups inventory (SYMLOG), 121–22 Tabor, J., 189 Tacit knowledge, 246 Task leaders, 109–11 Taylor, Zachary, 134 Television. See Media Teresa, Mother, 46 Terror management theory (TMT), 3–4, 46–58, 188–89 Tetlock, P. E., 245, 247 TFS (trait-focused spin), 156–60 Thatcher, Margaret, 69 Thomas, Clarence, 172–73 Thompson, L., 216–17 Thomson, J. C., 241–42 Thoughtful innovators, 24, 67–68, 111, 273 Threatening messages, 207–9, 210 360-degree Assessments, 83, 91, 258, 259 Thucydides, 188 Time Magazine, 51 TMT (Terror management theory), 3–4, 46–58, 188–89 Tolerance for ambiguity, 23 Top-down selection of leaders, 273 Toxic leaders, 57–58 Trait-focused spin (TFS), 156–60 Traits, 292–93. See also Implicit leadership theories (ILTS) Transformational leaders, 86, 90, 308. See also Charisma and charismatic leadership Transgressions by leaders. See Idiosyncrasy credit model; Scandals Trewhitt, Henry, 153–54 Truman, Harry S., 38 Trump, Donald, 185 Trust, 67–68, 111, 259, 271. See also Warmth, perceptions of

Index Tsongas, Paul, 160 Tyranny, 273 Underdog leaders, 6, 183–87, 191, 193. See also Sympathetic figures as inspirational leaders University of Michigan, 14 Unjust laws and legal decisions, 307–8 Upper level leadership (executive), 17– 18, 24. See also Chief executive officers (CEOs) U.S. Civil War, 143. See also Wartime leaders U.S. Congress, 166 U.S. presidents. See Presidents U.S. Supreme Court, 306–7 Utility theory, 245 Values, 33, 189, 309. See also Morality/moral convictions VandeWalle, D. M., 223 Van Kleef, G. A., 290 Van Knippenberg, D., 72 Van Vugt, M., 70–72 Verbal communication. See Speaking and communications skills Vice presidents, 5, 105, 142–43, 153, 157, 160. See also Presidents (U.S.), debates Vietnam War, 117, 141, 143, 231. See also Wartime leaders Villaraigosa, Antonio, 167 Virgin Group, 279 Visionary leaders, 39, 68 Volkerpsychologie, 2 Voter behavior. See Presidents (U.S.), elections Vroom, V. H., 17 Waldman, P., 156–57 Walumbwa, F. O., 16 Warmth, perceptions of, 5, 106–11. See also Trust War on terror. See Bush, George W. Warren Harding Effect, 123 Wartime leaders: ancestral

Index environments, 274; as charismatic leaders, 30–31, 35, 275; greater support for leaders during, 35, 50, 275; greatness predictors, 136–37, 138, 140, 141, 143, 144. See also Presidents (U.S.), predictors of ‘‘greatness’’ ratings Washington, Booker T., 183 Washington, George, 134, 138, 143 Watergate, 231 Watson, C. B., 255 Weber, Max, 31–32, 34, 45, 46, 51, 56, 57, 127 Weeden, K., 72 Weise, D. R., 53, 55 Weld, William, 161–62 Wendt, H. W., 136 West Point, 171 White, R., 2 Whittier, John, 188 Whittington, J. L., 252–53 Whyte, G., 244, 245 Wicklund, R., 258 Williams, C. J., 151 Williams College, 153 Winfrey, Oprah, 175, 185 Winter, D. G., 142, 296 Wirtz, P. W., 118 Wofford, J. C., 252–53, 260 Women: bias attributions vs., 172–73; as chief executive officers (CEOs), 166; competition for status benefits, 279; empathy and communication skills

343 of, 277; evaluation of women as leaders, 123, 124–26, 170–72; expectations as leader, 108; female leadership prototype activated by intragroup conflict, 279; Gallup poll on women as presidents, 169; ‘‘glass ceiling,’’ 166; ILTs of, 120, 122, 124–26; leader image–maintenance by, 125– 26; leadership style of, 277; as members of U.S. Congress, 166–67; negotiation skills of, 216–17; as nondominant leaders, 5–6; objectification by the powerful leaders, 290, 291; preferential treatment for, 176; rarely at top of lists of charismatic leaders, 41 n.1; self-efficacy ratings, 255; traits associated with, 170. See also Gender Wood, G. M., 16 World Trade Center. See September 11 terror attacks Worldviews. See Cultural worldviews Woycke, J., 35 Wundt, Wilhelm, 2 Wurf, E., 254 Yammarino, F. J., 258, 259 Yanomamo¨, 269–70, 276 Yukl, G. A., 21, 49–50 Zaccaro, S. J., 14, 17, 21, 22–23, 24 Zhang, Z., 20 Zhong, C., 294





Volume 2 Leadership and Politics Edited by Michael A. Genovese and Lori Cox Han




Contents Preface

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Part I. Theories of Political Leadership

1

1. Leadership, Ethics, and the Problem of Dirty Hands John M. Parrish

3

2. Leadership, Cognition, and the Politics of Manipulation Wayne S. Le Cheminant

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3. Leadership, Structure, and Agency: FDR Reexamined Bruce Miroff

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Part II. Institutional and International Political Leadership

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4. Presidential Leadership: A Dyadic Model Michael A. Genovese

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5. Making the Vision a Reality: Presidential Leadership in Congress Victoria A. Farrar-Myers

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6. Leadership and the Supreme Court: First among Equals? Christopher Shortell

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7. Leading a New Organization: Ridge, Chertoff, and the Department of Homeland Security Richard S. Conley

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8. American Leadership in the International Community: The Role of the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Meena Bose

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Part III. Public Leadership

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9. Public Leadership in the Political Arena Lori Cox Han

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10. When the People Lead: Public Opinion and the Direction of Democratic Government Matthew J. Streb and Brian Frederick

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11. Leading Elite Opinion: Law Reviews and the Distortion of Scholarship Robert J. Spitzer

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12. Women and Political Leadership Caroline Heldman

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Index

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Preface To everything there is a season. Just as the seasons of the year change, so too do the seasons of leadership and politics change. Leadership is largely contextual. There is no one leadership style for all seasons. Different conditions, different demands, different constitutional/structural design, and different personalities all change the shape and scope of the leadership style required to meet the demands of the situation. In effect, the music changes and the leader needs to adapt and adjust, fitting his or her dance to the music being played. Rarely can leaders change the music themselves. Often leadership is a response (sometimes functional, sometimes dysfunctional) to the conditions imposed from without. In all circumstances, the term ‘‘leadership’’ in and of itself is a complex and malleable term. However, within the political realm, we can usually count on leaders attempting to achieve certain results, whether something specific like a policy objective or something much more broadly construed like higher public approval ratings. Regardless, it is important to remember that leaders do not lead in a vacuum. There is a context and that context changes. In normal times, the U.S. system of government by separation of powers and checks and balances imposes sometimes severe limits on leaders. To turn to perhaps the most obvious political actor in regards to leadership—the U.S. president—a crisis such as September 11, 2001, can result in those checks

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Preface

and balances giving way to wider latitude in which presidents can more freely act. The theme of this book and the chapters within it are guided by three truisms: First, leadership matters; second, not all leaders are political office holders; and third, not all political office holders are leaders. The first truism: In politics, business, the university, religious organizations, and not-forprofits, as well as throughout society, leadership matters. Good leadership can make the difference between success and failure as well as between growth and decline. But leadership is not all that matters. One of the most significant contributions of the field of leadership studies to our understanding of politics is that leadership, while important, is largely contextual. If leadership matters, so too does context: the setting, the conditions, resources, levels of power and authority, the circumstances, the timing, the preconditions, the field of endeavor, and the support base. Context serves as a predicate for effective leadership. If the context is right, leadership will likely emerge; if the context is not amenable to leadership, even the most skilled of politicians will face formidable odds. Thus, effective leadership may emerge if the skills of the leader are high and the level of opportunity is also high. A skilled politician in a low opportunity setting will be constrained, while a less skilled politician in a high opportunity setting will likely achieve some measure of success in achieving his goals.1 In this sense, leaders are not created equal. Some come to the task with high levels of skill or others with more limited skills, while others come in a high opportunity setting or others in a low opportunity setting. Franklin D. Roosevelt came to the presidency in 1933 with a high level of skill and a high level of political opportunity due first to the Great Depression and then later to American involvement in World War II. This allowed Roosevelt to achieve extraordinary success through having the opportunity to lead Americans through two major crises.2 By contrast, Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter came to the presidency in 1974 and 1977, respectively, with more limited ranges of skill in a low opportunity setting (due in large part to President Richard Nixon’s resignation resulting from the Watergate scandal, which eroded public trust in the presidency). As a result, their achievements were quite modest.3 When are leaders most likely to matter the most? In general, the following factors tend to favor leaders achieving their goals: when skill is high, when opportunity is high, when the leader feels strongly about a particular issue and is willing to invest time and political capital into achieving their goals, when in a new situation where there is not well entrenched opposition or interests to stand in the way of leadership, and when in crisis or emergency situations. When are leaders less likely to achieve their goals? When skill is limited, when opportunities are limited, when situations are normal or routine, when the opposition is united, when role expectations are stable and

Preface

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strong, and when the leader is hesitant or cautious. In short, to be successful, a wide range of factors must coalesce, only one of which is the skill of the individual leader. Thus, leadership matters, but in different ways at different times and in varying degrees. Such relativism may be disconcerting to the uninitiated, but it more accurately captures the essence of the complex and multidimensional world occupied by the leader. The second truism: Not all leaders are political office holders.4 Martin Luther King Jr. was a very effective leader but was never elected or appointed to a political office. King, working outside the confines of an official political position, was able to present a compelling vision, draw supporters to his cause, inspire and empower, change the way people saw the world, alter the political landscape, and reshape the political agenda. He mattered because he was able to impact significant portions of the electorate to insist that the government respond to the moral and political demands of the civil rights movement. 5 In similar fashion, Nelson Mandela was a movement leader who exercised a tremendous amount of influence over his nation of South Africa, primarily on the basis of his moral strength and the power of his personal story. He led a revolution from outside government and utterly transformed his society. All this occurred even before he held political office.6 The third truism: Not all political office holders are leaders. Occupying a political position—president, senator, mayor, and so on—gives an individual an institutional base and advantage in efforts to lead, but merely occupying an office is no guarantee that such a person will become a leader. Many office holders merely preside. They may hold ‘‘power,’’ they may use power, but power is not the same as leadership. All presidents, for example, have the power to pardon. This is granted to them in Article II of the U.S. Constitution. It is a power granted by virtue of holding the office and all who occupy the office can grant pardons. Leadership, on the other hand, is the ability to move people, influence them, and persuade them. People voluntarily choose to follow the leader. As a result, power is the ability to command, while leadership is the ability to persuade. In this sense, office holders possess certain powers to command. They also occupy a position from which they have the opportunity to lead, but opportunity is no guarantee of success. To actually lead, one must influence, persuade, present a compelling vision, and draw supporters to the leader. Where President Ronald Reagan was a leader, his successor, President George H. W. Bush, was more of an office holder. Reagan presented a compelling vision, drew followers to himself, inspired and empowered others to follow, and created what many still refer to as the Reagan Revolution with his Republican Party. However, while Reagan received high marks for being an effective leader as president, he was sometimes given lower marks for his role as an office holder (that is, his ability to manage the White House on a day-to-

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day basis). Bush, by contrast, was an effective office holder, performing the tasks of government with reasonable skill, but was not as effective a leader as Reagan had been. He was unable or unwilling to present and pursue a compelling vision, and thus was unable to draw and keep a devoted following among the American public. As one can see, leadership in the political arena is complex and is sometimes a bit confusing. It is the goal of this volume to come to grips with the complex world of leadership in politics. To this end, we have accumulated a diverse group of political scholars from a wide range of subdisciplines and asked them to apply their considerable skills to the task of dissecting the patterns and possibilities of political leadership in a variety of political settings. The book is divided into three distinct sections, including theories of political leadership, institutional and international political leadership, and public leadership. While it would be impossible to include each and every theory, study, or view of political leadership in just one volume, the chapters that follow provide a fascinating look at some of the most salient issues involving the concept of political leadership within the current, complex, and often chaotic political environment in which our leaders must govern and, of course, lead. There are many people whom we would like to thank for their assistance in putting together this book. First and foremost, we offer our undying gratitude and respect for each and every one of our colleagues who agreed to share their expertise and, most importantly, their time in the writing of their respective chapters. It is through collegial generosity that volumes such as this, which bring together a diverse group of scholars and their areas of expertise, are even possible. We would also like to thank Joanne Ciulla at the University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Leadership Studies for the inspiration behind this project. Assistance in our respective departments also helped bring this project to its conclusion. Students Vivian Valencia and Kristina Rioux at Loyola Marymount University provided much needed organizational support in the completion of the manuscript, and Nadia Arriaga at Chapman University, who is the best administrative assistant on campus and is always willing to offer any support necessary in finishing on a project such as this one.

NOTES 1. See William Lammers and Michael A. Genovese, The Presidency and Domestic Policy: Compairing Leadership Styles, FDR to Clinton (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000). 2. See James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt, 1882–1940: The Lion and the Fox (San Diego: Harvest/HBJ, 1956). 3. See Michael A. Genovese, The Presidential Dilemma: Leadership in the American System, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 2003).

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4. See Roger Fisher and Alan Short, Getting It Done: How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge (New York: Harper Perennial, 1998). 5. See Martin Luther King, Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Warner Books, 2001); and Stephen B. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Harper Perennial, 1994). 6. See Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (Boston: Little Brown 1994), and Tom Lodge, Mandela: A Critical Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

Michael A. Genovese and Lori Cox Han


PART I

THEORIES OF POLITICAL LEADERSHIP


1 Leadership, Ethics, and the Problem of Dirty Hands JOHN M. PARRISH

Politicians persistently claim (and even the strictest moralists are occasionally willing to grant the point) that their roles as public leaders afford them unusual ethical privileges that go beyond the duties and requirements of our ordinary moral lives.1 There are, of course, many reasons why anyone (including politicians) might find it difficult to be strictly moral. Often it is hard to know what actions are right and best, and even when one does know, one may still find it difficult to summon the will to do what one judges to be right.2 And it is certainly plausible that these familiar difficulties with ethical performance might be especially acute in the lives of political leaders. But when politicians make their claim to a special moral status, they typically appeal not to our various all-too-human weaknesses of will or understanding. Rather, they claim that, quite apart from any failures of moral volition or cognition, it is just a fact about political leadership that those who bear its burdens encounter seemingly hopeless ethical choices with greater frequency than we would expect in any other walk of life. This, our public leaders consistently report, is how matters stand in the ethical trenches. This familiar claim about politics, then—that those who wish to lead in the political arena must be willing to ‘‘get their hands dirty’’ from time to time, by doing what would otherwise be morally distasteful (if not indeed inexcusable)—is as much a claim about the nature of leadership as it is about politics itself. My belief is that this is not an accident: that there is not only some core feature of politics, but also, relatedly, some feature of leadership that engenders moral challenges that are not just frequently failed, but that appear to be insoluble in essence.

4

Leadership and Politics

In this essay, I explore the core features of both leadership and political responsibility that seem to make public life such a fecund source of those seemingly irresolvable conflicts of value in action that philosophers designate as moral dilemmas. I first consider the concept of ‘‘dirty hands’’ as a problem in public life, and how it has emerged predictably as a theoretical problem from certain key aspects of the project of modern philosophical ethics. I also distinguish between dirty hands problems arising from the process of leadership and those arising from the application of leadership, and consider the specific features of each of these types of ethical quandaries as well as the relationship between them. From this, I turn to consider the distinctively political aspects of leadership that give rise to the problem of dirty hands wherever leadership exists, and analyze which specific features of leadership tend to create these persistent ethical challenges. Throughout the essay, I will focus on the ethics of political leadership, because that is the form of leadership I have principally studied. But with regard to the ethical problems of leadership, there is an element of method in this. A focus on political leadership is particularly suited to a discussion of the ethics of leadership more generally because, as I will further argue below, the defining characteristics of the distinctive ethical problem of leadership are its public and representative dimensions. Absent the necessity to speak and act for some interest larger than one’s self, the ethical problems of leaders are indistinguishable from those of any private person. Whether in business, education, law, medicine, or any other practice or vocation, it is only the claim that one’s actions in some leadership role have especially extensive or significant consequences for a defined community of others that opens the door to an ethical license that goes beyond the moral requirements applicable to all human beings.3 Yet there is a danger in this awareness as well, as I also hope to show. As countless apologists for public evils have demonstrated in practice, it is all too easy to move from the well-grounded supposition (a) that any and all special moral permissions for leaders must be grounded in the public and representative features of their roles, to the more dubious inference (b) that it is characteristic of leadership that it is entitled to these special moral permissions. But, of course, the latter conclusion hardly follows from the former premise. As I will demonstrate in this chapter ’s final section, just as much as leadership is the most persistent source of political life’s most intractable dilemmas, it is equally the most promising source of solutions to those same dilemmas. Precisely because the problem of dirty hands is complex, persistent, and elusive, I will show, it is just the sort of human challenge that we can best hope to overcome with the help of the instrument of leadership.

Leadership, Ethics, and the Problem of Dirty Hands

5

THE PROBLEM OF DIRTY HANDS I will turn in a moment to the ethical dilemmas of political life as they arise specifically in the activity of leadership. But first I should state more precisely what I mean by the problem of ‘‘dirty hands’’ in public life, and to do so I will begin by describing how the problem recurrently asserts itself within the project of philosophical ethics. By philosophical ethics, I mean the study of criteria for the normative evaluation of human action—that is, the study of what makes it proper to claim for our actions such descriptions as ‘‘right’’ or ‘‘good’’ or ‘‘fine’’ or ‘‘just.’’ Accordingly, the major approaches to philosophical ethics take their various points of departure from the most prominent analytical features of action itself. All (or almost all) human actions consist of certain regular, uniform aspects: for example, all actions aim at certain ends or purposes, and expect certain predicted consequences; all actions proceed from certain intentions or motivations, which in turn proceed from certain qualities of mind or character; and many (if not most) actions seek guidance or obtain direction from certain generalized rules or principles. Each of these aspects of action has in turn a normative dimension: we think there are better and worse outcomes that may result from our actions, better and worse generalized rules or principles that tend to guide our actions, better and worse intentions that motivate our actions, and better and worse qualities of mind and character that stimulate those intentions. But which of these aspects are central to what makes action ‘‘right’’ or ‘‘good,’’ and which are peripheral? The answer one gives to that question is central to the kind of ethical theory one is likely to find persuasive. For example, if one thinks that regardless of what one’s principles or intentions are, it is the outcome of an action that determines whether it was the ‘‘right’’ action or not, one will probably subscribe to some form of consequentialism. If by contrast one thinks that regardless of the consequences, it is one’s intentions, or one’s principles, or one’s character, that makes an action ‘‘right,’’ one will likely reject consequentialism in favor of some form of deontological ethics or some form of virtue ethics. Whichever of these aspects of action one believes to be the indispensable element in determining what makes right action right is the central element of one’s moral theory. This does not mean that the other aspects of action are normatively irrelevant. For example, for a consequentialist, intentions, virtues, and principles are all of decided normative significance, precisely because good intentions and virtues and principles tend (on balance) to give rise to the best consequences. But their normative significance rests solely on their propensity to contribute to good consequences, and not to any intrinsic quality they may have in themselves. Likewise, for a follower of deontological ethics, right action is right solely

6


because of the rational principle it is based on, and consequences—though, of course, they will as a matter of practice be what those acting rightly will typically aim at in their action—are strictly speaking irrelevant to the evaluation of their conduct in itself. Many of the most influential contemporary ethical theories, including consequentialism and deontological ethics, are committed to the view that there is a single source of value that defines what makes right action right—though they are, needless to say, in disagreement about which single source of value they believe to be the key. Indeed, for many ethical theorists this univocality of value is a necessary feature of any coherent moral system; and consequently the possibility of a true, ineliminable conflict of values that issues in a conflict of practical ethical imperatives—that is, in a conflict of possible right actions—is a sign that the chain of moral reasoning from which it emerges is, somewhere along its course, ultimately confused. But there is a rival school of philosophical reflection that sees the values that define right conduct as being not singular but plural, and that therefore see the possibility of an ineliminable conflict of values, and of a true dilemma arising from choices between them, as being not only coherent but, in fact, rather predictable. This line of thinking has a long and distinguished history,4 but in the context of the project of modern philosophical ethics it has reasserted itself forcefully only in the past half-century or so, in the writings of philosophers as varied as Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Isaiah Berlin, Michael Walzer, Bernard Williams, Thomas Nagel, and Charles Taylor.5 The concept of a moral dilemma as treated in contemporary philosophical ethics turns in essence on this question of the univocality versus the plurality of value. If the value that defines right action is singular, then there can be no such thing as a moral dilemma, because such a dilemma can emerge only from an extreme form of value conflict. If utility is what defines rightness, then an act that maximizes utility will always be, strictly speaking, the right thing to do: there is no residual mess left to clean up, and any emotional or intuitive sense that there is rests in the end on some kind of conceptual confusion.6 Similarly, if what makes an action right is that it proceeds from a pure intention, or a virtuous character, or an internally consistent moral principle—as the most prominent rivals to utilitarianism would suggest—then an action that satisfies those criteria will in turn be the right thing to do, regardless of its disutility for those affected by it. There may well be genuine values at stake in these considerations of utility, but they have nothing to do with rightness.7 In contrast to these univocal theories of value, a rival set of moral philosophers, called value pluralists, offer an ethical theory that provides a basis for the existence of moral dilemmas, grounded in the possibility of genuinely irresolvable moral conflict.8 If more than one value contributes to the rightness of action—if our acts can, at least in theory, be right in one way and wrong


7

in another—then it is possible to satisfy the definition of a true moral dilemma. For in an authentic moral dilemma, one is faced with a practical choice in which, no matter what action one may take, whatever one does will necessarily be in some important sense the wrong thing to do: one may, perhaps literally, be damned if one does and damned if one does not. When contemporary political theorists talk about the ‘‘problem of dirty hands,’’ what they mean is the tendency of politics as a sphere of human endeavor to generate genuine moral dilemmas.9 Politics frequently presents us with such dilemmatic choices, or so its practitioners claim. To take an example: we can imagine a national leader who feels she must take a firm stand against her country’s enemy (in order to deter the antagonist nation from precipitating an act of war); but she can do so effectively only by ordering the bombing of an enemy facility—a bombing in which noncombatant technicians will certainly be killed. Or perhaps the same leader has pledged herself to openness and honesty in government, but must in a particular case conceal vital information from the public in order to prevent widespread panic or to enable a covert action to succeed. The deontological ethicist might say there is no way a leader in such a situation can rightly order the killing of a noncombatant or lie with justification to her constituents, no matter how dire the consequences that follow. The utilitarian might respond that there is no way a leader can justly fail to make these choices, given the pain and suffering that would follow. In making these right choices, each would think (though for different reasons) that their agent had done the right thing simpliciter, that though there were regrettable circumstances surrounding the choices, with regard to the choice itself, their agent had, strictly speaking, nothing to apologize for. The value pluralist, however, would instead believe that in such cases as these the leader may well find herself facing a genuine moral dilemma: that is, a situation in which it would be wrong to kill the noncombatant, but also wrong not to deter the enemy; wrong to conceal the information, but also wrong to scotch the covert action or to enable the panic. Confronted with such a choice, she might ultimately elect to order the bombing, or to tell the lie, believing this to be the least worst thing to do on balance: but she would nevertheless feel that she remained in some real sense morally guilty, that in making such a choice—the best she could make under the circumstances—she had nevertheless gotten her hands dirty in a way that no simple appeal to the precepts of moral theory could hope to wash away. Contemporary philosophers have tended to approach the problem of dirty hands in public life as essentially an abstract theoretical issue: namely, whether or not it is possible, given the structure of philosophical ethics, to have a genuine moral dilemma. I have criticized this approach (in my recent book, cited above) as missing the larger significance of the fact that phenomena that seem awfully close to moral dilemmas appear to happen with

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considerable frequency—and to public leaders more than anyone else. Taken together, these two facts suggest that there is something in the nature of politics that tends to generate the kinds of value conflict necessary to get the problem of dirty hands off the ground—and therefore also that a careful investigation of these aspects of politics will help to explain why these value conflicts occur, and what is really at stake in our practical endeavors to resolve them in action. What aspects of politics, then, tend to give rise to the problem of dirty hands? In this essay I want to explore the idea that it is essentially certain features of the phenomenon of leadership that create most—though not all—of the characteristic moral challenges we associate with political life. With respect to the specific aspects of leadership implicated in ethical analysis, we can distinguish two different types of ethical problems.10 First, there are the ethical difficulties associated with the process of leading itself, with the choices one must make in order to convince others to follow. Such problematic ethical features of the relationship between leaders and followers (at least in roughly democratic contexts) attach themselves mainly to such issues as persuasion, manipulation, charisma, and so forth. I will refer to these difficulties as the dilemmas inherent to the process of leadership. But in addition, there are ethical problems associated not with the process of leading, but rather with the choices one makes as a consequence of the power or influence one acquires as a leader. These difficulties center not on the leader-follower relationship itself, but rather on the questions of what ends a leader pursues with his leadership, and what means he chooses in pursuing them. I will refer to these problems as dilemmas associated with the application of leadership.11 In stating that one set of dilemmas is inherent to leadership and that the other is merely a consequence of it, I do not mean to assign the former a priority of importance over the latter. If anything, I believe the more significant and more troubling ethical problems are more frequently attached to the applications of leadership rather than the dilemmas inherent to the process of leadership itself. In any event, there is no necessary basis for assigning a moral priority between them. Leadership is a method and a mechanism for seeking the achievement of shared purposes; and there is no reason to suppose that the ethical problems attached specifically to the method and mechanism itself should be more significant or severe than those attached to the pursuit of the purposes. In drawing this distinction, therefore, I simply want to stress that leadership can be ethically problematic both because it involves leaders convincing other people to join them in their individual moral choices and because the agreement of others to follow leaders generally results in the expansion both of their causal capabilities and of their responsibilities to their followers.


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Perhaps because of the stakes attached to them, the dilemmas resulting from the applications of leadership have received by far the most sustained attention from those philosophers and political theorists who study political ethics. (Such dilemmas are, for example, the primary focus of my own recent book on political ethics, cited above.) Far less analysis has been offered specifically focused on ethical dilemmas inherent to the process of leadership, either by philosophers and political theorists or by scholars of leadership studies.12 What attention has been paid to these dilemmas of process has instead emerged as a set of (largely unarticulated) corollaries of normative democratic theory more generally. For example, the ascendancy of deliberation as a normative model in contemporary democratic theory has tended to enshrine as its implied ideal an egalitarian, from-the-ground-up mode of social interaction in which the value of elite leadership is discounted if not positively renounced. More elite-oriented theories of democracy do, of course, exist—a case in point is Joseph Schumpeter’s model of democracy as a choice among competing leadership offerings by political parties13—but when they do, their normative account of the leader-follower relationship itself, and of the role of leaders within that relationship, tends to be profoundly underspecified. This neglect of the ethical challenges of the process of leadership itself clearly marks out an important area for further analysis and study by philosophers, democratic theorists, and leadership scholars alike. Such an analysis will require at a minimum: (a) an exploration of the modifications that must be made to the ethics of interpersonal relationships to accommodate the distinctive features of the leader-follower relationship; and (b) for leaderfollower relationships of any significant political extent, a compatible normative theory of democracy and its moral requirements. This is a project well worth pursuing, though in the end I suspect that the most enduring ethical problems of leadership will prove to be not those inherent to the process of leadership, but rather those attendant upon the application of the causal capabilities resulting from its successful achievement. What I do expect such an analysis will reveal, however, is that the two kinds of problem, though distinct analytically, are nevertheless inseverable in practice with respect to leadership undertakings of any considerable scope. In part this is true because the ethical problems of process almost invariably tend to ride piggyback on the ethical dilemmas of application, at least as a matter of justification.14 Any justification for violating ordinary moral rules governing human interaction, to which a leader may appeal in claiming special moral permissions for his actions within the process of the leaderfollower relation, will be found to be basing that claim, at one further degree of remove, on the moral justifications available to him based on what he intends to do, in application, with that leader-follower relationship as an

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instrument. That is, at the end of the day, leaders claim the right to special moral permissions for themselves in the application of their leadership based on the value of the purposes those applications will serve; and they claim special moral permissions for themselves in the process of leadership, at one further degree of removal, on the necessity of manipulating that process to help achieve those applications on to which they mean to put their leadership to work (with their various purposes in turn still doing the ultimate work of justification, though now further in the background). So while it will be useful analytically to separate out the dilemmas inherent to leadership’s process from those attached to its various applications, there will be no severing them in the long run; the kind of moral excuse necessary to justify the former will continue to depend parasitically on the justifications available for the latter.

LEADERSHIP’S MORAL CONSTRAINTS The task of leadership, then, tends to be bound by significant ethical constraints that lead inexorably to the persistent generation of those moral dilemmas we widely associate with political action. Some of these constraints are inherent to the process of the leader-follower relationship itself, while others are consequent to the kinds of tasks to which leadership once established invariably applies itself. Both kinds of constraint, however, derive ultimately from the political dimensions of leadership: that is, those dimensions of leadership that, whether or not they find expression in the political arena as we commonly conceive it, nevertheless exhibit those characteristics we associate most fundamentally with political life. In this regard, we can distinguish between (on the one hand) those ethical problems specific to public leadership as that term is usually understood (i.e., leadership specifically in the arenas of governments, political parties and movements, and similar pursuits) and (on the other) those ethical problems that tend to attach to leadership of any kind, regardless of whether the field in which it is exercised has as its background that which we would conventionally call ‘‘politics’’ or not. By far the most important of the former moral dangers are those associated with the inescapable presence in political life of the instruments of violence and coercion. Max Weber, indeed, famously identified a monopoly on the legitimate (i.e., ethically justified) use of these means as the boundary of what is distinctively political in human affairs.15 And while in democratic societies this is hopefully not all that marks out politics as a distinctive sphere of action, coercion still remains perhaps the primary source of moral danger in political life that is not inherent to the very activity of leadership itself. Of course, one cannot deny that the employment of violence and coercion certainly appears to be indispensable to the successful exercise of leadership once one has reached a large enough scale of action. Nevertheless, at a more


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fundamental level of moral intuition, it still seems very much as if the resort to violence and coercion always implies in some sense a failure of leadership rather than a fulfillment of it.16 Most of the other common excuses that politicians offer for their transgressions, though, are grounded not in the nature of politics per se, but rather in the political dimensions of leadership. I will briefly consider four aspects of leadership that have proved consistently to be sources of moral conflict in public life: (1) the scale of consequences for which leaders are responsible; (2) the need to ‘‘fight fire with fire’’ in responding to the ethically dubious tactics of rivals in competitive circumstances; (3) the ways in which the values of partiality and impartiality—both of which claim an unusual importance in the public sphere—each tend to frustrate many of our moral intuitions; and (4) perhaps most importantly, those dilemmas arising from representation and related complex forms of agency through which action is typically taken in public life. Each of these four issue areas tends to engender ethical problems precisely because of their distinctively political dimensions; yet each of these issue areas manifestly is a pervasive feature of leadership as we understand it, regardless of whether its choices take place in the conventional field of ‘‘politics’’ or not.

Consequences and Responsibility Perhaps the most common rationale offered for the special ethical privileges claimed by political leaders points to the vast reach of public consequences for which they must take responsibility. Machiavelli in his Discourses on Livy pithily captures the intuition: for a leader confronting a publicly beneficial misdeed, Machiavelli argues, ‘‘when the deed accuses him, the effect excuses him; and when the effect is good . . . it will always excuse the deed.’’ 17 The outcomes of the choices political leaders make simply matter more, to more people, than those that tend to result from the choices of individuals in private life, and therefore some choices that would be condemnable in ordinary folk are necessitated or at least excused by the fact that the happiness and sorrow of so many hangs on the outcome. For a utilitarian these considerations are the end of the story, while for a deontologist they will not strictly speaking even be relevant to the moral choice at stake per se. But for value pluralists, the weight of consequences is neither sufficient to justify any presumptive wrong, nor inconclusive enough to allow matters of principle to always be trumps. If politics is standardly the arena with the highest stakes, and if (as the value pluralist believes) the public utility counts as one (but only one) crucial criterion for any moral choice, then politics will predictably be the sphere of human life in which we should expect to encounter the most persistent instances of wrenching ethical conflict.

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However, for our present purposes it is important to notice that the moral intuition underwriting this excuse is intrinsic not just to politics as an activity, but also to leadership as an activity (whether it is exercised in the political arena or not). True, in politics the stakes are almost always high, perhaps the highest of any single sphere of endeavor. But this is only an extreme case of a more generalized phenomenon associated with leadership in any circumstance: namely, that leadership creates the conditions necessary for the collective pursuit of shared purposes. This dynamic is what raises the stakes in politics, and it is a dynamic shared by leadership wherever it emerges in human life. To the degree that this is so, all leaders, not just those in strictly political walks of life, will tend to encounter moral dilemmas analogous to those that bedevil public officials.

Competition and the Ethics of Rivals Another influential rationale frequently offered in defense of the special ethical privileges claimed by political leaders points to the competitive and ruthless character of the political arena. Again, Machiavelli perhaps gives the argument its most forceful defense when he claims that ‘‘a man who wants to make a profession of good in all regards must come to ruin among so many who are not good.’’ 18 The possibility of such conflict may sometimes arise out of the competition between rival legitimate moral permissions. For example, if Leader A has legitimate ethical reasons for doing action x (an action that would ordinarily be morally impermissible), and if Leader B’s group faces dire consequences if x occurs, then Leader B may find herself possessed of legitimate ethical reasons to do actions x or y or z (all ordinarily impermissible actions) if those actions are (morally) necessary as a response to x. But while such competing ethical claims are an important reason why competition is a source of dirty hands dilemmas in public life, they are not necessary to generate serious dilemmas. All that is necessary is the bare fact that rivals might perform a threatening action (say, x)—for such an action is equally dangerous whether one’s rival is ethically justified in taking the action or not. This is an example of what some normative theorists call nonideal ethical theory: namely, that we may have one set of ethical requirements that applies when others are following the moral rules, and a different set of ethical requirements that applies when others are breaking such rules in a way that affects us adversely.19 (But we will always have some ethical requirements to answer to: nothing anyone else does can give us carte blanche.) It is certainly true that political actors often encounter a degree of ruthlessness and rough dealing among those with whom they interact that greatly surpasses what most individuals might have to reckon with in private life.


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But as with the previous factor of consequences, this dynamic too arises not from the subject matter of politics per se, but rather from an important feature of leadership more generally. In this instance, what tends to create the difficulty is another core fact about the nature of leadership: namely, that leadership necessarily gives rise to groups differentiated from one another in identity and purpose. Wherever such groups and such differentiations exist, there will also be the possibility of competitive, strategic interactions, and strategic actions have a logic of their own that places serious moral constraints on the meaning and effects that our own actions can have.20 Cliche´s aside, there is plenty in love, war, and other strategic interactions that is not fair: but at least more is fair in those contexts than would be fair outside them. And that fact guarantees that wherever we find leadership, we will also find potential ground for the special moral conflicts that tend to accompany all the forms of strategic interaction.21

Partiality and Impartiality A third and related basis of defense, though perhaps less frequently appealed to than the first two, is the recurring set of problems in political life raised by the opposition between partiality and impartiality.22 Political leaders are frequently called upon due to their public role to exhibit partiality toward their own citizens in circumstances where a less role-defined morality would seem to require that they treat all persons affected by their actions equally. For example, they may be expected to prefer their own citizens’ well-being to that of other nation’s citizens when negotiating a trade agreement or undertaking a military conflict—even when ethical theory might tell us that the well-being of all those affected should have an equally valid claim on our sympathies. Likewise, political leaders are often called upon to treat other persons impartially where ordinary moral theory would tell an individual they had ample reason to exhibit partiality. For example, a president may be forced to order the deployment into dangerous territory of a regiment that contains his own son; similarly, a judge in sentencing may have to decide whether or not to obey the merciful promptings of his private heart in contradiction to the strict demands of the law’s literal requirements.23 Machiavelli’s instructions to the prince on liberality and mercy together illustrate these twin problems nicely; a prince cannot exhibit the generosity and magnanimity that a friend or private benefactor might, because neither the public purse nor the public discipline will stretch far enough to accommodate all those who might decide to presume upon it.24 Of course, to an extent the opposition between partiality and impartiality is a recurring problem throughout moral life, not just in politics or in leader-

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follower relationships but in individual ethical choice as well. But for leaders the problem is considerably aggravated. For one thing, followers typically expect their leaders to show partiality toward the interest of their own charges and constituents systematically, to a great degree regardless of how much expense or pain others not in their charge (i.e., those who are ‘‘outsiders’’ to their community) may be put to.25 A prominent example in contemporary American politics, seen, for example, in both America’s wars with Iraq as well as most dramatically in the military campaign in Kosovo, is the unwillingness of the American military to contemplate tactical options entailing a substantial risk to American personnel, regardless of the implications those options may carry for noncombatant loss of life. In Kosovo, the United States famously did not lose a single combatant to enemy fire; but this was only at the expense of its willingness to inflict cruel and avoidable injury on tens of thousands of noncombatants in a fashion strictly forbidden by the traditional theories of just war.26 The demands of impartiality can equally place special moral demands on public leaders that we would not expect them to encounter in private life. Political leaders must enforce the law indiscriminately without reference to friend or favor; they must eschew the virtues tied to friendship and specific benevolence (as Machiavelli knew, generosity and mercy are prominent examples) in favor of the paler, more bloodless virtues of humanity and universal benevolence. As with consequences and competition, the ethical problems associated with partiality and impartiality also derive from an important feature of leadership: namely, the leader’s role in creating unified action out of various disparate interests and dispositions, making many into one. Leaders in all walks of life, not just in politics narrowly understood, necessarily face choices that require them to at times be more partial, and at other times more impartial, than we would ever think praiseworthy in the behavior of those who lack their responsibilities. Part of leading inevitably involves marking off the members of your group from others outside it, at least for some purposes; and if so, then one will sometimes find the partiality necessitated by one’s leadership role to conflict with the attitudes toward others that naturally follow from our everyday values and virtues. Likewise, another part of leading predictably requires making judgments within the circle of one’s group, judgments that will affect the interests of some positively and those of others adversely; and if so, one will sometimes find the impartiality one’s role requires to clash with other, equally important aspects of our ordinary everyday morality. These dilemmas, too, seemingly associated with politics as a specific field of activity, turn out to be firmly attached not just to those who govern and move our public life, but to anyone who takes up the burdens of leadership.


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Representation and Agency This last point leads naturally to a consideration of the excuse that in a way underwrites the logic of all the others, one that has occasioned perhaps the most confusion of all in thinking about this topic, and that certainly is the excuse grounded most directly in the structure of the leader-follower relation itself. This is the claim that it is ultimately the leader’s role as a representative of her followers’ needs and purposes that makes it impossible for her to obey the rules of ordinary morality. Because she is the agent of others’ interests and not merely her own, she cannot be asked (so she says) to moderate or disavow those interests in the name of some moral principle of the sort that individuals often find to be worthy or even imperative.27 As a leader, she acts not on her own behalf but on behalf of her followers or constituents, and as a consequence it is her public, and not she, that bears the ultimate responsibility for what she does in their name. This version of things possesses a considerable element of truth to it. But this is treacherous ground, and we will do well to think carefully through what kind of an excuse this representative relationship actually offers, and what its limits are, so as to prevent us from surrendering more terrain than we must. And because this problem about representation and complex agency is at the heart of what leadership is and how we must think about it morally, the answers we begin to develop here will apply in one way or another to all the facets of leadership we have been considering thus far. One important set of parameters on the ethical permissions of leaders is set by the moral boundaries that leaders impose upon themselves as the limiting conditions of their assumption of a leadership role. Representation of others’ interests, no matter how selfless, is not a blank check: we are not justified in doing literally anything, just because we do it on behalf of others rather than ourselves. Each leader will have her own set of ‘‘here I stand’’ limits—things that they would not be willing to do on behalf of anyone. But even when a leader as an individual agent is willing to transgress against a particular moral boundary on behalf of others, further justification is needed. In addition to the limits set by what the leader is willing to do on behalf of the group he represents, there is a further set of limits set by what the group is entitled to have done on its behalf. The rights of groups are not infinite, any more than the rights of individuals are: groups are not entitled to whatever they desire or prefer just because they desire or prefer it, and if they are not entitled as a group to seek something for themselves, then by the same token their leader cannot be entitled to seek it for them as their agent. If this way of thinking about the question is correct, then it is not only individuals but also publics than can have dirty hands.28 In democratically organized groups at least, moral responsibility for the actions that leaders take on

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behalf of their groups tends to devolve on the individual members who authorize or who benefit from their actions (though this responsibility can, of course, be mitigated in a variety of ways). Indeed, I think we can go further and suggest that, at least in a great number of cases, the moral dilemmas that confront leaders are often rooted in the moral choices of the group as a whole that forms the background conditions for their actions. For example, it might be thought unreasonable of a society to demand that its armed forces engaged in necessary military action abroad sustain no casualties—particularly when the condition for ensuring this outcome is the deaths of tens of thousands of foreign noncombatants. (Those unwilling to grant that argument would presumably have to concede its force if the stakes were changed to encompass not preserving soldiers’ lives, but rather preventing a modest rise in the price of gasoline.) The leader in such a case may face a true moral dilemma, strictly as far as her own immediate choice is concerned. As a practical matter, the only choices available to her in the situation thus defined may be to forego the needed military action, or to order the deaths of the noncombatants in question. But even so, this is not the end of the story: for the preconditions of choice that confront the leader are in this instance (as in many similar instances) grounded in the ethically blameworthy choices and desires of those whom she leads. A leader ultimately can be only as pure as the purposes she seeks to serve: and not all purposes are equally pure. When leaders find that in representing their publics they invariably dirty their hands, it is in most cases because, somewhere along the line, the needs, desires, and choices of the publics they represent are themselves badly soiled.

LEADERSHIP’S CREATIVE POSSIBILITIES I have been arguing so far for the correctness of the widespread perception that individual actors in political life tend to face moral dilemmas of greater intensity and scope than do their counterparts in private life, and that, furthermore, this is true not merely of politics as a vocation simpliciter, but rather of leadership more generally, no matter in what arena of life it is exercised. I have further suggested that, though the fact is much less widely recognized, the various publics that leaders represent tend also to be deeply implicated in the moral dilemmas that confront their leaders so persistently. But this seemingly pessimistic conclusion does not fully describe the effect that the phenomenon of leadership has on the nature of ethical life as we know it. On the contrary, there is an effect of comparable importance—with luck, in the long run perhaps of greater importance—that points in a much more positive direction. For the activity of leadership, in addition to operating under important and extensive moral constraints, also possesses considerable


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resources for the creative confrontation and reformation of the forces that engender these same moral dilemmas. In closing, therefore, I want to consider three broad categories of instances in which leadership can help to transform the moral constraints associated with leadership in a redefining way. ‘‘Transform’’ is, of course, a term with special significance for students of leadership, since it invokes James MacGregor Burns’s celebrated distinction between ‘‘transactional’’ leadership— leadership by negotiation and exchange with one’s followers—versus ‘‘transforming’’ leadership—leadership that leaves the situations, ideas, and characters of ones’ followers substantially different from how it found them.29 What is true of leadership generally, I want to suggest, is also true of leadership ethically: the ethics of public action is not just morally constrained and often endangered by features of the activity of leadership, but may also be radically transformed by it. I will consider three types of transformations: leaders’ transformation of their followers’ capacities, of their followers’ strategic situations, and of their followers’ ideas and values.

Transforming Followers’ Capacities One kind of change that can transform a seemingly unassailable moral dilemma into a difficult yet surmountable ethical challenge is a change in the capacities that followers can bring to bear in responding to its demands. This is perhaps the kind of transformation we associate with leadership most readily: the transmission of inspiration from the leader to the led; the enunciation of a vision that motivates as well as guides. Of course, leadership is capable of changing followers’ capacities in a more direct way, simply by educating and equipping them, sharpening their skills, and meeting their practical needs. But most frequently, leaders change their followers’ capacities most extensively by transforming their followers’ own conceptions of themselves. Through inspiring and visionary challenges, leaders can transform their followers’ conceptions of what is possible, and in doing so can change the facts on the ground about what they are indeed able to achieve. The classic example is John F. Kennedy’s visionary challenge with regard to the Apollo project: announcing that the United States would commit itself to a goal then just barely imaginable, Kennedy sparked what would become over the next decade one of the most astonishing accomplishments of ingenuity, technical precision, and bravery in the history of the species. Similarly, as the United States entered the Second World War, Franklin Roosevelt committed the nation to the near inconceivable goal of producing a fleet of 50,000 aircraft; his fellow citizens responded in the coming months by doubling in actual production the figure Roosevelt had announced.30 This kind of transformation often helps to redefine ethical challenges even more significantly than

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changes in our practical capacities: for the more we are able to undertake and achieve, the more options we have to forsake morally undesirable alternatives in favor of more praiseworthy courses.

Transforming Followers’ Strategic Situations Just as leaders can help to transform the causal capacities of their followers, they can also help to transform the strategic situations that they and their followers confront—and thus also the moral context in which they and their followers act. Much political leadership involves redefining the strategic parameters of a situation through carefully calibrated interventions; and when such interventions pursue an ethically praiseworthy end through ethically permissible means, they constitute a transformation of the moral realities of the situation as well. Abraham Lincoln’s redefinition of the slavery question in his debate with Stephen Douglas at Freeport, Illinois, provides a useful illustration.31 By forcing Douglas to commit himself on the constitutionality of the exclusion of slavery from territories and states, Lincoln created for Douglas a Hobson’s choice between losing the votes of antislavery Illinois voters on the one hand or forfeiting the trust of proslavery southern Democrats crucial to his presidential aspirations on the other. Lincoln’s redefinition of the issue came at a considerable price to his own personal ambitions, at least in the short term: for by providing Douglas with an out on the slavery question that would play so well with his local electorate, Lincoln effectively doomed his own senatorial candidacy in 1858. But by redefining the strategic situation as he did, the long-term damage he inflicted on the cause of slavery’s sympathizers was far worse—for his question at Freeport, as much as any move in the complex ideological politics of the 1850s, helped lead to the downfall of Douglas as a national Democratic candidate, and thus to the ultimate dissolution of the Democratic proslavery coalition in the election of 1860. Generations of Americans confronted with the cruel moral dilemmas of slavery and its abolition found their alternatives transformed by Lincoln’s strategic intervention at Freeport—as he would go on to do on an even grander scale after his rise to the presidency two years later. A particularly effective transforming potential of leadership in strategic situations can be found in its capacity for helping to overcome the problems of collective action. A variety of moral dilemmas turn out to be underpinned, in one way or another, by the problems of collective action: that is, by the strong tendency of individuals who cannot be assured that others will cooperate in publicly beneficial endeavors to refrain from undertaking such actions (for fear that others will ‘‘free ride’’ on their efforts). In many circumstances, this helps to create moral dilemmas for individual actors: do they refrain from pursuing publicly beneficial action, thus accepting a stable but


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suboptimal equilibrium state of overall utility, or do they undertake such action, knowing that a perpetual state of injustice and exploitation will result? This is the sort of ethical situation that may constitute an insoluble moral dilemma for individual actors, but which does admit of a morally praiseworthy solution undertaken by a group. Acting collectively, groups can prevent free riding while pursuing public goods, thus resolving the associated moral dilemmas. But collective action requires leadership in order to be efficient and sustainable, because only leaders can get the ball rolling, help to pay the necessary start-up costs, enforce penalties for those who do not cooperate, and create the essential conditions of trust and solidarity between group members. So to the extent that certain moral dilemmas are caused by the problems of collective action, leaders are uniquely positioned to help (over time) to reconfigure such dilemmas and thus to alleviate the conditions that create these moral quandaries in the first place.

Transforming Ideas and Values Finally, leaders can change the ethical landscape they and their followers confront by transforming the ideas and values that provide the shared context that gives meaning to their actions toward one another.32 As I suggested above, the source of many if not most of the dilemmas that confront moral agents can be found in the unworthy attitudes, values, and preferences of citizens and constituents that leaders feel obliged to serve on their behalf. Consequently, there is often no more effective method for circumventing moral dilemmas, or from preventing them from arising in the first place, than the transformation of those structures of ideas and values that constrain moral choice throughout social life. Leaders who undertake to transform such ideas and values truly attack moral conflict at its root, and thus the possibilities for new and promising avenues of action are greatest when this kind of transformation is in play. We can see one example in FDR’s creation of the Social Security Administration amidst the extreme hardships of the Great Depression. Roosevelt proved that it was possible to lift the most vulnerable class of Americans, the elderly, out of poverty, but only by means of a creative reimagining of the social contract between citizens—one that saw us as able to oblige ourselves to one another down through the generations, through a commitment to mutual decency and shared protection. Likewise, the American civil rights movement challenged some of the most entrenched concepts, values, and prejudices of white America with the aim of changing minds and hearts. As a result of their contentious, persistent campaign, they effected a stunning and seemingly permanent reversal in white attitudes about which people mattered, about what equality and rights truly meant, and about what justice required.

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The greatest leaders are innovators: those persons who discover or establish what Machiavelli called ‘‘new modes and orders’’ for accomplishing work in the world. In Machiavelli’s voice the notion has a sinister ring to it —most things in Machiavelli’s voice do—but, in fact, history’s pages are filled with more benevolent examples of innovators who break new ground by transforming our shared frameworks of ideas and values. Socrates was such an innovator, with his relentless questioning that fractured the confident, conventional knowledge of his fellow Athenians and in time subjected their whole way of life to the searching standard of universal reason. Jesus of Nazareth, with his instructions for us to love our enemies and to forgive without limitation, taught the hearts of centuries of followers to go where they otherwise might never have dared. Mohandas Gandhi helped to show his followers, first in India, later in the American South, and in many other places, how violent coercion need not be the exclusive instrument for sweeping societal change. All these leaders—and, of course, many more—showed a new way of doing things that made seemingly irresolvable moral conflicts suddenly appear either soluble or obsolete. In doing so, they helped to transform, not just the trajectory of this vessel or that, but the very course of the stream in which all together had been carried along. Through these familiar practices of leadership (and probably through many others I have not considered here), leaders may be able not only to resist but even to redefine the characteristic moral dilemmas that plague their public responsibilities. As a consequence, if there is to be a solution to the problem of dirty hands, we can be sure that it will not be a private solution. The resources needed to overcome the problem, if any will avail to do so, are possessed by no single individual, not even the most gifted of our leaders. Instead, like all (or nearly all) the most complex and intractable problems known to human beings, the problem of dirty hands is a problem we can only hope to solve together, and, like any problem we must tackle together, our best hope is in our collective capacity for producing leadership.33

NOTES 1. For a recent and prominent defense of this view, see Michael A. Genovese, Memo to a New President: The Art and Science of Presidential Leadership (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), esp. chap. 9. 2. On the distinction between volitional and cognitive ethical failures as it relates to leadership, see Terry L. Price, Understanding Ethical Failures in Leadership (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2006), in particular chap. 1. 3. The most comprehensive examination of the idea of an ethics defined by roles is by Arthur Applbaum, Ethics for Adversaries (Princeton: Princeton University Press,


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1999). Other important treatments of the issue can be found in Michael Hardimon, ‘‘Role Obligations,’’ Journal of Philosophy 91 (1994): 333–363; David Luban, Lawyers and Justice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), chaps. 6–7; Andrew Sabl, Ruling Passions: Political Offices and Democratic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002). 4. For an extensive exploration of this history, see my recent book Paradoxes of Political Ethics (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 5. See Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘‘Existentialism is a Humanism,’’ in The Continental Ethics Reader, ed. Matthew Calarco and Peter Atterton (New York: Routledge, 2003); Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror, trans. John O’Neill (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969); Isaiah Berlin, ‘‘Two Concepts of Liberty,’’ in The Proper Study of Mankind (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997); John Gray, Isaiah Berlin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), chap. 2; Michael Walzer, ‘‘Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands,’’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 2 (1973): 160–180; Bernard Williams, ‘‘Conflicts of Values,’’ in his book Moral Luck (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Thomas Nagel, ‘‘The Fragmentation of Value,’’ in his book Mortal Questions (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), esp. chaps. 4 and 25. 6. For this view see further John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, chap. 5, in Mill’s On Liberty and Other Essays, ed. John Gray (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Mill, A System of Logic, bk. 6, chap. 12, sec. 7 (Longmans, Green, 1911); R. M. Hare, ‘‘Moral Conflicts,’’ in Moral Dilemmas, ed. Christopher Gowans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Kai Nielsen, ‘‘There Is No Dilemma of Dirty Hands,’’ in Cruelty and Deception: The Controversy over Dirty Hands in Public Life, ed. Paul Rynard and David P. Shugarman (Buffalo, NY: Broadview/Plato, 2000). For an elegant assault on this position, see Bernard Williams, ‘‘A Critique of Consequentialism,’’ in Utilitarianism: For and Against, ed. J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983); for a more comprehensive review of the standard objections to utilitarianism, see Sterling Harwood, ‘‘Eleven Objections to Utilitarianism,’’ collected in Moral Philosophy: A Reader, ed. Louis Pojman, 3rd ed. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2003). 7. For the classic statement of the deontological view, see Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. and ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998); for a contemporary adaptation of Kant’s view that retains much of his uncompromising stand on issues of moral conflict, see Alan Donagan, ‘‘Consistency in Rationalist Moral Systems,’’ in Moral Dilemmas, ed. Gowans; as well as Alan Donagan, The Theory of Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), chap. 6. 8. On the concept of a moral dilemma, see Bernard Williams, ‘‘Ethical Consistency,’’ in Moral Dilemmas, ed. Gowans; as well as the other essays collected in that volume, particularly those by R. M. Hare and Alan Donagan. 9. The classic exposition, and the one that establishes the dominant metaphor, is Michael Walzer, ‘‘Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands,’’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 2 (1973): 160–180. See also Stuart Hampshire, ed., Public and Private Morality (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1978), in particular the essays by

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Hampshire, Thomas Nagel, and Bernard Williams; as well as Thomas Nagel, ‘‘War and Massacre,’’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972): 123–144. 10. The distinction I offer here corresponds roughly to the distinction Joseph Rost draws between the ethics of leadership ‘‘process’’ and the ethics of leadership ‘‘content’’ in Joseph C. Rost, Leadership for the Twenty-First Century (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1991), chap. 7. What Rost calls the ‘‘content’’ of leadership I prefer to designate as the ‘‘applications’’ of leadership, since from a certain point of view the process of leadership very often is its important ‘‘content’’ as leadership. 11. The two kinds of ethical problems are not, of course, wholly independent of one another. For example, it may be the case that an entirely praiseworthy collective action proves to be morally unjustified because of the manipulative or oppressive leaderfollower relationship that is necessary to achieve it. Alternatively, an entirely unproblematic leader-follower dynamic in a given group may well be vitiated by the immoral ends or purposes that the group in question means to serve, or by the immoral means they select to pursue them. 12. Since I am much less familiar with the leadership studies literature, I rely for these purposes on the survey of that literature’s treatment of ethics in Joanne B. Ciulla, ed., Ethics, the Heart of Leadership, 2nd ed. (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004), chap. 1. 13. Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: HarperPerennial, 1942), esp. chap. 22. 14. On the concept of dirty hands as a kind of justification or excuse, see the analysis in Price, Understanding Ethical Failures in Leadership, esp. chap. 4. 15. Max Weber, ‘‘Politics as a Vocation,’’ in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (Oxford, 1946). 16. In this connection, see further the distinction between ‘‘leaders’’ and mere ‘‘power-wielders’’ drawn by James MacGregor Burns, in his book Leadership (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), pp. 12–22. 17. Niccolo` Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, trans. and ed. Harvey Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), I.9, p. 29. 18. Niccolo` Machiavelli, The Prince, ed. Harvey C. Mansfield, 2nd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988), chap. 15, p. 61. 19. Here I allude to the conceptual distinction between ideal and nonideal ethics, introduced by John Rawls I, for example, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), and elaborated in a related context by Christine Korsgaard in ‘‘The Right to Lie: Kant on Dealing with Evil,’’ in her book Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 20. A nontechnical introduction to such strategic principles is Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff, Thinking Strategically (New York: Norton, 1993); a more systematic introduction can be found in Avinash Dixit and Susan Skeath, Games of Strategy, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 2004). On the specific problem of the strategic implications of others’ noncooperative behavior, see Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984). 21. Treatments of the ethics of strategic action have been astonishingly rare among philosophers, political theorists, and political scientists, despite intense interest in strategic action across these disciplines in recent years. One of the very few articles to


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address the topic directly is Ruth Grant, ‘‘Ethics and Incentives: A Political Approach,’’ American Political Science Review (February 2006). 22. Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) and Equality and Partiality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), explores this general problem and its implications for moral and liberal political theory. 23. See Ross Harrison, ‘‘The Equality of Mercy,’’ in Jurisprudence: Cambridge Essays, ed. Hyman Gross and Ross Harrison (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992). 24. Machiavelli, The Prince, chaps. 16–17, pp. 62–68. 25. On this point see Terry L. Price, ‘‘Explaining Ethical Failures of Leadership,’’ in Ethics, the Heart of Leadership, ed. Joanne Ciulla, 2nd ed. (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004). 26. For the standard account of this issue in just war theory, see Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 4th ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2006), esp. chaps. 3, 8–9, and 16. On the specific ethical issues raised by the Kosovo case, see Michael Ignatieff, Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000); and a pair of articles by Paul W. Kahn, ‘‘War and Sacrifice in Kosovo,’’ Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly 19 (1999): 1–6; and ‘‘The Paradox of Riskless Warfare,’’ Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly 22 (2002): 2–8. 27. See Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Scribner’s, 1932), esp. chap. 10. 28. See Dennis Thompson, Political Ethics and Public Office (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), chap. 1. 29. James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), pp. 12– 22. On the evolution, and frequent misapplication, of Burns’s distinction in the hands of other leadership scholars, see Richard A. Couto, ‘‘The Transformation of Transforming Leadership,’’ in The Leader’s Companion, ed. J. Thomas Wren (New York: Free Press, 1995), pp. 102–107. 30. In setting visionary challenges, leaders must, of course, be conscious that leadership by inspiration requires far more than wishing things were so. George W. Bush in the Iraq War had no lack of confidence that American troops could quickly secure the country with a small invasion force to the cheers of invading throngs; years into a prolonged Iraqi civil war, he asserted with no less confidence that given time, an increased occupying army could pacify the country and establish a lasting democracy. It goes without saying that wishes are not horses, not even white ones, and thus that in creating inspiring and visionary challenges for their followers, leaders must find something more reliable on which to ride. 31. On the strategic features of Lincoln’s move at Freeport, see William Riker, The Art of Political Manipulation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), chap. 1. 32. For a discussion of some of the ways ideas and values shape the contexts and meanings of social actions, see Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics, vol. 1 (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2002), esp. chap. 8–9. 33. Thanks to Michael Genovese for helpful comments on an earlier version of this essay.

2 Leadership, Cognition, and the Politics of Manipulation WAYNE S. LE CHEMINANT

Hamlet: ‘‘You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass.’’ —Shakespeare1 Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man. —Darwin2 The very idea of a leader conjures up some of the great heroes of the past— Napoleon Bonaparte, Abraham Lincoln, or Winston Churchill. According to many who have thought about what it takes to be a leader, the characteristics of these men lead to a litany of the most important traits and qualities that befit a leader. It is a point of great interest, as one scholar notes, that ‘‘the long and restless research for common traits of leadership rises from the most basic of explanations of change in history: the dynamic, decisive role of the ‘Great Man’ who bends history’s course to his own will.’’ 3 The great leaders have the talent and ability to make others listen to their ideas, adopt new worldviews, and even behave in ways that they might not have otherwise behaved. These leaders possess virtues and traits that allow them to lead and inspire followers to follow. In addition to all of the virtues that we ascribe to great leaders, there are some potentially dangerous attributes or skills that

Leadership, Cognition, and the Politics of Manipulation

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leaders might possess that should make us wary of them. The leader’s desire and ability to manipulate followers is one such skill. Traditionally leaders were supposed to aspire to greatness and were to seek the virtues of wisdom, truth, and all that it took to make the state a virtuous place. Manipulation can be seen as a crass tool of inferior leaders or bullies, unworthy of the mantle of leadership. Moreover, manipulation is seen as a device that artificially changes the calculus of rational decision making since it is generally assumed that an actor who has been manipulated would have made a decision otherwise if she had been allowed to follow her reason to its logical end. In this essay I will examine the intersection of leadership and manipulation in light of recent advances on cognitive theory. We will need to alter how we look at manipulation given the current state of cognitive theory. Manipulation has generally been seen as a top-down enterprise; leaders or would-be leaders, manipulate followers in order to get and maintain power. I will argue that in light of cognitive theory, we will see that manipulation is a much reciprocal endeavor in which both leaders and followers get something that they need and want. Leaders get and maintain their power, and followers get a worldview that sustains them through their emotional attachments to their beliefs. More importantly, we will see that manipulation is not necessarily a means to interfere with the rational decision making process since decision making is predicated largely upon emotional reasoning. In many ways, manipulation can been seen as a process that we all use to attune the emotional states of those around us so that we can get what we want. In discussing leadership I will look at the great leader theory.4 The great leader theory holds that there are certain characteristics or virtues that leaders ought to possess in order to lead. All people, the followers, rationally would want only the most virtuous and best leaders. It is also held, generally speaking, that great leaders are born and that the important characteristics of leadership can be honed, but not entirely taught.5 Given the fact that leaders usually have the virtues as part of their makeup, they ought to lead because they have superior character. Since leaders have wisdom, they know what is good not only for themselves, but for the polity as well. Of course, not all leaders are ‘‘great.’’ Those who are not great will have to resort to less desirable tactics such as coercion and manipulation in order to maintain power, or so the theory goes. The great leader theory has its roots in traditional Western philosophy and still is a popular way of thinking about leadership today.6 Manipulation is a tactic that means managing or influencing others or a situation, usually in an unfair way. It also means to manage a situation or events to suit one’s purposes.7 If a leader is virtuous, then there should be no reason or need to manipulate the polity because the polity would know that the leader rules in the interest of the polity and the leader would never have

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selfish interests. In fact, for the great leader theory, a virtuous leader’s interests and the polity’s interests are identical. A leader would need to manipulate the polity only if she seeks to manage events to suit her own selfish purposes, which is antithetical to the traditional notion of the great leader theory. Most people see the use of manipulation to be offensive since it is used so blatantly for the interest of the manipulator and not the manipulated. It is also seen as an intrusion upon the devices of rational decision making. Only thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and Niccolo` Machiavelli are willing to advocate ideas that leaders should seek their own interest, which is maintaining power, and they note that the very survival of the state depends on it.8 How we understand the idea of the great leader and manipulation is linked closely with traditional moral theories found in Western philosophy. Some of the key ideas that pervade moral theories are the following: (1) moral truth really exists in an objective way; (2) we can know this truth through the use of reason; (3) reason is universal so all people can know the moral truth; (4) reason is superior to emotion since emotions are seemingly so subjective while reason is objective; and (5) all things being equal, absent manipulation, people will always rationally calculate their own best interests, which generally includes having a great leader.9 Given these five key characteristics about moral beliefs, we can see why manipulation is so offensive to most. Manipulation does not point toward the moral truth because it aims to deceive. Those who seek power for selfish interests, usually based on some subjective lust for power, resort to manipulation. Manipulation is the counterfeit of rational decision making, because people believe that they are deciding rationally, when, in reality, a leader is pulling the strings of the polity behind the playing field. The great leader, on the other hand, does not need to resort to such base tactics because, in the end, the great leader not only inspires her followers, but also seeks to inculcate them into the correct worldview. One more reason why manipulation is held as something immoral is because it thwarts the idea of freewill, which is the foundation of moral decision making in Western philosophy. People cannot choose morally or be held responsible for their actions if they cannot choose them with the best available information. Manipulation clouds the whole idea as to who should be held accountable for immoral actions. Another commonly held belief in traditional moral philosophy is an ontological one that holds that there is a soul or a mind that is outside of the realm of cause and effect.10 It is through this soul or mind that we can know the truth, which is transcendental and, subsequently, universal.11 Recent advances in cognitive theory require that we shift how we think about morality, emotions, and the nature of truth for that matter. This will change how we look at manipulation and leadership. Cognitive theorists hold there are no characteristics about human life and what humans can


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know that is transcendental. There are no moral truths that are outside of the human body. If we want to understand the mind, our desires, our interests, and the things that we are willing to believe, then we must study the brain and its interactions with the world. 12 Humans must be understood as the result of the process of evolution.13 The attributes and behaviors that we have, the practices in which we engage, and the beliefs that we hold need to be looked at in terms of what sort of evolutionary advantage they might hold.14 Perhaps the most important finding that cognitive science has given us is a new understanding of how emotions play a critical role in our decision making.15 We now know that most of our decision making is done on an unconscious level based on emotions and desires.16 As political scientist Rose McDermott argues, ‘‘Most of us are taught from early on that logical, rational calculation forms the basis of sound decisions’’ and that emotions only muck up this process.17 However, cognitive theory tells us that not only is rational calculation not the basis of decision making but that emotion is. I will put forth the idea that manipulation is a process in which all of us engage, that leaders are simply better at it than most of us are, and that manipulation is a reciprocal process. Leaders get and maintain power; the rest of us have people we admire and respect, or who lead us to reinforce our worldviews. The relationship between leaders and followers must be examined more closely in order to understand why followers follow their leaders even when it is to their detriment. It cannot be the case that followers rationally decide to act in ways that will lead to their demise. I think that we can infer some type of manipulation is taking place, even if we cannot always identify it, when people act contrary to what would so obviously be their best interests.18 What we will see is that manipulation is actually a process that takes place in all our interactions as we try to get what we want by playing to our emotions and the emotions of others. In this essay I try to tie together several disparate fields of thought. Since great leader theory is an important one in the tradition of understanding leadership, I believe that juxtaposing it with the findings of cognitive science will help us to understand better the relationship between leaders and followers. I also argue that this approach will have an impact subsequently of how we see other concepts important to political decision making such as freewill. In justifying my approach of looking at some of the intersections of leadership with political thought and cognitive theory, I wish to refer to political scientist Thomas Cronin who argues that ‘‘leadership, like these multidisciplinary fields [education, cognitive science, intercultural studies, and others] requires fancy footwork in modes of inquiry and standards of evidence and argument. To admit this limitation at the start is to encourage prudence and caution, not to dismiss or belittle the value of the enterprise.’’ 19 I want to admit the limitations of this chaper—I am examining only one aspect of the large field of

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leadership studies with a cursory look at cognitive science to see how it is that manipulation is at all possible. Despite these limitations, the exploration is a potentially fruitful one.

THE GREAT LEADER THEORY Regardless of how we look at leadership, the traits that a leader has do seem to matter. 20 Traits such as drive, desire to lead, honesty, selfconfidence, and cognitive ability are some of the traits that seemingly matter.21 Political scientist Robert C. Tucker argues that ‘‘certain general qualities’’ appear in different notions of what constitutes leadership, but there is still a set of qualities that remains central and important to leadership.22 There is certainly a difference between great leaders and ineffective leaders. The great leaders are supposed to have the attributes of virtue, wisdom, foresight, courage, intelligence, and charisma. Ineffective leaders resort to bullying and coercion. Both kinds of leaders want power to run the polity as they see fit. The difference is that great leaders supposedly rule on behalf of all and ineffective leaders rule in their own interests. It may be the case that leaders who resort to violent means to attain their ends for power are not really leaders at all since one might argue that in order to be a leader one must be able to get people to follow, and following implies an element of free will. In this chapter we will not deal with ineffective leaders, since they may not really be leaders, or coercion since that deals with an entirely different calculus than manipulation. We will be examining great leaders and the use of manipulation. On the one hand, if a leader is great, one might hypothesize that she would not need to manipulate anyone. Another question that we can ask about the relationship between leaders and followers is why would anyone ever knowingly place a person above them who can manipulate them? It seems that if actors are always rational calculators then they will always be wary of leaders since it seems obvious that when placing someone in a position of power then manipulation is likely to follow. Yet, actors continue to follow leaders and even trust and, at times, adore them. As we examine leadership and cognition, we will see how this is possible. But first I want to examine the tradition of the great leader theory by looking at Plato and Aristotle. Plato and Aristotle held that leaders hold certain moral virtues that qualify them to be leaders. This idea has become so pervasive that it is still influential. Political scientists Dan Laitin and Ian Lustick note that ideas about leadership typically center on ‘‘whether a particular leader followed certain maxims or strictures for good leadership.’’ 23 There is evidence to suggest that the traits necessary to be a great leader cut across enterprises, whether it is considered moral, such as heading up a democratic state, or immoral, such as leading


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mobsters in the mafia.24 One of the reasons that the great leader theory is often referred to as the trait theory is because of the ‘‘general belief that a hero is great not only because of what he does but because of what he is—because of his traits.’’ 25 The reason that the great leader approach has persisted is because it does not identify the myriad of infinite possible situations leaders and followers will find themselves in, but distinguishes the correct traits that will help leaders succeed in any given situation.26 Plato is one of the earliest thinkers to identify the traits necessary to be the ultimate leader, the philosopher king. Not only is the public good in the hands of the one who will ‘‘genuinely and adequately philosophize,’’ but private happiness is as well because it is necessary for ‘‘political power and philosophy [to] coincide.’’ 27 In Plato’s world the leader is tested as if by fire and turns out to be pure, like gold, if he is able to resist the pleasures and pains that confront him and he shows himself to be a true lover of the city.28 Among the traits that the king must possess is the ability to be the best in philosophy and in the arts of war.29 More importantly, for the purposes of this chapter, Plato holds that a city that does not have at its helm the philosopher king is likely to be unhappy, whereas the city that has in its top leadership position the philosopher king will be the most happy.30 The great leader is one who has well-defined virtues and who is able to stave off personal desire and wants for the sake of the polity.31 Aristotle argues that ‘‘the merit on which it [leadership] is based may consist in personal (or family) qualities; it may consist in benefits rendered; it may consist in a combination of both of these with capacity. Those who have gained the position of king have all been men who had actually benefited, or were capable of benefiting, their cities of people.’’ 32 Rulers are those who have knowledge of the virtues of how to use other people so that the state can be well ordered and virtuous.33 Among the traits that a great leader should have are temperance, justice, and practical wisdom.34 In regards to practical knowledge Aristotle writes, ‘‘We say that a good ruler is a good man and possesses practical wisdom, while the citizen does not need to have practical wisdom.’’ 35 He continues by arguing that ‘‘practical wisdom is the only form of excellence which is peculiar to the ruler.’’ 36 Again, Aristotle, like Plato, identifies particular traits that are necessary for leadership. It is more important to have these traits than to have particular knowledge of each possible situation that may arise since such knowledge is impossible.37 The search for the ideal attributes of the great leader continues unabated. Thomas E. Cronin writes, ‘‘Leadership is one of the most widely talked about subjects and at the same time one of the most elusive and puzzling.’’ 38 One of the most important reasons that some think that leadership cannot be studied, according to Cronin, is because ‘‘leadership often involves an element of manipulation or deviousness, if not outright ruthlessness. Some consider

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it as virtually the same as learning about jungle-fighting or acquiring ‘the killer instinct.’ It’s just not a ‘clean’ enough subject matter for many people to embrace.’’ 39 Cronin is on to something here, and I think that one of the aspects of leadership that the great leader has to implicitly ignore is manipulation. If one is going to elucidate the traits of the great leader, one can assume that those traits not enumerated are those that are unnecessary or perhaps immoral. A trait or skill such as manipulation already has the negative connotation, so it is easy to see why thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle would have ignored it as a required one for the great leader.40 However, simply because thinkers might be hesitant to discuss manipulation does not mean that it is not a vital and integral aspect of how we interact with each other. Where do conventional ideas about manipulation come from? In order to hold that there is something wrong with manipulation, one must also hold to some notion of truth that is absolute and leaders who can be imbued with virtues that are capable of rendering goodness to the polity. One also has to hold that actors act according to a rational calculus to determine their best interests and how to achieve them; therefore, the subversion of that process through manipulation is not only undesirable but also wrong since the act of manipulation itself must stem from a rational decision to use it as a tool. The ideas of the great leader and of the undesirability of manipulation are found in traditional Western moral philosophy, which relies on free will, rationality, and an aspect of the individual that is free from cause and effect. However, what if philosophy ‘‘is the attempt to find good reasons for conventional beliefs’’ 41 that have nothing to do with transcendental realities? We will have to alter our conception of philosophy as a search for truth to something more along the lines that philosophy is the attempt to justify our wants.42

MANIPULATION AND MORALITY Leadership, in the great leader tradition, deals with the moral order of things. Leaders represent the natural order, God’s will, or any number of ways that equates the rules and dictates of the ruler. Leaders are supposed to get results by adhering to a path of wisdom and virtue, not a ruthless calculation of means to selfish ends. The results that a leader gets should not abrogate moral standards. Traditionally morality is seen as either a set of rules or a process of reasoning and, in many accounts, the moral realm is a transcendental realm beyond this one. In this light manipulation is either the perversion or corruption of the set of rules or it is a perverted sense of reasoning to garner one’s own interest. To attempt to influence or control the outcome of any event unfairly is to subvert the moral world. Great leaders, one might think, should not resort to such tactics. Yet leaders always do. Whether even great leaders use such immoral tactics might lie in the eye of the beholder of


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any particular action. We also know that for those leaders who manipulate there are a host of ways that the process of manipulation could take place: withholding information concerning the actual state of things, placing actors in positions to strengthen the position of the leaders and weaken the state of their opponents, and using emotions. In fact, the use of emotions to manipulate people has become a rather well-studied aspect of manipulation. For example, we know that TV networks, news companies, and politicians use fear to their profit. They are able to use our emotions in their presentation of half-truths and strained interpretations of events in order to get what they want—power and influence.43 We will see that our interactions with others, including the relationship of leaders and followers, are similarly based on emotional reasoning. There are many ways to manipulate the polity, according to various thinkers. For example, political scientist Murray Edelman writes that ‘‘the spectacle constituted by news reporting continuously constructs and reconstructs social problems, crises, enemies, and leaders and so creates a succession of threats and reassurances.’’ He continues by stating that ‘‘if political developments depended upon factual observations, false meanings would be discredited in time and a consensus upon valid ones would emerge, at least among informed and educated observers. That does not happen, even over long times.’’ 44 Edelman argues that realities are not the same for people at every time.45 Edelman does well to point us to the confused and manipulative way that the political spectacle is created, but we need to get to why it is that way. We need to understand manipulation as more than just leaders who want to gain and maintain power, though that is certainly part of manipulation. Manipulation is selectively delivering on certain aspects of the truth and withholding others or delivering interpretations that purposely present the truth in one light rather than another. Manipulation is giving an interpretation of facts as if one is merely laying out the facts and not going into an interpretation. If we think about manipulation in this light, then all of us manipulate because we cannot help but do otherwise. All of us necessarily make interpretations, and we cannot help but be selective in our presentation of or even knowledge of the facts. The question that we are left with is, why is there a small group of people, leaders, who are able to use it so effectively in order to rule and control the larger group? Part of what leaders try to do is seduce the followers, if by seduction we mean they can portray characteristics and features of themselves that help put on a good side of themselves.46 Why is this courtship an effective path? Could not one assume that the average consumer of manipulation would be skeptical of the things leaders tell them? This would not be a safe bet. One way that we could plausibly reinterpret the great leader theory is not to say

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that leaders actually possess all the great virtues imaginable, but that followers falsely imbue leaders with such virtues because it makes the followers emotionally secure. Leaders can use this fact to seduce followers because, similar to love, followers are not only willing to overlook flaws and negative traits, but they actually see the leaders as having only positive traits. People desire to have someone in whom they can believe. Leaders know that choosing a leader, someone in whom one can put one’s devotion, is a lot like falling in love and falling out of love. Falling in love is certainly a moment where one does not choose one’s desires but where one’s desires make the choice.47 There must be some sort of a reciprocal relationship between leaders and followers. 48 From the perspective of the follower, there are many reasons why one might want to follow. For example, we know that we all share similar traits and desires for accumulation of material goods, praise, and power. If it is impossible for a person to attain power, since the vast majority of us never become leaders, then at the very least the person can imagine that she has some power and control through her leader. The leader is an extension of the subject and of the entire state.49 Despite the various nuances and possible reasons why someone may or may not follow someone, one notion that is clear is that leaders must have followers. Therefore, leaders have extremely powerful incentives to maintain their followers. There is even a need to create false images of ourselves and the state of things in order to attain our wants. We are often willing to put our trust in leaders who are bad for us, if only we could use a rational calculus, as if one were even available, to figure that out.50 In order to understand how this works, we should look at cognitive theory. Understood in terms of the great leader theory, manipulation is not necessary for a great leader to resort to since the great leader has the virtues and wisdom at her disposal. A follower can be manipulated only if a leader somehow distorts the rational calculus so that the follower does not make the decision that she would have otherwise made, all things being equal. However, we have seen that this also relies on several other key philosophical concepts. First, followers have to have the ability to make decisions according to their own free will. Second, we have to assume that decisions are made according to an explicit rational calculus wherein the actors know what they want. Third, the reason for thwarting the free will of actors or distorting their rational calculus is predicated on a system of moral beliefs that is transcendental and not contextual. It is important to remember that cognitive theory sees morality as a process of evolution and not a transcendent thing.51 If this is the case, then it is quite likely that we will also need to see manipulation in a different light. Manipulation is no longer the violation of a moral scheme but is a technique used that is based in the process of evolution. This will also change how we look at the relationship of leaders and followers. We will see that our moral scheme is


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actually an interesting combination of evolutionary features that have particular dispositions built in—compassion and empathy—and that a great deal of reasoning is built on emotions. In my estimation, leaders are generally those who are able to make the best use of the fact that we are naturally empathetic and they know how to manipulate not merely facts or events to achieve certain ends—the standard notion of manipulation—but are able to manipulate people’s emotions. However, the ability to manipulate is a skill that we all share; it is just that leaders are able to do it on a scale that most of us cannot imagine. It is also the case that we can make a better argument for why people act against what is seemingly their best interest if we hold to this idea of manipulation based on cognitive theory. We cannot understand human morality, and thereby manipulation and leadership, if we do not understand how morality has evolved. This evolution of morality is just that, an evolution that has developed through time as our brains and cognitive framework has developed. Morality, according to most cognitive theorists, is not part of some transcendental schema. The development and historical evolution of the brain is crucial to how we see the world morally and how we interact with others.52 One of the most wellknown examples that first brought thinkers to the idea that changes in the brain can bring about changes in the actual persona of a person is the story of Phineas Gage. Gage was a railroad worker in the nineteenth century who was injured when a long spike that was used to tamp explosives shot through his cheekbone, his brain, and out the top of his skull. Amazingly, Gage survived this accident with full functioning memory, perception, and motor function. However, as Pinker notes, ‘‘A piece of iron had literally turned him into a different person, from courteous, responsible, and ambitious to rude, unreliable, and shiftless.’’ 53 This happened because Gage’s brain was damaged. There was no real Gage trapped inside and this new Gage was somehow an intruder. The changes in the brain had changed Gage. The brain is a combination of parts that in many ways run autonomously. The conscious mind, as Pinker notes, ‘‘is a spin doctor, not the commander in chief.’’ 54 Leaders and followers, all having brains and emotions, are not always consciously aware of how decisions and events impact them. Manipulation is an exchange of information, codes, signs, words, and other means of conveying desired emotional responses that will then lead to particular worldviews. This has happened, not consciously, but via the evolution of our brains and, therefore, our moral systems.

COGNITION AND EMOTION Steven Pinker argues that there are five major findings of cognitive theory that will change how we look at minds and what this will mean to our

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analysis of morality. First is that the mental world is grounded in the physical world. Second, the mind is not a blank slate. The mind has a structure and internal ‘‘programming’’ that we have inherited through evolution and natural selection. Third, there is an infinite range of behaviors that are generated from the finite structure of the mind. Fourth, these underlying programs or the structure of the brain can account for the ‘‘superficial variation across culture.’’ Fifth, ‘‘the mind is a complex system of many interacting parts.’’55 Pinker adds that humans behave flexibly because they are programmed: their minds are packed with combinatorial software that can generate an unlimited set of thoughts and behavior. Behavior may vary across culture, but the design of the mental programs that generate it need not vary. Intelligent behavior is learned successfully because we have innate systems that do the learning. And all people may have good and evil motives, but not everyone may translate them into behavior in the same way.56

The fact that the brain can generate many forms of behavior is something that we need to think about. First, a minor but important point is that morality and every thing that we ‘‘are’’ is generated here in the physical world, according to cognitive theory. There is nothing that is transcendental. Therefore, the great leader theory, insofar as it attempts to locate or connect the traits of the great leader with attributes that are otherworldly, is going to fail. As Burns writes, ‘‘Just as Great Men often stumble, so did the Great Man Theory.’’ 57 This means that we will need to understand effective or successful leadership in a different light. I am not claiming that there are not great leaders; clearly there are. There are also important traits that make one an effective leader. What we need to know is how leaders are able to lead and why followers follow. Cognitive theory seems to provide some initial answers to that question. Leaders can safely claim that they behave in the interest of all, even if that is not the case, because emotions rule the day and there are so many possible interpretations of any one event. In other words, leaders can often safely manipulate followers by hiding facts, creating unfair and inequitable situations and still maintain power without the use of coercion.58 Followers allow themselves to be manipulated for the same reason—they get something out of it that they seek, emotional satisfaction as to some ‘‘stable’’ worldview. Cognitive theory shows that Western philosophers have got the story of human beings wrong.59 We have incorrectly assumed that human reason is somehow separate or distinct from the rest of what comprises a human. Traditional philosophy has also assumed that humans generally make decisions according to the dictates of reason and that emotional decision making is detrimental to the decision making process. Reason is an aspect of part of a soul or some other entity that has free will. This is important because this is a


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source of morality. Without freewill and reason, we cannot be moral actors, according to traditional philosophy. Therefore, manipulation is repugnant and something that great leaders should avoid. Cognitive theorists have started to reorganize how we conceive of the important concepts of morality and free will, which in turn will force us to rethink concepts such as manipulation.60 Morality is a feeling and is a part of the mind or brain itself. Linguistics professors George Lakoff and Marc Johnson write, ‘‘We may very well experience emotions in the same way we experience certain physical forces. An emotional experience can be painful or disruptive.’’ 61 Some of the basic tenets of cognitive theory can be summed up as such: ‘‘The mind is inherently embodied. Thought is mostly unconscious. Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.’’ 62 We experience emotions in the same way that we experience physical forces. In turn, these emotions provide the building blocks for the tactics and strategies that work to our benefit. Empathy is such an emotion.63 It is hypothesized that the reason why higher order primates, including humans, experience empathy, the emotion of desiring to help others and even feeling the pain of others, is because it serves the evolutionary advantage of cooperation, a skill that is important to certain types of animals. Primates that could not or did not experience empathy were likely diminished in their capacity for survival. We might give ex post facto justifications for why we ought to empathize—Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative is a rationalistic account of why we should show empathy—but this does not mean that reason is the grounding of empathy. Likewise, we can give ex post facto reasons as to why we should not deceive or manipulate others, but the fact is, all primates use tactical deception—manipulation—as a part of their skill set. One reason why people respond angrily to being manipulated is not because manipulation is transcendentally wrong, but because some manipulator was more skillful at getting what she wanted, and that upsets us emotionally. Before we discuss emotions and tactical deception, we should examine cognitive theory and morality. From cognitive theory we find out that morality is metaphoric, not a separate or real experience that is somehow different from what humans experience. 64 Humans do not experience ‘‘morality.’’ Humans experience emotions. Metaphors that deal with morality act like all metaphors do, they stand in the place for that which is being described. Morality is the experience of emotions that we have of things that we like and do not like, the experience of pain and pleasure, the experience of praise and shame. Manipulation is a metaphor for the experience of emotions that we feel like we have just been had when we claim that we have been manipulated. Someone has proven herself superior to us in getting what she wants so we feel angry. We then say that being manipulated was wrong.

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If the experience of morality is metaphoric, then it is not univocal. The metaphors are not understood in their own terms, and there ‘‘is not some autonomous, monolithic ‘ethical’ domain with its own unique set of ethical concepts.’’ 65 One of the problems with traditional notions of morality is that there is the implication of one size fits all. If any particular moral theory is true in a transcendental sense, then it must be true for all people. Manipulation must then be seen as a way of violating some transcendental notion of morality and social mores, according to traditional moral theories. Obviously, the world is replete with different ways of living, different social values, and different moral systems. Cognitive theory can help us work through these differences in order to understand concepts such as manipulation. Through the use of cognitive theory we can see that there is an underlying morality that is embodied. We see that we have developed moral ideas because our brains are attuned to emotions like empathy and strategies for cooperation. Our brain is also attuned to ways of getting what we want through kindness, deception, and even force when need be. However, our brains also want constant and cogent narratives, certainty in our worldviews, and ways to attain wants and desires. We still must figure out how it is that leaders are able to lead, assuming that they are not coercing their followers, and followers follow and occasionally allow themselves to be manipulated. One possible explanation is that manipulation is one of the tools that we can use to attain wants. Leaders provide narratives and surety in a world of uncertainty. Even leaders who propose worldviews that are shocking and hideous to outsiders often find their machinations for manipulation successful—they want power—by giving followers what they want—cogent worldviews that make sense of the world and provide emotional reassurance to this fact. Emotion is the glue that makes us stick to certain worldviews and beliefs. When leaders espouse a particular worldview, even if it is manipulative, then we are less likely to give up the worldview, even after we might find out that we were manipulated into the worldview. We commit various acts and come to believe certain things for reasons that we still do not entirely understand because we know so little about the brain. However, we have started to discover enough that we know that emotions play an integral and primary role in decision making. Furthermore, if we want to know more of who we are, cognitive theory necessarily holds the assumption that the way to do so is by examining the many and complex processes of the brain. For example, Joseph Le Doux of the NYU Center for Neural Science writes, ‘‘A whole area of psychology is devoted to the study of personality and the self. And theologians, philosophers, novelists, and poets have also had much to say on the subject. While seemingly deep truths have sometimes emerged from these musings, it is not clear how, if at all, these insights might relate to the


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workings of the brain.’’ 66 From a cognitive theory perspective, it is rather amazing as to how many ideas we take to be true about the human mind and emotion that are not based on anything other than conjecture or philosophical speculation. Le Doux writes, ‘‘Thinking cannot be fully comprehended if emotions and motivations are ignored.’’ 67 While the processes of the brain are a complex mix of top-down and bottom-up processes, meaning that we have conscious knowledge of some of what goes on in our brain and of other important processes we do not.68 Psychology professor Vilayanur S. Ramachandran writes, ‘‘Our mental life is governed mainly by a cauldron of emotions, motives, and desires, which we are barely conscious of, and what we call conscious life is usually an elaborate post hoc rationalization of things we really do for other reasons.’’ 69 As Le Doux argues, ‘‘A mind is not, as cognitive science has traditionally suggested, just a thinking device. It’s an integrated system that includes, in the broadest possible terms, synaptic networks devoted to cognitive, emotional, and motivational functions. More important, it involves interactions between networks involved in different aspects of mental life.’’ 70 That is a long jump from Rene´ Descartes’s notion that you, the real you, are an immaterial soul who exists in the realm of freedom or outside of the world of cause and effect. We have come to the point that the notion of transcendental morality is out. If one manipulates others, one has not violated some eternal principle of morality and a leader has not crossed over into the dark side. The manipulator is simply using a technique that is built into our system and that works in conjunction with the important array of emotions that underlie our decision making. One of the most pervasive characteristics of human behavior is empathy. Social animals coordinate responses to threats, the collection of food, mating, and even assistance to those who are in need.71 Empathy, the desire to help others, is so strongly tied to emotional reasoning that it is impossible to think of humans or even nonhuman primates without this capacity. De Waal argues that ‘‘almost all communication among nonhuman primates is thought to be emotionally mediated. We are familiar with the prominent role of emotions in human facial expressions, but when it comes to monkeys and apes—which have a homologous array of expressions—emotions seem equally important.’’ 72 Communication and its meaning are, in many ways, carried through emotions, such as empathy. The very tools for manipulation are built into us as well. While coercion probably relies on emotions such as fear, manipulation relies on building empathy most of the time. Emotions are the key to understanding how this takes place. We have built-in emotions for empathy and a built-in skill set that includes manipulation. For example, natural selection has graced us with babies who cry in order to ‘‘catch our attention, stir our emotions, and motivate us to swing into action, attempting to stop or

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eliminate the causes of our offspring’s hunger or pain.’’ The reason, of course, is to alleviate our own pain and to help the child. ‘‘Loud, harsh, noisy sounds are aversive. Soft, harmonic sounds are pleasant. When humans hear an infant crying, they want to turn it off.’’ 73 We see early on that manipulating the emotions of others is something we become adept at; a lack of skill in such an area is potentially harmful to our survival. The baby manipulates—he gets results from crying—and the listener of the cry, through the experience of empathy, tries to help. The practice of manipulation occurs from the beginning of each of our lives and is used throughout. Tactical deception, which can be defined as ‘‘the strategic manipulation of another’s access to information for some self-serving benefit,’’ is something that is built into us.74 Hauser and others argue that intuitions are a primary way that makes up our mind concerning an entire host of decisions. He writes, ‘‘Once intuitions are elevated to rules mind blindness turns to confabulation, as we engage in mental somersaults to justify our beliefs.’’ 75 We form judgments that are ‘‘made rapidly, involuntarily, and without recourse to well-defined principles.’’ 76 Our emotions provide the basis for what is right and wrong.77 Since this is the case it is far more important to be able to manipulate people’s emotions rather than stun them with cold, hard logic. ‘‘Conscious moral reasoning often plays no role in our moral judgments, and in many cases reflects a post-hoc justification or rationalization of previously held biases or beliefs.’’ 78 Manipulation can also be seen as a tool that leaders use to try on different hats or images. It is important, from the perspective of a leader, to maintain power. It might take a wide array of personas and strategies to do this. People often criticize leaders for not letting us know the real person, as if not letting us in is a matter of manipulation. We can conceive of ourselves as ‘‘chameleons, designed to try out different colors to match our social partner’s substrate.’’ 79 There are also great differences between those of us who use the skill of manipulation to maximum effectiveness and those of us who do not. Instead of seeing manipulation as some sort of moral turpitude, perhaps we should see it as a skill that we all use. It is a skill that leaders, in particular, are better at using than the average person is.80 We should expect that there is variance in using this skill as there is in the use of all skills. We know that genes and environment pass on a wide variety of preferences as ‘‘bundles of personality traits do tend to cluster together in people. Some are skeptical of tradition, open to new experiences, rebellious, pleasure-seeking, egalitarian and riskprone. Others value tradition, duty, close family relationships and security.’’ 81 Manipulation, the use of deception to get what you want, is a skill that some prize more than others and that some are better at using than others, but it is a skill all the same. Emotional connections that help us reason allow leaders


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to continually use manipulation as a way to establish their legitimacy through the reinforcement of their worldviews because followers become emotionally attached to such worldviews and see them as the truth. Followers learn to adopt the worldviews of their leaders as if they were their own. Our brains find ways to make sense of the world because it makes us more comfortable. We respond, emotionally speaking, very poorly to incoherent worldviews. Leaders are people who are able to provide visions of the world that we can use to make sense of ‘‘things.’’ There is even evidence that certain types of narratives are more likely to be convincing to us than others. For example, [S]ocial and cognitive psychologists have identified a number of predictable errors in the ways that humans judge situations and evaluate risks . . . people are prone to exaggerating their strengths. . . . All the biases in our list favor hawks. These psychological impulses . . . incline national leaders to exaggerate the evil intentions of adversaries, to misjudge how adversaries perceive them, to be overly sanguine when hostilities start, and overly reluctant to make necessary concessions in negotiations.82

In other words, leaders are quite likely to misconstrue events because of the emotional entanglements that precipitated their worldviews. They will convey these misconstrued beliefs to their followers who believe them because of their previously held worldviews and emotional experiences. Leaders spend a great deal of time trying to frame messages and put forward an image of themselves. Reiterated messages have the tendency to build up an acceptance of the message because we become emotionally comfortable with the message. Think of the messages and worldviews that people learn to adopt where concepts such as charity and peace have to live side-by-side with ideas such as torture and killing. The brain, in order to maintain a sort of emotional homeostasis, confabulates disparate elements of our existence in order to make sense of events. Of course, new events, news that breaks our habits, or news that shocks us is likely to be a disorienting affair since our emotional status is destabilized. This is why leaders try to stay on point, have focused messages, and use other means of limiting the potentially troubling effects of emotional insecurity. In other words, the messages that we get are from a constant practice of manipulation. It is likely that leaders are better at the use of manipulation because they are leaders. However, there is also a sense that followers are more likely to believe leaders because they are leaders. Followers who support and maintain leaders and then suddenly shift course and bring a leader down are inviting emotional instability. There is evidence to suggest that the brain looks for evidence to support a worldview with which it feels comfortable.83 So once manipulated, the brain will seek to find reasons to support the worldview it already holds.

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Manipulation and desire are very closely linked. Emotions are the source of our terminal desires. The intellect cannot control the emotions. This is why manipulation is most closely related to the emotions and the regions of the brain to which we do not have access. The emotions have to commit because that is what they do—they respond to events, ideas, and stories in ways that often baffle even those who experience the emotion. Without emotions the powers of the intellect to persuade anyone is small.84 If this is the case, then manipulation and emotion are the co-conspirators of much of what we believe. Emotions do not fight fair.85 As philosopher William Irvine writes, ‘‘People have . . . a tendency to form long-term desires that they will probably never fulfill. . . . But although our long-term desires may be unrealistic, the shortterm desires we form tend to be utterly pragmatic. The things we want in daily living are for the most part things easily within our power to obtain.’’ 86 Leaders might know this and are able to use it to their advantage. Hence we get a host of problems that might, in fact, be pseudoproblems.87 Leaders are always better off manipulating followers to believe that there are short-term problems that only the leader can fix. Perhaps one good way to create anxiety about one’s opponents and enemies is to say that any long-term and systemic problem is a result of one’s opponent’s worldview. This would, if the manipulation works correctly, cause followers to abandon their opponent because her worldview causes anxiety and emotional instability, as opposed to reassurances. One of the ‘‘problems’’ with emotions is that we really are nowhere near getting where they come from and how they are formed. We know that the limbic region of the brain ‘‘governs behavior by monitoring primarily positive reinforcers and established dispositions.’’ 88 It is through emotions that the brain reinforces beliefs and conceptions of the world by which strategic considerations are made. Moreover, ‘‘for humans, these strategic considerations are only occasionally governed by conscious calculation. More often, these executive functions are done subconsciously.’’ 89 If this is true and it is also true that manipulation is a skill we all have, then we are not really close at all in understanding why particular worldviews appeal to us, why manipulation works some of the time, and what it is that leaders ‘‘have’’ that the rest of us do not. However, we do know that we all use tactical deception, that we form worldviews with emotions as the foundation of these views, and that emotions play a primary role in our ‘‘rational’’ calculating process.90 In fact, even the very ‘‘I’’ that appears to be in control of the person we think we are does not exist for cognitive theorists.91 To make understanding our situation in the real world even more perplexing, we can look at how the brain confabulates our experience. We have already learned that desires and emotions are key to our behavior and that the brain makes us see things as if we have free will. Joseph Le Doux argues that one of the things that the brain does on a conscious level is confabulate


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—it tries to make up coherent stories.92 This matters in terms of manipulation for a variety of reasons. It is the penchant of our brain to make up stories that seem to have a structure, that ‘‘make sense’’ to us, and that might even pass as ‘‘common sense.’’ The leaders who might be the best at manipulation will be those who are able to provide stories about past events, the current situation, and how things might look in the future that are emotionally reassuring to us. One way to look at the mind is to see it like a Swiss Army knife, with many different blades and gadgets that all perform different functions, many unrelated but still part of the ‘‘knife.’’ This is from our evolutionary past.93 Part of how this works, then, is the attempt at confabulation and the attempts to give ex post facto justifications for emotions and rationalizations for actions that we have decided upon, often for no good reason. The brain is a ripe field for manipulation since it tries so hard to make sense of what is going on. There is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that we have no better reasons for why we make the decisions we do than we have for the decisions that others make.94 Social psychologist Robert Zajonc writes, ‘‘For most decisions, it is extremely difficult to demonstrate that there has actually been any prior cognitive process whatsoever.’’ 95 We do know that emotions play such a large role in determining our decisions, in processes deep within the limbic region of our brain that we will probably never have direct access to them. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, for example, argues that people who have lost the function of their emotions are actually hindered in making decisions.96 One of the brain’s activities is to organize experience, even if the experience is incoherent and does not make sense. Our brains seem to operate in multidimensional gestalts that makes our experiences coherent.97 There is a great deal at stake and potentially a great deal of return for manipulation. In many ways, manipulation is a low-cost–high-return game —one need merely repeat the same story over and over to get obedience, conformity, and unquestioning deference, assuming that the listener is responding emotionally. It is just a matter of coming up with the right story, one that appeals to the emotions, and repeating it with authority. It is in our interest to be able to manipulate not only particular acts but also the narratives through which people see the world.98 Manipulative techniques allow leaders to help establish worldviews that become difficult to shake because so much of our decision making relies on habit. Marcus, Neuman, and MacKuen write, ‘‘Most of the time, most of us literally do not think about our political options but instead rely on our political habits. Reliance on habit is deeply ingrained in our evolution to humanity. So when [do] we think about politics? When our emotions tell us to.’’ 99 Clearly this feature of the brain is something that makes us susceptible to manipulation. Since we often rely on habit, a leader needs to look at the most effective ways to develop habits in her followers in order to maintain the low

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cost benefits of continual manipulation. Affect and reason are highly complementary systems.100 Emotions are primary—the evaluations are generated before any conscious awareness, most of our emotional responses never reach the level of conscious awareness, and our emotions form habits.101 Manipulation, for a leader, in many ways is the art of embedding emotions in one’s followers so that the followers, acting on those emotions, believe themselves to be acting rationally and in full concert with their own free accord. Manipulation might be a matter of learning the tricks that the brain uses on itself to one’s advantage.

CONCLUSION Even with this new understanding of manipulation, leadership, and the important role that emotions play in cognition and decision making, it does not mean that traditional moral philosophies will disappear any time soon. The brain is programmed for such intransigence since it helps us to maintain our mental ‘‘homeostasis.’’ Even if evidence suggests that maybe our nature is one way rather than another does little to alter the intransigence of moral philosophers. It is quite possibly the case that we will develop a new sense of morality once we understand things like consciousness better.102 There are several claims that cognitive theory makes that have or will have an impact on how we look at morality, in general, and leadership and manipulation, in particular. Cognitive theory holds that there is no soul; there are no transcendent realities; the concept of free will must be reexamined; rational decision making is not what we thought it was; emotions play a critical role in setting our worldview; and the truth of human nature needs to be found within the body, and not in the Platonic realm. This means that manipulation is not a perversion of the truth but is an activity that we all take part in, perhaps even unconsciously as we seek to fulfill our desires, satisfy our emotions, and further our interests. The loss of transcendental truths has frightened some thinkers. Walter Lippmann argued, In the prevailing popular culture all philosophies are the instruments of some man’s purpose, all truths are self-centered and self-regarding, and all principles are the rationalization of some special interest. There is no public criterion of the true and the false, of the right and the wrong, beyond that which the preponderant mass of voters, consumers, readers and listeners happen at the moment to be supposed to want.103

A possible reply that a cognitive theorist might give to Lippmann is that the dream of a set of truths that were transcendental and not part of a system of satisfying wants and desires was always just that, a dream. Likewise, beliefs in transcendental, nonbody-based moral truths did not stop humans from


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committing the gravest horrors, from manipulating others in the worst ways, and from creating havoc. Perhaps, the cognitive theorist might note, a better understanding of the brain, how we conceive of truth, and how we really construct moral systems might make for a better world in the future. At the very least, we will understand better the reasons why we do what we do.

NOTES 1. Shakesepeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2. 2. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 71–72. 3. James MacGregor Burns, Transforming Leadership: A New Pursuit of Happiness (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003), 10–11. 4. This theory is usually called the ‘‘great man’’ theory or trait theory, for the types of traits that a leader ought to possess. I will call it the great leader theory since both men and women hold important leadership roles and also because I find the term ‘‘great’’ to be a useful contrast to the concept of manipulation. 5. Again, this is a point of contention. For example, Thomas E. Cronin argues that ‘‘my own belief is that students cannot usually be taught to be leaders. But students, and anyone else for that matter, can profitably be exposed to leadership, discussions of leadership skills and styles, and leadership strategies and theories.’’ In Thomas E. Cronin, ‘‘Thinking and Learning about Leadership,’’ The Leader’s Companion: Insights on Leadership Through the Ages, ed. J. Thomas Wren (New York: Free Press, 1995), 30. 6. Later in this chapter I will examine the roots of the great leader theory by examining, briefly, Plato and Aristotle. There are many contemporary thinkers on leadership who look at leadership through this paradigm. Leadership and effective living guru Stephen R. Covey writes that ‘‘principle-centered leadership introduces a new paradigm—that we center our lives and our leadership of organizations and people on certain ‘true north’ principles.’’ He explains that principles are ‘‘self-evident, selfvalidating natural laws. They don’t change or shift . . . Principles apply at all time in all places. They surface in the form of values, ideas, norms, and teachings that uplift, ennoble fulfill, empower, and inspire people.’’ See Stephen R. Covey, PrincipleCentered Leadership (Orangeville, Ontario, Canada: Summit Books, 1991), 18–19. For a comprehensive look at the many ways to look at leadership, including the great leader theory, please see Peter G. Northouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2004); and Wren, ed., The Leader’s Companion. 7. For further discussion on the concept of manipulation see Robert Grudin, American Vulgar: The Politics of Manipulation Versus the Culture of Awareness (Indianapolis: Shoemaker and Hoard, 2006); and Cynthia Crossen, Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America (New York: Touchstone Books, 1996). 8. Of course, this is a very simplified reading of these two thinkers. For example, the Machiavelli of The Prince might be substantially different from the thinker who penned the Discourses on Livy. See Niccolo` Machiavelli, The Prince (New York: Bantam Classics, 1984); Niccolo` Machiavelli, The Discourses on Livy, trans. Leslie Walker (New York:

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Penguin Classics, 1984); and Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (New York: Penguin Classics, 1988). 9. Simplifying Western moral philosophy into four key components is difficult. However, I think that the above four components are instructive as to why so many find manipulation to be so offensive. 10. Though there are differences in the terms ‘‘soul,’’ ‘‘mind,’’ and ‘‘reason,’’ for the purposes of this essay, in traditional moral philosophy, they are held to be transcendental. 11. I am not claiming that most students of leadership think this about the bifurcation of humans into a soul and body. I am making the claim that many if not most people still believe in such a notion. Cognitive theory necessarily removes the idea of the soul as an entity that does not add to the explanatory power of any theory. In fact, it is compounding an entity that one does not need. However, as Gilbert Ryle presciently wrote almost 60 years ago that ‘‘there is a doctrine about the nature and place of minds which is so prevalent among theorists and even among laymen that it deserves to be described as the official theory. [It is the theory that] human bodies are in space and are subject to the mechanical laws which govern all other bodies in space . . . But minds are not in space, nor are their operations subject to mechanical laws.’’ See Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), 11. See also Owen Flanagan, The Problem of the Soul: Two Visions of Mind and How to Reconcile Them (New York: Basic Books, 2003). 12. See Richard F. Thompson, The Brain: A Neuroscience Primer (New York: Worth Publishers, 2000). 13. For example, in evolution we see that cooperation is something that has an evolutionary advantage. Frans De Waal writes, ‘‘Evolution favors animals that assist each other if by doing so they achieve long-term benefits of greater value than the benefits derived from going it alone and competing with others. Unlike cooperation resting on simultaneous benefits to all parties involved, reciprocity involves exchanged acts that, while beneficial to the recipient, are costly to the performer. This cost, which is generated because there is a time lag between giving and receiving, is eliminated as soon as a favor of equal value is returned to the performer.’’ Frans De Waal, Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 13. At the very least it would be a mistake to think that cooperation exists only because actors rationally calculate the benefits of their cooperation at all times and places. 14. This is not to say that evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology can always fully explain our behavior; they must be the starting point of trying to understand them. At the very least, we cannot examine transcendent realities or other flights of fancy to understand why we behave as we do. 15. See Paul E. Griffiths, ‘‘Emotions,’’ A Companion to Cognitive Science (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1999), 197–203. 16. For an excellent discussion on this issue see Rose McDermott, ‘‘The Feeling of Rationality: The Meaning of Neuroscientific Advances for Political Science,’’ Perspectives on Politics 2, no. 4 (December 2004): 691–706. See also Martha Nussbaum,


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Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 17. McDermott, ‘‘The Feeling of Rationality,’’ 691. 18. One of the questions that Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari examine is why people follow leaders when it is not only against their interests but also clearly harmful to their personal well-being. See Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005). 19. Thomas E. Cronin, ‘‘Thinking and Learning about Leadership,’’ The Leader’s Companion, 28. 20. For interesting discussions concerning the various ways of looking at leadership and the traits and abilities that a leader ought to have, see Bernard M. Bass, ‘‘Concepts of Leadership: The Beginnings,’’ The Leader’s Companion; and Charles C. Manz and Henry P. Sims, Jr., ‘‘SuperLeadership: Beyond the Myth of Heroic Leadership,’’ The Leader’s Companion. 21. See Shelley A. Kirkpatrick and Edwin A. Locke, ‘‘Leadership: Do Traits Matter?’’ The Leader’s Companion, 133–143. 22. Robert C. Tucker, ‘‘Personality and Political Leadership,’’ Political Science Quarterly 92, no. 3 (Autumn 1977): 384. 23. Dan Laitin and Ian Lustick, ‘‘Leadership: A Comparative Perspective,’’ International Organization 28, no. 1 (Winter 1974): 89. 24. Ralph Stodgill writes, ‘‘Strong evidence indicates that different leadership skills and traits are required in different situations. The behaviors and traits enabling a mobster to gain and maintain control over a criminal gang are not the same as those enabling a religious leader to gain and maintain a large following. Yet certain general qualities—such as courage, fortitude, and conviction—appear to characterize both.’’ See Ralph M. Stogdill, Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and Research (New York: Free Press, 1974), 2 25. Burns, Transforming Leadership, 11. Burns believes that leaders are those who are able to connect in a way that shows they understands their place and position in relation to the entire community. He writes, ‘‘All this is change from the ground up. In the broadest terms, transforming change flows not from the work of the ‘great man’ who single-handedly makes history, but from the collective achievement of a ‘great people.’ While leadership is necessary at every stage, beginning with the first spark that awakens people’s hopes, its vital role is to create and expand the opportunities that empower people to pursue happiness for themselves’’ (240). Roger Stogdill identified intelligence, alertness, insight, responsibility, initiative, persistence, self-confidence, and sociability as the most important traits. See Stogdill, Handbook of Leadership. 26. For example, Peter Northouse writes, ‘‘The trait approach does not lay out a set of hypotheses or principles about what kind of leader is needed in a certain situation or what a leader should do, given a particular set of circumstances. Rather, this approach emphasizes that having a leader with a certain set of traits is crucial to having effective leadership. It is the leader and his or her personality that is central to the leadership process.’’ See Northouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice, 21. 27. Plato, The Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1991), 153. 28. Ibid., 182.

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29. It is worth noting that Plato’s notion of leadership was unique for his time and, perhaps, even sounds radical today. He argues at the beginning of book VIII that ‘‘for a city to be governed on a high level, women must be in common, children and their entire education must be in common, and similarly the practices in war and peace must be in common, and their kings must be those among them who have proved best in philosophy and with respect to war’’ (Ibid., 221). 30. See Plato, The Republic, 257. 31. Socrates continues by noting that there are three classes of human beings: ‘‘wisdom-loving, victory-loving, and gain-loving.’’ Of these, those who love wisdom are in the best position to rule because their rule will lead to happiness and those who love wisdom will put aside selfish interest. See Plato, The Republic, 261–275. Francis Conford notes in his commentaries on The Republic that ‘‘only philosophic rulers will possess the necessary insight into what is good for the community as a whole. They will have ‘right belief’ grounded on immediate knowledge of the meaning of goodness in all its forms. The Auxiliaries will have only a right belief accepted on the authority of the Rulers. Their functions will be executive, not deliberative.’’ Francis MacDonald Conford, The Republic of Plato, trans. Francis MacDonald Conford (New York: Oxford University Press, 1945), 119. 32. Aristotle, Politics, trans. Ernest Baker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 210, italics added. 33. Ibid., 93. 34. See Aristotle, Politics, Book III, chap. 4. See R. G. Mulgan’s Aristotle’s Political Theory: An Introduction for Students of Political Theory (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1977), especially chap. 1, ‘‘Human Good and Political Science.’’ 35. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Martin Oswald (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1962), 92. 36. Ibid., 94. 37. For more on the various aspects of statesmanship that Plato and Aristotle see as essential to the virtuous polity, see Plato’s Statesman, trans. J. B. Skemp. In Plato: Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982); Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Statesman: Web of Politics (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine Press, 2004); Joshua Mitchell, Plato’s Fable: On the Mortal Condition in Shadowy Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006); and C. C. W. Taylor, ‘‘Politics,’’ The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 233–258. 38. Thomas E. Cronin, ‘‘Thinking and Learning about Leadership,’’ The Leader’s Companion, 27. 39. Ibid., 29. 40. It is not quite this simple. Plato famously advocated for the philosopher king to make use of the so-called noble lie for the good of the polity. He writes, ‘‘Could we somehow contrive one of those lies that come into being in case of need, of which we were just now speaking, some one noble lie to persuade, in the best case, even the rulers, but if not them, the rest of the city.’’ See Plato, The Republic, 93. See The Republic, 412b–415d. Clearly this could be seen as manipulation, but Plato does not see it as such


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since this noble lie is told for the good of the polity and the philosopher king’s interests and desires are aligned with the polity. 41. John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (New York: Granta Books, 2002), 37. 42. See Richard Rorty, Contingency Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 43. See, for example, Barry Glassner, The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things (New York: Basic Books, 1999); and Murray Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). 44. Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle, 1 and 2–3. 45. Edelman does not rely on cognitive explanation as to why this is the case. He argues that we ought to rely on a relativist position. He writes, ‘‘Final conclusions, like final solutions, are for dogmatists . . . A relativist posture in no way denies the need for a clear moral code; it recognizes, rather, that interpretations of actions do vary with social situations.’’ Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle, 5. 46. Let us not forget that ‘‘seduce’’ means to lead astray or corrupt. It can also mean to win over or entice. The word ‘‘seduction’’ is thus a concept that can serve many purposes. Certainly, what leaders try to do is seduce followers, which can mean both to lead them astray—in the interests of the leader—and to win over another person—as in bring the follower to your side. See Nicholas O’Shaughnessy, Politics and Propaganda: Weapons of Mass Seduction (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005); and Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (New York: Vintage, 1963). 47. William B. Irvine, On Desire: Why We Want What We Want (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2006), 15. 48. See Plato, Symposium, 67–68. 49. Perhaps the most famous depiction of this is the frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. 50. See William B. Irvine, On Desire: Why We Want What We Want (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2006), 39. 51. For a comprehensive look at the key elements of cognitive science, see William Bechtel and George Graham, eds., A Companion to Cognitive Science (Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell Publishing, 1999). 52. See ‘‘Brainbox,’’ The Economist (December 23, 2006). 53. Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York: Penguin Books, 2002), 42. 54. Ibid., 43. 55. Ibid., 30–41. 56. Ibid., 40–41 (my italics). 57. Burns, Transforming Leadership, 11. 58. Again, it could be the case that the manipulation and coercion, or at least the threat of coercion, goes hand in hand. We will not be able to investigate that here. The purpose of this chapter is to outline simply the connection between coercion and emotions, one of the most important findings in cognitive theory in terms of decision making.

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59. See Antonio R. Damasio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (New York: Putnam and Sons, 1996); Daniel Goldman, Emotion Intelligence (New York: Bantam, 1997); George E. Marcus, W. Russell Neuman, and Michael MacKuen, Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000); and George Lakoff and Marc Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999). 60. While it is still a debated topic, most cognitive theorists do not believe in the traditional concept of free will, meaning an agent who has the ability to seriously consider and then choose two or more alternate paths. The only factor determining such choices, according to traditional accounts of free will, is the will power of the person making the decision. Daniel C. Dennett is worth quoting at length in this regard: ‘‘We don’t have to have immaterial souls of the old-fashioned sort in order to live up to our hopes; our aspirations as moral beings whose acts and lives matter do not depend at all on our having minds that obey a different physics from the rest of nature. The selfunderstanding we can gain from science can help us put our moral lives on a new and better foundation, and once we understand what our freedom consists in, we will be much better prepared to protect it against the genuine threats that are so regularly misidentified,’’ in Daniel C. Dennett, Freedom Evolves (New York: Viking Press, 2003), 1. 61. Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh, 72. 62. Ibid, 3. 63. De Waal, Primates and Philosophers. 64. Lakoff and Johnson write that ‘‘the traditional view of moral concepts and reasoning is predicated on denying that our moral concepts are metaphoric. Morality, according to traditional philosophical and political theories, has to be real and separate from the experiences of humans. Therefore, the empirical question of whether our moral concepts and reasoning are metaphoric is all-important. If they are metaphoric, then they are not univocal, they are not understood in their own terms, and there is not some autonomous, monolithic ‘ethical’ domain with its own unique set of ethical concepts.’’ Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh, 327. 65. Ibid., 328. See also Marc D. Hauser, Moral Minds: The Nature of Right and Wrong (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006). 66. Joseph Le Doux, Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are (New York: Penguin Books, 2002). 67. Ibid., 174. 68. See Le Doux, Synaptic Self, esp. chap. 7. 69. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Phantom in the Brain (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991), 156. 70. Le Doux, Synaptic Self, 258. 71. De Waal, Primates and Philosophers, 21–29. 72. Ibid., 25–26. 73. Hauser, Moral Minds, p. 247. 74. Ibid., 337. Hauser points out that other high order primates use tactical deception as well. 75. Ibid., 11. 76. Ibid., 21.


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77. See Ibid., 25. 78. Ibid., 25. 79. Ibid., 29. 80. This discussion of manipulation should not be meant as a blank check to manipulate. In claiming that all of us manipulate, I am merely stating what cognitive theory would hold to be an obvious fact. Equally obvious is that we can manipulate people good and bad, and even for such incredible atrocities that only the metaphor of evil is appropriate. 81. ‘‘Security Check,’’ The Economist (May 19, 2007): 85. Variance and difference is found throughout the world, but this variance can be understood through the study of cognition. Steven Pinker writes that ‘‘familiar categories of behavior—marriage customs, food taboos, folk superstitions, and so on—certainly do vary across cultures and have to be learned, but the deeper mechanisms of mental computation that generate them may be universal and innate. People may dress differently, but they may all strive to flaunt their status via their appearance. Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York: Penguin Books, 2002), 39. 82. Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon, ‘‘Why Hawks Win,’’ Foreign Policy (January/ February 2007): 34–35. 83. George E. Marcus, W. Russell Neuman, and Michael MacKuen, Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). These authors write that when ‘‘appraisals result in sufficiently robust conclusions that command the involvement of conscious awareness, they will become manifest as ‘feelings.’ Hence, most of the time, the execution of learned routines, or habits, does not have apparent emotional content. When the execution of a learned routine is strategically salient, however, the success or failure of that habit will be manifest in variation in enthusiasm. The manifestation of the strategically important conclusions reached by the surveillance system is variation in anxiety’’ (39). 84. William B. Irvine, On Desire: Why We Want What We Want (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 76. 85. Ibid., 76. Irvine writes, ‘‘The relationship between the intellect and the emotions is therefore asymmetrical. Although the emotions have veto power over the intellect, in most cases the intellect has only the power of persuasion in its dealings with the emotions, and it can persuade only if it can invoke a stronger emotion than the one it wants to suppress. Conversely, the intellect can form a desire, but if the emotions don’t commit, the resulting desire will be feeble. And if the emotions object, the resulting desire will be stillborn.’’ 86. See Irvine, On Desire, 85. 87. Murray Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). 88. Marcus, Neuman, and MacKuen, Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment, 9. 89. Ibid., 9. 90. See, for example, Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (New York: Viking Press, 2007). Pinker writes, ‘‘The mammalian brain contains, among other things, the limbic system, an ancient network that regulates motivation and emotion, and the neocortex, the crinkled surface of the brain, which

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ballooned in human evolution and which is the seat of perception, knowledge, reason, and planning.’’ The amygdala is a part of the limbic system and it ‘‘helps invest memories with emotion’’ (331–332). See also Thompson, The Brain: A Neuroscience Primer, 17–18. 91. See Pinker, The Blank Slate. Pinker writes, ‘‘Each of us feels that there is a single ‘I’ in control. But that is an illusion that the brains works hard to produce, like the impression that our visual fields are rich in detail from edge to edge . . . The brain does have supervisory systems in the prefrontal lobes and anterior cingulated cortex, which can push the buttons of behavior and override habits and urges. But those systems are gadgets with specific quirks and limitations; they are not implementations of the rational free agent traditionally identified with the soul of the self’’ (42–43). 92. See Le Doux, Synaptic Self. 93. See Christopher Badcock, Evolutionary Psychology: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge: Polity, 2000). 94. See Richard E. Nisbett and Timothy DeCamp Wilson, ‘‘Telling More than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes,’’ Psychology Review 84 (May 1977): 231–259. 95. Robert B. Zajonc, ‘‘Feeling and Thinking: Closing the Debate over the Independence of Affect,’’ in Feeling and Thinking: The Role of Affect in Social Cognition, ed. Joseph P. Forgas (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 33. 96. See Antonion Damasio, Descartes’ Error (New York: Vintage, 2006). 97. We believe in the idea of completely objective reality, though such a reality is impossible. Lakoff and Johnson argue that ‘‘in a culture where the myth of objectivism is very much alive and truth is always absolute truth, the people who get to impose their metaphors on the culture get to define what we consider to be true—absolutely and objectively true.’’ George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 160. 98. Lakoff and Johnson write, ‘‘On the whole, truth matters to us because it has survival value and allows us to function in our world. Most of the truths we accumulate . . . play a role in daily functioning. They are truths so obvious that it takes a conscious effort to become aware of them.’’ Ibid., 160. 99. Marcus, Neuman, and MacKuen, Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment, 1. 100. Ibid. Marcus, Neuman, and MacKuen argue that our surveillance system is always at work, looking for threats and helping us, but it is not a conscious process. 101. Ibid., 28–44. Marcus, Neuman and MacKuen speculate that there are two emotional subsystems that lead us to the political behavior we exhibit. They write, ‘‘Having two emotional subsystems enables us to rely on habit and to activate reasoned consideration, each in appropriate circumstances. We are not solely creatures of habit. Nor are we always inclined to calculate carefully each and every choice before us. We can and do rely on both capabilities, capabilities that derive from our emotional faculties.’’ (43) 102. It is worth quoting Richard F. Thompson at length on this issue. He writes, ‘‘The nature of human consciousness or awareness has been among the most baffling of problems in philosophy and science. Each of us is convinced we have consciousness. However, it cannot be measured directly but only from our descriptions of it. Except for language, it is not easy to infer consciousness from behavior: hence many debates


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over the years about whether animals have consciousness. From an evolutionary perspective, it seems unlikely that only humans have consciousness; indeed this seems a most self-centered view. Evolution works in very small steps to change the physical characteristics of animals. Whatever consciousness is, we appear to have it in large measure, implying that it must have evolved gradually from small beginnings in simpler animals because it has adaptive advantages.’’ Thompson, The Brain: A Neuroscience Primer, 456. 103. Walter Lippmann, Essays in Public Philosophy (New York: New American Library, 1955), 113.

3 Leadership, Structure, and Agency: FDR Reexamined BRUCE MIROFF

As a field for research and for practical pedagogy, leadership studies have flourished in recent years. Yet more theoretically inclined political scientists have often been skeptical of the focus in leadership studies on individual political actors and have been attracted instead to broad structural interpretations of political transformations. I have written elsewhere about conceptual issues in the study of leadership in American political development.1 My purpose in this chapter is to tackle more concretely questions of structure and agency in the study of leadership. The vehicle for this exploration is one of the seminal cases of political change in American history: Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Roosevelt and the New Deal continue to loom large in political scientists’ accounts and analyses of the shaping of contemporary American politics. But the interpretation and evaluation of what Roosevelt wrought have undergone a striking shift, at least at the hands of a number of prominent political scientists. The first generation of political scientists who studied Roosevelt’s impact after World War II largely saw his contributions in positive terms; they emphasized—and sympathized with—the creation of the ‘‘modern presidency,’’ the elaboration of the welfare state, the incorporation of new and previously excluded elements (labor, women, and to a lesser extent, minorities) in American democracy. As a once-ascendant liberalism fell prey to its mounting contradictions, however, some political scientists began to cast a skeptical eye on the Rooseveltian achievements that had previously been heralded. The boldest arguments of these ‘‘Roosevelt revisionists’’ have

Leadership, Structure, and Agency

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gone far beyond toting up the costs that need to be matched with New Deal benefits. Rather, they have indicted Roosevelt and the New Deal as the source for the most important pathologies that now plague American political life. This anti–New Deal turn in political science sees the New Deal as the wrong turn in twentieth-century American politics. The new and sharply critical perspective on Roosevelt and the New Deal challenges the critical yet ultimately admiring view of FDR whose most influential proponent among political scientists has been James MacGregor Burns. In his famous two-volume biography of Roosevelt, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox and Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, and in briefer treatments of FDR in other writings of his, Burns brought the political scientist’s concerns with leadership, structure, and change to the narrative of Roosevelt’s political career. Critical of FDR as an improviser and pragmatist who would not pursue the strategic campaigns—e.g., the realignment of the Democratic party—that would have moved American politics more fully in the direction that he wanted it to go, Burns nonetheless put FDR at the center of the most hopeful developments in twentieth-century American politics. Burns’s FDR was a flawed, limited, yet still vital harbinger of progressive political transformation. My purpose in this chapter is to pit the anti–New Deal structural turn in political science against Burns’s earlier, appreciative reading of Roosevelt’s leadership. My portrait of the anti–New Deal turn is drawn from books by three prominent political scientists, Theodore Lowi, Sidney Milkis, and Michael Sandel. In differing yet complementary fashion, Lowi, Milkis, and Sandel suggest that Roosevelt’s actions and policies worked to undermine long-standing and vital parts of the American political tradition, while introducing innovations in our political life that have proven to have damaging consequences. They conclude that Roosevelt’s legacy harmed the presidency, political parties, and the public philosophy. Burns’s account of FDR paints his impact on the presidency, parties, and the public philosophy in a more favorable light. Indeed, even his sharpest criticisms of FDR point in an opposite direction to that taken by Roosevelt revisionists. By setting the revisionist readings of the New Deal alongside Burns’s work, we can see the strengths and weaknesses of each. We are also better positioned to arrive at a more complex and nuanced assessment of Roosevelt’s New Deal. The conclusion to the chapter offers some thoughts on the issue of agency and structure in the study of the New Deal and American political development in general. Lowi, Milkis, and Sandel approach FDR in terms of larger structural arguments they are making about American politics. Although Burns is more attuned to structure than most biographers of FDR, as a biographer and a theorist of leadership his primary interest lies in the problem of agency. The three Roosevelt revisionists offer important structural insights that are sometimes lacking in Burns’s work. But Burns provides what the

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revisionists largely omit: an appreciation of the context, the complexity, and the contingency of Roosevelt’s actions. In juxtaposing these two approaches to FDR and the New Deal, I offer a case study in the problem of sorting out agency and structure in American political development.

REAPPRAISING THE NEW DEAL Every generation views major political leaders and historical events anew in light of its own experiences and its own preoccupations. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal have by no means escaped the continuing process of reevaluation and revisionism. Appraisals of FDR and the New Deal have been bound up with the successes and failures of liberalism—a term that FDR himself did more than anyone else to implant in American political discourse. In the two decades between his death and the mid-1960s, when Democrats usually won presidential elections, when the one exception, Eisenhower, marked his accommodation to liberalism with his ‘‘modern Republicanism,’’ liberalism was ascendant and FDR’s reputation was highly positive. A generation of great Roosevelt scholars—James MacGregor Burns, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Frank Freidel, and William Leuchtenburg—provided rich and dramatic accounts of Roosevelt’s actions and achievements. These accounts were not lacking in criticisms, but they generally agreed with the directions Roosevelt had set and mainly lamented that he had not been willing or able to move the nation further toward his goals. In this era, negative treatments of FDR and the New Deal could only be found among die-hard conservatives. By the late 1960s, however, liberalism was in trouble: Liberal policies in Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society were oversold and underperforming, FDR’s New Deal coalition was coming apart with race riots and white backlash, and, above all, the war in Vietnam was ripping the Democratic Party in half. A new generation of scholars—composed of young academics who considered themselves ‘‘revisionists’’ of the New Left—extended their biting critique of contemporary liberalism backwards to FDR and the New Deal. To these scholars, the allegedly progressive accomplishments of the New Deal were, in fact, paltry, while the unacknowledged services of the New Deal to established wealth and power were badly in need of recognition and critique. New Left scholars saw the New Deal as something of an Old Deal. They charged that Roosevelt and the New Dealers had failed to alter the structure of the American political economy, keeping corporate capitalism in the saddle. They charged that FDR and the New Deal had failed to redistribute income, doing far less for the poor than for those in higher income brackets. And they argued that the New Deal was craven in shying away from any challenge to the American system of Jim Crow. The thrust of this


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New Left critique of the New Deal was summed up in the title of a prominent revisionist article: ‘‘The New Deal: The Conservative Achievements of Liberal Reform.’’ 2 Disillusioned with liberalism, New Left scholars saw the New Deal as fundamentally conservative. But these 1960s scholars had not yet experienced real conservatism. As American politics shifted to the right after 1968, and particularly with the triumphs of Ronald Reagan, the achievements of FDR and the New Deal appeared in a softer light to most scholars on the left. The New Deal still seemed inadequate and half-baked. But as Republican conservatives waged political warfare to undo and reverse the major thrust of the New Deal, to devolve power to state governments and private markets, and to dismantle the welfare state, the New Deal regained, for those on the left, its progressive aura. Forced to defend what FDR had erected against the likes of Reagan and Newt Gingrich, most scholars on the left came to acknowledge, if only grudgingly, that FDR had moved the American political system further in a progressive direction than any other president, with the partial exception of Lyndon Johnson.3 The left-wing criticism of FDR and the New Deal has thus faded. But if the thrust of New Left scholarship was that the New Deal had really changed very little in American life, the critique that is heard today is that it changed too much. The new critics of FDR are also disillusioned with liberalism, but not because they view it as a hollow shell for conservative structures of power. On the contrary, they believe that New Deal liberalism has been the source of most of the troubles that currently bedevil the American political system. The three critics of the New Deal discussed in this chapter—Theodore Lowi, Sidney Milkis, and Michael Sandel—are not conservatives of the old anti–New Deal stripe. Yet each speaks in the name of older American institutions, processes, and values that they see as diminished or devastated by New Deal transformations. And each argues that only by recognizing what harm FDR and the New Deal have done to our political institutions and values can we start down the path to political recovery.

THE NEW DEAL AS A WRONG TURN: STRUCTURAL CRITIQUES The three contemporary political scientists whom I have grouped together as critics of the New Deal take their bearing from a sense that the American political system is in trouble. The presidency, Theodore Lowi argues, is beset by inflated public expectations and is set up for repeated cycles of initial hope and crushing disappointment. The party system, Sidney Milkis argues, is in decline, with a diminishing percentage of Americans looking to parties as vehicles for political participation or sources of vital political ideas. And our

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public philosophy, Michael Sandel argues, is in disrepair, with selfish and short-term interests pressing for advantage while considerations of the common good are increasingly ignored. These distressing features of our contemporary political life, the three authors suggest, can be traced in good part back to Roosevelt and the New Deal. Indeed, all three authors structure their narratives of American political decline in such a way as to make the New Deal the decisive breakpoint in American political development. It was during Roosevelt’s years in the White House, they believe, that American politics took the wrong turn from which we are now suffering. None of the three books I will consider in this chapter—Lowi’s The Personal President (1985), Milkis’s The President and the Parties (1993), and Sandel’s Democracy’s Discontent (1996)—are studies of Roosevelt or the New Deal per se. Of the three authors, only Milkis has done primary research in the archives of the FDR Library and devoted extensive space to the New Deal years. But whether the coverage devoted to FDR and the New Deal is relatively brief, as with Lowi or Sandel, or lengthier, as with Milkis, the New Deal plays a pivotal role in each author’s analysis. Indeed, much of the force of each author’s argument comes from upending the conventional view of FDR and the New Deal as progressive and replacing it with a new view of them as sources of contemporary political pathology.

Theodore Lowi Lowi’s The Personal President devotes a chapter to ‘‘The Legacies of FDR.’’ This chapter is preceded by one on ‘‘Government and President in the Traditional System.’’ According to Lowi, American political history before Roosevelt and the New Deal was marked by ‘‘The Regime of the Constitution.’’ 4 The national government exercised limited and delegated powers, and its policies were mostly devices for patronage. The constitutional regime was Congress-centered, and the development of decentralized political parties ‘‘strongly reinforced the constitutional tendency toward congressional dominance.’’ 5 Presidents before FDR were largely subordinate to Congress. With some important exceptions, the structure of the selection process and the limited demand for leadership in a patronage state produced presidents who were ordinary individuals of limited creativity and modest political stature. All of this, Lowi argues in his chapter on Roosevelt, was to change with FDR and the New Deal. The New Deal produced new kinds of policies alongside patronage policies, establishing ‘‘The Regulatory State and the Redistributive State.’’ 6 It launched four revolutions in American politics: a ‘‘constitutional revolution’’ that removed judicial limits on the reach of the federal government; a ‘‘governmental revolution’’ that marked the end of traditional federalism and promoted a new ‘‘social contract’’ offering the people


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services in exchange for support; ‘‘an institutional revolution’’ that replaced a Congress-centered system with a new one grounded on the ‘‘sense that the president is the government’’; and a ‘‘political revolution’’ that pushed political parties ‘‘toward the periphery of national politics’’ and established ‘‘a direct and unmediated relationship between the president and the people.’’ 7 Lowi is most concerned in The Personal President with the last of these changes, emphasizing how FDR pioneered the uses of new political techniques, especially polling and mass communications, to create the personal presidency. Here is how he concludes his assessment of the legacy of FDR: Roosevelt was the first personal president in peacetime, and his legacy can be summed up in a single concept, the plebiscitary presidency. He set its foundations and determined its initial directions. Roosevelt had pushed ahead politically on all fronts, and he was not backward in his efforts to be an effective national party leader. His failure in that area [the reference is to the ‘‘purge’’ campaign of 1938] was so significant that it almost destabilized his entire administration. If at the same time he succeeded in achieving the same goals through mass political methods—over the heads of Congress and the party leaders—it became inevitable that these tactics would be repeated. Every success in that direction pushed the traditional political parties more to the periphery of national politics.8

In Lowi’s version of American political development, Roosevelt and the New Deal had put an end to the constitutional regime of balanced and limited government, transforming the American state into a presidency-centered system in which the president, as an individual, became the dominant figure. The public now looked to the president for the continuous flow of benefits and services to which Roosevelt’s New Deal had first accustomed them. The public also looked to the president for inspiring leadership and public meaning through the mass media, along the lines of FDR’s fireside chats. The American people now saw themselves as represented by the ‘‘personal president’’ rather than by institutions of collective action: Congress and the political parties. The remainder of Lowi’s book makes the case that the costs of this ‘‘personal’’ or ‘‘plebiscitary’’ presidency have been enormous. As the president shined in the political firmament, other political institutions faded. Congress was overshadowed, with the public becoming increasingly ill-informed about the activities of their elected representatives. The parties entered a period of accelerating atrophy. Only the president was left as a focal point for public interest and attention—and presidents were such lofty, remote figures that citizens could only gaze upon them in admiration or disgust, without much ability to affect them through their own political efforts. Even more important for Lowi’s argument, the dominance of the presidency has turned out to be disastrous for presidents themselves. Public

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expectations of what the president can deliver have grown more and more excessive. The standards are set impossibly high—so high that no executive has much chance of meeting them. Presidents after FDR have thus been faced with a choice: either concede failure to deliver on their original promises or work hard to create the appearance (though not the reality) of success. The White House, Lowi argues, thus turns into a giant publicity machine, spinning or mystifying modest accomplishments into grand deeds and obscuring even larger failures. The personal president has become our ‘‘Wizard of Oz.’’ 9 This swollen, overhyped, distorted, and no-win executive is Lowi’s sardonic portrait of the modern presidency that FDR created.

Sidney Milkis Like Lowi, Milkis premises his work on the claim that ‘‘the New Deal is properly viewed as the defining moment in setting the tone of twentieth century politics in the United States.’’ 10 His book builds on Lowi’s critical stance toward the various New Deal ‘‘revolutions.’’ But Milkis’s focus is less on the mass communications methods of the plebiscitary presidency than on the idea that Roosevelt shaped the modern presidency by supplanting political parties with administration and bureaucracy. Milkis has his own version of American political history pre-FDR, and political parties occupy the central place in that history. Before the New Deal years, Milkis writes, American political parties were decentralized and democratic vehicles of popular participation. America’s first mass party, the Democratic-Republican Party, had been created by Jefferson and Madison to protect popular democracy from the centralizing and aristocratic threat of Hamilton’s powerful executive and administrative state.11 The two Virginians successfully organized democratic citizens into a party that would uphold a decentralized polity and ‘‘a strict interpretation of the national government’s powers.’’ 12 And for the next 140 years, Milkis says, political parties had continued to perform their Jeffersonian function, buttressing the democratic and representative features of the political system while guarding against an excessive concentration of centralized power or an excessive display of executive ambition. Roughly the first half of Milkis’s The President and the Parties is devoted to an account of Roosevelt’s transformation of this party system. According to Milkis, FDR had two coherent and intertwined political projects as president. First, he set out to alter the American understanding of rights, supplementing limited and natural rights against government power, as set down in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, with more expansive, positive rights, primarily economic in character and underwritten by government. Milkis takes as the founding text of the New Deal project the famous ‘‘Commonwealth


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Club Address’’ of 1932, in which Roosevelt called upon the federal government ‘‘to assist the development of an economic declaration of rights, an economic constitutional order.’’ 13 Contrary to the view of Roosevelt as an improviser who leaped erratically from one reform project to another with little sense of contradiction, Milkis suggests that Roosevelt repeatedly returned to this initial project at pivotal moments, as during the 1936 presidential campaign and in the 1944 State of the Union call for a ‘‘second Bill of Rights.’’ And he concludes that Roosevelt’s new conception of rights was his most enduring substantive legacy: ‘‘With the advent of the New Deal political order, an understanding of rights dedicated to limited government gradually gave way to a more expansive understanding of rights, requiring a relentless government identification of problems and the search for methods by which these problems might be solved.’’ 14 FDR, Milkis writes, is the godfather of ‘‘what has been called the ‘rights revolution’—a transformation in the governing philosophy of the United States that has brought about major changes in American political institutions.’’ 15 The Commonwealth Club Address had also proclaimed that ‘‘the day of enlightened administration has come.’’ 16 To install his ‘‘economic declaration of rights’’ in the American political system and to place these rights beyond the reach of political reversals, Milkis argues, FDR’s second project sought an institutional transformation as thoroughgoing as his programmatic agenda. Jeffersonian parties, especially his own Democratic party, became the principal target of Roosevelt’s institutional assault. The traditional party politicians, ensconced in their local bastions and looking to Congress to represent diverse interests and protect distinct cultures, were a formidable obstacle to FDR’s nationalizing economic vision. FDR compromised with Democratic Party leaders in his first term, then tried a direct challenge to their power in the clumsy ‘‘purge’’ campaign of 1938. But even before the purge campaign, he was moving to establish a more stable and supportive institutional environment for his liberal ideals. A president who could largely cut himself loose from the constraints of party politics and operate directly on the citizenry through an expanded and presidentially controlled bureaucracy could establish a new liberal state in America. Ironically, Milkis suggests, FDR stamped the Democratic Party with this antiparty purpose. ‘‘[T]he institutional program that Roosevelt imposed upon the Democratic party aimed to prepare his party to end all parties; that is to say, Roosevelt’s party leadership tended towards the development of a party of administration that would replace party politics with administration.’’ 17 In Milkis’s narrative, the key moment in the New Deal was Roosevelt’s second term. To many observers, FDR’s political course after his triumphant reelection landslide of 1936 saw him lurch from one disaster to the next: the botched ‘‘court-packing plan’’ of 1937, the congressional rebellion that

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defeated his executive reorganization plan in 1938, and the failed attempt to purge conservative congressional Democrats that followed shortly on their heels. But Milkis sees these three seeming fiascos not only as more intertwined and coherent than do previous scholars but as ultimately more fruitful. ‘‘The construction of an ascendant executive power was certainly the purpose,’’ he writes, ‘‘of the two government reorganization bills—one dealing with the judiciary, the other with the executive department—that dominated the 75th Congress. The enactment of these bills would remake constitutional law and the executive in the New Deal image; henceforth, what FDR did by improvisation and extraordinary personal popularity would be done deliberately.’’ 18 Roosevelt suffered embarrassing defeats on his original bills and in the party purge that followed, but in the end, Milkis suggests, he got much of what he wanted. The Supreme Court began to validate New Deal legislation even as Congress considered the court-packing plan, and in short order a New Deal majority on the Court removed all remaining judicial obstacles to Roosevelt’s regulatory and redistributive state. The more modest Executive Reorganization Act of 1939 was sufficient to lay the groundwork for FDR’s administrative presidency. And after the failed purge Roosevelt gave up the crusade to remake his party and discovered more promising administrative methods to transcend it. For Milkis, the dynamic of American politics since FDR is essentially the continuation of Roosevelt’s two projects. On the basis of what he founded, later Democratic presidents pursued even more extensive programmatic rights through even more elaborate executive aggrandizement; they continued to centralize power in the federal bureaucracy while hollowing out their party at the grassroots level. Even Republican presidents, ideologically pledged to oppose centralization and bureaucracy, found that the power they could wield through the executive branch had become irresistible. But while Democratic and Republican presidents alike have contributed to the further atrophy of American political parties, Milkis reserves his sharpest accusation for FDR and his direct heirs: ‘‘The decline of parties . . . is not the result of ineluctable constitutional forces. It is rather a partisan project, one sponsored by the Democratic party and built on the foundation of the New Deal realignment.’’ 19 In a subsequent book coauthored with Marc Landy, Presidential Greatness (2000), Milkis suggests that the absence of ‘‘great’’ presidents since FDR has a lot to do with Roosevelt’s substitution of administration for party politics, because ‘‘great presidential leadership required extraordinary partisanship.’’ 20 But in The President and the Parties, the real tragedy, for Milkis, of FDR’s revolution in American government is its impact on democratic citizenship. FDR’s ‘‘inverted form of Hamiltonianism,’’ Milkis believes, may have aided government to cope more effectively with the crises of an


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industrial society. ‘‘But this reform,’’ he writes, ‘‘came at the cost of undermining valued institutions such as decentralized political parties traditionally relied upon in the American political experience to nurture and make effective popular rule . . . Thus, the transfer of the locus of power during the New Deal to the federal government and the concomitant delegation of power to the executive branch threatened the idea of citizenship in the United States.’’ 21 Milkis concludes that it will ‘‘require a serious reconsideration of the New Deal legacy . . .’’ if we hope to revive ‘‘a reasonably active and competent citizenry.’’ 22

Michael Sandel Sandel is a political theorist, and most of the commentary on his Democracy’s Discontent has been written by political and legal theorists.23 Yet more than half of the book is taken up with a historical narrative on ‘‘The Political Economy of Citizenship.’’ In Sandel’s version of American political development, republicanism was the guiding public philosophy for most of American history. American political thinkers of various stripes believed that ‘‘liberty depends on sharing in self-government.’’ 24 But, Sandel argues, ‘‘republican politics cannot be neutral toward the values and ends its citizens espouse. The republican conception of freedom, unlike the liberal conception, requires a formative politics, a politics that cultivates in citizens the qualities of character self-government requires.’’ 25 Only in the past 60 years, Sandel claims, has republicanism been displaced in American political thought by its opposite, ‘‘procedural liberalism.’’ Abandoning ‘‘formative projects,’’ this brand of liberalism emphasizes rights over the ‘‘good.’’ It calls upon government to be neutral as to public ends because it conceives of citizens ‘‘as free and independent selves, unencumbered by moral or civic ties they have not chosen.’’ 26 Sandel is not especially interested in FDR or in the institutional changes that Lowi and Milkis address. But he is interested in the New Deal as public philosophy. In his narrative, as in those of the two political scientists previously discussed, the New Deal years mark the fundamental break—and begin the lamentable decline—in American political history, as liberalism supplants republicanism. Unlike many historians who have located the decline of republicanism and the ascendance of liberalism in earlier periods of American history, Sandel insists that republicanism was still vital in the 1930s. Even the Progressives, he says, were really updated republicans; in his account, for all of their differences, Louis Brandeis, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Herbert Croly shared ‘‘the formative ambition’’ to mold republican citizens.27 The ‘‘political economy of citizenship,’’ in which economic arrangements were evaluated for their impact upon republican virtues, continued into the early

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New Deal years, as Roosevelt’s advisers, divided between Brandesian decentralizers and nationalist planners, debated the structural changes needed in industrial capitalism. But during Roosevelt’s second term, Sandel suggests, both of these schools of reform were overshadowed by a new, Keynesian economics. For Sandel, who draws heavily from the work of historian Alan Brinkley,28 the critical development in Roosevelt’s second term was not the court-packing plan, executive reorganization, or the party purge but ‘‘the spending solution’’—the idea that ‘‘the way to lift the economy from depression . . . was to employ the tools of fiscal policy to promote economic growth by stimulating consumer demand.’’ 29 Roosevelt’s rather haphazard embrace of Keynesian methods in his second term became a more systematic and deliberate approach during World War II, as Keynesian economists elaborated a new consensus. By the end of World War II the central issues of economic policy had little to do with the debates that had preoccupied Americans from the Progressive Era to the New Deal . . . The old questions about what economic arrangements are hospitable to self-government ceased to be the subject of national debate. With the triumph of fiscal policy, the political economy of citizenship gave way to the political economy of growth and distributive justice.30

By leaving the structures of capitalism intact and simply manipulating aggregate demand, the Keynesian approach, Sandel suggests, struck a terrible blow to the republican tradition. ‘‘More than a matter of economics alone,’’ he writes, ‘‘the advent of the new political economy marked a decisive moment in the demise of the republican strand of American politics and the rise of contemporary liberalism.’’ 31 The later New Deal, Sandel charges, abandoned the formative project of republicanism and redefined Americans as consumers rather than citizens. It ‘‘differed from earlier reform movements . . .’’ in eschewing the cultivation of republican virtues, seeking ‘‘better to satisfy Americans’ wants and ends, not to elevate or improve them.’’ 32 The New Deal, in Sandel’s telling, thus bequeathed to Americans a liberal conception of freedom, in which autonomous individuals choose their own ends free of government interference. But the heart of Sandel’s book is a forceful argument that the replacement of civic republicanism by procedural liberalism has been a bad bargain for Americans. A soulless ‘‘procedural republic’’ may deliver on its promises of consumer happiness. But it ‘‘cannot secure the liberty it promises, because it cannot sustain the kind of political community and civic engagement that liberty requires.’’ 33 Sandel’s final reference in his book to FDR and the New Deal points to Roosevelt’s 1944 proposal of an ‘‘economic bill of rights’’ as a signpost of the emerging procedural republic. After citing the various new rights that FDR enumerated in this speech, Sandel comments that ‘‘for Roosevelt, these rights


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depended for their justification not on strong notions of communal obligation, but instead on the idea that ‘necessitous men are not free men.’ Certain material conditions were prerequisites for the freedom of each person to choose his ends for himself.’’ 34 For Sandel, Roosevelt’s final policy platform set the postwar agenda for the liberal state that he had launched: not the flowering of a political community in which each person is an active participant in self-government but the promotion of a voluntaristic society in which all Americans enjoy the equal opportunity to cultivate personal autonomy.

JAMES MACGREGOR BURNS’S FDR: THE PLACE OF AGENCY Theodore Lowi, Sidney Milkis, and Michael Sandel present powerful revisionist arguments about the impact of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal on American political development. Overturning the progressive narrative that has generally prevailed, these political scientists force us to reconsider how the New Deal years may have generated some of the most troubling features of contemporary American politics. Yet have these critics presented a full and accurate understanding of FDR and the New Deal? Have they tended to read the present back into the past in ways that may distort the intentions or achievements of Roosevelt and the New Dealers? For a rejoinder to the view of FDR and the New Deal as the wrong turn in American political history, let us turn back to the writings of James MacGregor Burns. I will shortly demonstrate how Burns’s works on FDR and the New Deal provide considerable evidence and analysis that sometimes support, but more often oppose, the cases that Lowi, Milkis, and Sandel, respectively, make. But first I set out some fundamental differences between Burns and all of the Roosevelt revisionists. A couple of these differences are obvious. Whereas the political science critics are, for various reasons, disillusioned with liberalism, Burns has always been an unabashed liberal, both in liberalism’s ascendant period in the 1950s and 1960s and in its dark days from the 1970s on. His work on FDR and the New Deal expresses frequent disappointment at liberalism’s compromised advances toward economic and social justice during the Depression years, but it never doubts the humane spirit at the core of those advances. Perhaps because a later generation tends to take these advances largely for granted, they play a much smaller role in the writings of the Roosevelt revisionists. Burns also differs from the New Deal critics in remaining a proponent of the now-unfashionable strong presidency. Lowi and Milkis see how much damage the post-New Deal presidency wreaked on American politics. They point to the danger of an overweening presidency to other vital institutions and actors in the American political system. But Burns draws a very different

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lesson from Roosevelt’s presidency: the need for presidential leadership to direct a program of fundamental changes through an otherwise stalemated and conservative system. Burns is not a fan of presidential power under all conditions; he champions presidential leadership when it is linked to leadership of a majority party. But he stands apart from the contemporary critics of FDR for his belief in the continuing creative possibilities of presidential action. There are several other differences between Burns and the Roosevelt revisionists that are perhaps less readily apparent. Lowi, Milkis, and Sandel portray a Roosevelt whose intentions are more decisive and whose strategies are bolder than does Burns in his treatment of the New Deal. To use Burns’s own Machiavellian imagery, they see FDR as almost entirely the lion, whereas Burns repeatedly laments that FDR too often played the fox. The critics depict a coherent and strategic FDR; Burns portrays the ‘‘Grand Improviser.’’ 35 Or, to turn to terms that Burns made popular in Leadership, the critics’ FDR is a transforming leader, indeed the most important in American political history since the days of Jefferson, whereas Burns, in his later writing on FDR, depicts him as ‘‘a transactional leader’’ at the beginning of his presidency who never did ‘‘become a transforming leader.’’ 36 Although Burns expresses greater admiration for FDR than the three political science critics, he is more inclined than they are to emphasize the limits of Roosevelt’s accomplishments. Lowi, Milkis, and Sandel, as already noted, consider the New Deal as a fundamental break in American political development. In their accounts, those who follow Roosevelt operate in a political landscape whose basic contours have been altered. But Burns is struck by how much FDR did not change, how much he did not even attempt to change. Here is how he sums up FDR’s impact by the end of 1939: There were times—most notably in 1935—when Roosevelt brilliantly capitalized on every opportunity to convert New Deal aims into law. There were times— most notably in the court fight—when he tested and found the outer limits of his power. But sometimes he made no effort at all—especially in gaining lasting influence in Congress. Sometimes he tried too little and too late. And sometimes —as in the case of party consolidation and realignment and of economic program—he seemed to lack the intellectual qualities necessary to the task.37

Burns’s FDR is always an imposing figure, but he is also a creature of context. Compared to the writings of the Roosevelt revisionists, the stark pressures of a Depression economy hold a much larger place in Burns’s treatment of the New Deal. Burns’s FDR is often seen responding to events that he did not originate rather than launching far-reaching initiatives of his own. His ability to move the nation in the liberal direction he prefers is profoundly circumscribed by the conservative state of American politics that he


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inherited in 1933. And his political adversaries have more power, and a greater impact on his New Deal, than the critics acknowledge. In the critical moment—FDR’s second term—that the revisionists depict him as inaugurating a transformation of the American political system, Burns sees the power of context to defeat a leader’s ambitions. ‘‘During his second term,’’ Burns writes, FDR ‘‘became ensnarled in forces he could not control and thwarted by men he could not master.’’ 38

Burns and Lowi Burns would, I suspect, share Lowi’s revulsion toward a ‘‘plebiscitary presidency.’’ The populist mask of Lowi’s personal president conceals a contemporary version of what Burns critiqued in Presidential Government as ‘‘the Hamiltonian model’’ of the presidency.39 Burns’s writings on FDR do provide some ammunition for Lowi’s account of the genesis of the plebiscitary presidency. In his media skills, his testing of public opinion, his exploitation of personal popularity, Burns’s FDR is a pioneer in the techniques that Lowi bemoans. He is even, in some anecdotes Burns relates, Lowi’s Wizard of Oz: ‘‘In Marietta, Ohio, a little old woman symbolized much of the popular feeling [in 1938] when she knelt down and reverently patted the dust where he [FDR] had left a footprint.’’ 40 Although a reader of Burns on FDR can detect the makings of a plebiscitary presidency, there is too much else in Burns’s writings that contradicts the portrait of a modern president rising in solitary splendor (and later humiliation) above the American political system. The political landscape of the New Deal that Burns paints is a crowded canvas: there are New Dealers flocking to Washington to share FDR’s battles and carry out his programs, there are mobilizing interest groups and flamboyant political demagogues pressuring him from the left, and there are entrenched economic and political forces obstructing him on the right. Burns’s FDR is sometimes the lion who wages heroic battles, but more often he shies away from the role of the ‘‘creative political leader . . . ,’’ who ‘‘tries consciously to change the matrix of political forces amid which he operates, in order that he may better lead the people in the direction he wants to go.’’ 41 If Burns’s FDR points the way toward future presidents, it is more through his acceptance of the prevailing political context than through his bold alteration of it. In Lowi’s The Personal President, Congress, dominant in American political development until 1933, becomes almost invisible during and after the Roosevelt years. In Burns’s work, however, the Roosevelt years lead not toward a plebiscitary presidency but toward an executive-legislative stalemate that Burns christened ‘‘the deadlock of democracy.’’ 42 Congress is always a formidable presence in Burns’s writings on FDR. In The Lion and the Fox, Congress

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is a goad to radical legislation in 1933 (e.g., the Black bill) and 1935 (e.g., the Wagner Act), a pillar of resistance to further New Deal advances in the second term (FDR’s defeats on the court and executive reorganization), and a harbinger of the deadlock of democracy in the conservative coalition that crystallized with the 1938 elections. In The Soldier of Freedom, an even more conservative Congress during World War II hands FDR a number of stinging defeats, such as the Smith-Connally bill that restricted labor’s right to strike and a tax bill that was passed over FDR’s veto by huge margins in the House and Senate. Meanwhile, congressional foes of FDR continue to exploit the power to investigate the executive; a congressional inquisitor like Martin Dies, absent from the pages of Lowi (and Milkis), pops up in Burns’s work —prophetic, it might be observed, less of a plebiscitary presidency than of a harassed and scandal-plagued presidency. Finally, Burns understands (and dates) the emergence of the so-called ‘‘modern presidency’’ differently than does Lowi. Whereas Lowi finds the origins of the personal president in the political techniques and domestic reforms of the New Deal years, Burns gives greater weight to the elaboration of the institutionalized presidency in World War II. ‘‘It was,’’ writes Burns, ‘‘during World War II, in Roosevelt’s third term, rather than in the earlier New Deal years, that the foundations of modern presidential government were laid.’’ 43 The wartime expansion of the presidency that Roosevelt sponsored was, Burns suggests, in part an effort to consolidate the social-welfare thrust of the New Deal. But an even larger part was played by the formation of the national-security state, a project of internationalists in both parties rather than an expression of the liberals’ agenda.44 By focusing on the new presidential powers over technological violence and secret action in foreign affairs, Burns offers an alternative understanding of the origins of later presidential pathologies.

Burns and Milkis Among contemporary political scientists, Milkis and Burns rank in the top tier in their dedication to the revival of a healthy party system. They even share the same hero when it comes to party building: Thomas Jefferson. Yet their interpretations of Jefferson turn out to be conflicting. For Milkis, the hero is Jefferson of the 1790s, founder (with Madison) of a decentralized popular party committed to preserving limited government from the administrative aggrandizements of the Hamiltonian executive.45 For Burns, the hero is Jefferson of the 1800s, who, in spite of his earlier theoretical protestations, shaped a majority party that rallied behind its presidential leader in support of national action.46 The two political scientists’ recipes for contemporary party revival follow from these divergent perspectives. Milkis looks for a


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recrudescence of the kind of party Jefferson built (and Martin Van Buren later theorized), rooted in the Jeffersonian notion that ‘‘representative democracy is essentially fostered by public speech, by political discussion that most effectively occurs in the legislature and the local community.’’ 47 Burns hopes that more responsible national parties can overcome the inertia built into the Madisonian system of checks and balances, and provide a progressive president with ‘‘the power to lead.’’ 48 These divergent perspectives on political parties are evident in Milkis’s and Burns’s respective treatments of FDR and the party system. The political parties that FDR faces in 1933 are, in Milkis’s book, essentially unchanged from their Jeffersonian origins: they still favor local participation and legislative authority and resist centralized government and executive power. Milkis makes clear the power of urban machines and southern white supremacists in FDR’s own Democratic Party, but his portrait of parties at the outset of the New Deal is nonetheless predominantly favorable. Burns, on the other hand, views FDR as inheriting a party system in decline. FDR’s New York experience with parties, he shows, was not with Jeffersonian grass-roots democracy but with Tammany Hall chieftains. His frustrated campaign at rebuilding the Democratic Party after its 1924 electoral fiasco taught him that the party was a muddle of ‘‘factionalism and localism.’’ 49 When he won the Democratic nomination in 1932, with a pledge of bold action to confront the Depression, he became the titular head of a ‘‘disheveled, fragmented’’ party.50 Burns’s writings thus call into question the idea that the Democratic Party of 1932 was still an effective vehicle of representative democracy and a cultivator of an active citizenry. He also emphasizes how reactionary much of the party was when Roosevelt came into office. Not only were the city bosses and southern congressional barons defenders of the economic status quo, but the party also contained powerful big business elements who were wedded to the tenets of laissez faire. Burns observes, as Milkis does not, that when right-wing opposition to the New Deal first surfaced in 1934, in the American Liberty League, it was spearheaded by conservative Democrats, such as Al Smith, Jouett Shouse, and John W. Davis.51 At one point in The President and the Parties, Milkis acknowledges that ‘‘the Roosevelt administration might have been correct in its view that the measures that formed the backbone of the New Deal would never have been passed had the president followed customary political procedure and confined his consultation to the party leaders and such political laymen as the party leaders would have approved of.’’ 52 Burns no doubt would agree, for he suggests that FDR had to battle to overcome the traditional party system if there was to be a New Deal at all. Milkis argues that Roosevelt’s presidential project put an end to the traditional Democratic Party and imposed upon the heirs of Jefferson the paradoxical role of ‘‘a party of administration.’’ Perhaps Burns’s most

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fundamental complaint about FDR is nearly the opposite: that FDR lacked the intellectual grasp and political courage to carry out a realignment of the party system that would divide Democrats and Republicans along principled lines. Contrary to Milkis’s account of FDR as the president who undermined the traditional American party system, Burns criticizes a president who should have transformed that system but could not: The trouble was that Roosevelt had assumed his role as party or majority leader not as part of a deliberate, planned political strategy but in response to a conjunction of immediate developments. As majority leader he relied on his personal popularity, on his charisma or warm emotional appeal. He did not try to build up a solid, organized mass base for the extended New Deal that he had projected in the inaugural speech of 1937. Lacking such a mass base, he could not establish a rank-and-file majority group in Congress to push through his program . . . Roosevelt as party leader, in short, never made the strategic commitment that would allow a carefully considered, thorough, and long-term attempt at party reorganization.53

To Milkis, FDR’s assault on the traditional party system posed a danger to citizenship in the United States. But in Burns’s account, the impact of the New Deal on political participation is more complicated. Ironically, it is Milkis, more fully than Burns, who demonstrates that the New Deal Democratic Party created special divisions to incorporate African Americans, women, and organized labor into the party.54 Surely, this must be counted as a democratization rather than an undermining of the party system. But Burns notes more often than Milkis does the extra-party political mobilizations—e.g., among workers and farmers—that characterized the New Deal years. These mobilizations prefigured the alternative paths to active citizenship that have characterized American politics during the postwar years of party decline. The real enemy to democratic citizenship, in Milkis’s analysis, is the leviathan state, and FDR stands indicted as its administrative founder. Milkis provides a rich and provocative treatment of Roosevelt’s executive reorganization project, which becomes, in The President and the Parties, the most decisive institutional achievement of the New Deal. Here is a case where a structural argument highlights developments whose significance is missed in an account that focuses on a leader’s uncertain motives. Burns does not see what all the fuss was about when Roosevelt’s original executive reorganization proposal was greeted by a firestorm of opposition in Congress: ‘‘Previous chief executives, including Taft and Hoover, had proposed reorganization measures hardly less radical than Roosevelt’s.’’ 55 Milkis makes the opposition to Roosevelt more understandable—and sympathetic —by showing how FDR’s proposed executive reorganization attempted an historic shift in the institutional balance of power.


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Yet if Milkis is the clearer guide to the elaboration of the administrative state under FDR, Burns supplies important cautionary material on the limits of Roosevelt’s accomplishment. Beyond the defeat of the original executive reorganization bill, Burns observes that Congress continued to contest control over the federal bureaucracy with the president through its powers of investigation and appropriations.56 And he quotes Roosevelt’s famous remark to Marriner Eccles about the frustrations of trying to get action out of huge and complex bureaucracies.57 For Burns, any presidential project to displace political parties and to rule through the administrative state would be premised on a control over the administrative apparatus that no president was likely to obtain. The FDR he portrays was too savvy about bureaucratic politics to hold such illusions and thus muddied the grand schemes of public administration theoreticians (such as Louis Brownlow) with his harumscarum and highly personalized methods of managing subordinates.58

Burns and Sandel For Sandel, the New Deal turned its back on the republican tradition and ushered in soulless procedural liberalism when it embraced ‘‘the Keynesian Revolution.’’ 59 In his argument, the new political economy created by the later New Deal, unlike the previous one, was devoid of moral or civic content. Keynes’s ideas also matter in Burns’s account of the New Deal, but as prudent prescriptions for a depressed economy—and as a theoretical approach that FDR was incapable of adopting. Roosevelt’s fumbling and indecisiveness during the recession [of 1937–1938] showed his failings as an economist and a thinker. His distrust of old and doctrinaire economic theories freed him from slavery to ideas that would have been risky in the 1930s. But at the same time, that distrust helped cut him off from the one economist and the one economic idea that might have provided a spectacular solution to Roosevelt’s chief economic, political, and constitutional difficulties. The man was the noted British economist John Maynard Keynes.60

Nor does Burns see any greater appreciation for Keynes in the Roosevelt of World War II. The center for Keynesian thinking in the wartime government, Alan Brinkley has shown, was the National Resources Planning Board.61 But Burns observes that FDR ‘‘was critical of the National Resources Planning Board for indulging in lofty schemes, especially in the economic realm.’’ 62 A more important rejoinder to Sandel than Roosevelt’s limited embrace of Keynesian ideas is Burns’s emphasis on the larger civic vision of FDR and the New Deal. Burns recognizes that in some respects FDR was as much in the republican tradition as in the liberal one. ‘‘Few American presidents have aroused and inflamed popular attitudes as divisively as Franklin D. Roosevelt . . . ,’’ he argues, ‘‘yet few American presidents have devoted so many

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sermon-like calls for transcending differences and behaving as one nation and one people.’’ 63 For all of his manipulative political ways, Burns’s FDR always remains committed to the proposition he enunciated in 1932: the presidency ‘‘is preeminently a place of moral leadership.’’ 64 And the New Deal, as Burns presents it, is a moral project—part revival and part progressive transformation—to democratize the economic, political, and cultural orders. Nowhere is the conflicting understanding of the New Deal project sharper than with respect to the question of rights. For Sandel (as for Milkis), the New Deal emphasis on economic rights leads toward liberalism’s autonomous individual and not republicanism’s responsible citizen. But in Burns’s writings on FDR, New Deal ‘‘rights talk’’ is the assertion of collective responsibility for the welfare of disadvantaged citizens. According to Burns, FDR does not abandon the search for the good that Sandel makes the sine qua non of the republican tradition; he redefines the good by rejecting laissez faire and limited national government and promoting a more inclusive community underwritten by the positive state. In one of Burns’s anecdotes in The Soldier of Freedom, FDR complains to Frances Perkins that the British don Sir William Beveridge is gaining all the credit for his manifesto calling for the ‘‘abolition of want.’’ ‘‘Why,’’ FDR argues, ‘‘does Beveridge get his name on this? . . . You know I have been talking about cradle to the grave insurance ever since we first thought of it. It is not the Beveridge Plan. It is the Roosevelt Plan.’’ 65 Regardless of its compromises, the ‘‘Roosevelt Plan’’ was to create America’s version of social democracy rather than a neutral liberalism whose only objective was to leave each individual free to chart his or her own course. Sandel, it will be recalled, depicted Roosevelt’s 1944 call for a second Bill of Rights as pointing toward the procedural republic, interpreting FDR’s speech as saying that the crushing pressures of necessity had to be alleviated before individuals could freely choose their own ends. Burns casts the proposal for a second Bill of Rights in a totally different light. For FDR, Burns writes, this was ‘‘the most radical speech of his life.’’ 66 He situates Roosevelt’s new rights in a long history of American reform proposals based on the idea that ‘‘individual political liberty and collective welfare were not only compatible but they were mutually fortifying.’’ 67 (It might be noted here that the idea of an economic bill of rights has a long history among radical republicans in the United States. In the same year that he penned the American classic of natural rights, the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson proposed a constitution for Virginia that contained the following provision: ‘‘Every person of full age neither owning nor having owned 50 acres of land shall be entitled to an appropriation of 50 acres . . .’’ Thomas Paine proposed government allowances for indigent children and the elderly in The Rights of Man.) To Sandel, when Roosevelt insisted that ‘‘necessitous men are not free men,’’ he was


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referring to the preconditions for the liberal version of freedom. To Burns, the same line evokes the American radical republican tradition and its concern for both economic justice and political liberty. Burns regards the second Bill of Rights not as marking a wrong turn for America’s public philosophy but as establishing a humane, democratic agenda that we have still not fully realized.

CONCLUSION In turning to the writings of James MacGregor Burns for a rejoinder to the anti–New Deal turn in political science, it has not been my intention to dismiss the analysis that the Roosevelt revisionists have offered. Theodore Lowi, Sidney Milkis, and Michael Sandel present formidable and provocative arguments that go a long way toward upending the conventional wisdom about FDR and the New Deal. I am persuaded by some of their arguments; indeed, my own earlier work shares some affinities with their critiques, particularly Lowi’s. By looking beyond the character of FDR and the particularities of New Deal conflicts in pursuit of deeper structural transformations in American political life, these three political scientists compel us to come to terms with the larger meaning of the New Deal years for the course of American political development. Yet when I read Lowi, Milkis, or Sandel, I find something important missing. To turn from their works to those of Burns is again to breathe the air of the New Deal. The terrible weight of the Great Depression, the fiery politics of Huey Long, general strikers and protesting farmers, the entrenched powers in Congress, the Supreme Court, the racist South, the corporate headquarters, and elsewhere, the mass public alternately dispirited and inspirited, the New Dealers driven by idealism and the desire for power, and navigating through it all the elusive, frustrating, yet ultimately marvelous figure of Franklin Roosevelt—the New Deal not only comes alive but makes its own historical sense in Burns’s writing. Burns captures more of the context, the contingency, and the complexity of the New Deal. And in his hands the aspirations of FDR and the New Dealers, the limits of their victories, the stalemates they could not overcome, and the democratic advances they could nonetheless achieve become clearer, even as they cloud the patterns of structural transformation that the revisionists have propounded. Lowi, Milkis, and Sandel are not the only political scientists to abstract Roosevelt from his distinctive context. Consider political scientist Richard E. Neustadt’s passages in Presidential Power in which FDR becomes the model executive for the postwar era; there is hardly any echo of the political wars of the New Deal in Neustadt’s lionization of Roosevelt. A certain measure of abstraction from context is necessary if theory construction is to proceed. And

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the Roosevelt revisionists can hardly be faulted for not attending in their studies to the level of detail that Burns incorporates in his lengthy biography of FDR. Rather, the issue is whether critical aspects of context are omitted, motivations are imputed from results, and tangled compromises are elevated into clear-cut breakthroughs in the institutional fabric and public philosophy of the United States. Resolving this issue is important in deciding whether we are to understand the New Deal as a wrong turn in American political development or an incomplete advance toward a more progressive and inclusive democracy. With the emergence of the subfield of American political development, most political scientists interested in ‘‘politics and history’’ have been inclined to focus on structure rather than agency, on institutions rather than leaders. There is nothing in the newer approaches to American political development that dictates any particular perspective or conclusion, such as the conception of the New Deal as a wrong turn. Thus, in The Politics Presidents Make, Stephen Skowronek is closer to Lowi and Milkis in depicting the breadth of FDR’s ambitions but closer to Burns in highlighting the obstacles that delimited FDR’s achievements.68 Nonetheless, the prevailing style of scholarship in American political development is better typified by Lowi, Milkis, and Sandel than by Burns. Whether out of a concern for theory building, an attention to systematic analysis instead of the examination of ‘‘anecdotal’’ evidence, or even an anxiety not to be caught treating history as the story of ‘‘great white men,’’ relatively few political scientists today devote their time to studying leaders in their historical contexts. The new research in American political development has rewarded us with some splendid advances in understanding politics and history. Yet I wonder if we have not been leaning too heavily to the structural side and neglecting the corrective value of exploring agency and appreciating leaders in context. In setting up an encounter between the Roosevelt revisionists and Burns’s FDR, I have tried to demonstrate how much the attention to leadership and agency, especially in the hands of their foremost student, James MacGregor Burns, can do to challenge and enrich contemporary reappraisals of the Roosevelt presidency and the New Deal period.69 But the arguments of this chapter point as well beyond Roosevelt and the New Deal to the larger study of leadership in American politics. They suggest how we might seek to weave structure and agency together into a fuller and more satisfying analysis of political leadership.

NOTES 1. Bruce Miroff, ‘‘Leadership and American Political Development,’’ in Formative Acts: American Politics in the Making, ed. Stephen Skowronek and Matthew Glassman (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 32–51.


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2. Barton J. Bernstein, ‘‘The New Deal: The Conservative Achievements of Liberal Reform,’’ in Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History, ed. Barton J. Bernstein (New York: Vintage Books, 1967). 3. Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle, eds., The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989). 4. Theodore J. Lowi, The Personal President: Power Invested, Promise Unfulfilled (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 23. 5. Ibid., 35. 6. Ibid., 45. 7. Ibid., 49–66. 8. Ibid., 65. 9. Ibid., 151. 10. Sidney M. Milkis, The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System Since the New Deal (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), vii. 11. Ibid., 21–25. 12. Ibid., 6. 13. Ibid., 42. 14. Ibid., 131. 15. Ibid., 50. 16. Ibid., 41. 17. Ibid., 124. 18. Ibid., 101. 19. Ibid., 300. 20. Marc Landy and Sidney M. Milkis, Presidential Greatness (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 154. 21. Milkis, The President and the Parties, 24. 22. Ibid., 306. 23. Anita L. Allen and Milton C. Regan Jr., Debating Democracy’s Discontent: Essays on American Politics, Law, and Public Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 24. Michael J. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 5. 25. Ibid., 6. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid., 208–221. 28. Alan Brinkley, ‘‘The New Deal and the Idea of the State,’’ in The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, ed. Fraser and Gerstle; and Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (New York: Vintage Books, 1995). 29. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent, 258. 30. Ibid., 261–262. 31. Ibid., 262. 32. Ibid., 270. 33. Ibid., 24. 34. Ibid., 281. 35. James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 394.

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36. James MacGregor Burns, The Crosswinds of Freedom: From Roosevelt to Reagan— America in the Last Half-Century (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 30, 131. 37. James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1956), 402. 38. Ibid., x. 39. James MacGregor Burns, Presidential Government: The Crucible of Leadership (New York: Avon Books, 1965), 21–43. 40. Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, 362. 41. Ibid., 401–402. 42. James MacGregor Burns, The Deadlock of Democracy: Four-Party Politics in America (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963). 43. James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1970), vii. 44. Ibid., 331–355. 45. Landy and Milkis, Presidential Greatness, 41–60. 46. Burns, The Deadlock of Democracy, 24–46. 47. Milkis, The President and the Parties, 306–307. 48. James MacGregor Burns, The Power to Lead: The Crisis of the American Presidency (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984). 49. Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, 96. 50. Burns, The Crosswinds of Freedom, 10. 51. Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, 206–208. 52. Milkis, The President and the Parties, 61. 53. Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, 376. 54. Milkis, The President and the Parties, 62–68. 55. Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, 344. 56. Ibid., 369–370. 57. Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, 352. 58. Ibid., 347–355. 59. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent, 250–273. 60. Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, 329–330. 61. Brinkley, The End of Reform, 245–258 62. Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, 353. 63. Burns, Leadership, 37. 64. Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, 151. 65. Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, 361–362. 66. Ibid., 424. 67. Ibid., 426. 68. Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 288–324. 69. For his recent—and more critical—commentary on contemporary presidential leadership, see James MacGregor Burns, Running Alone: Presidential Leadership–JFK to Bush II (New York: Basic Books, 2006).

PART II

INSTITUTIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL LEADERSHIP


4 Presidential Leadership: A Dyadic Model MICHAEL A. GENOVESE

Shortly after becoming prime minister of Great Britain in 1997, Tony Blair invited President Bill Clinton to visit London and shore up the ‘‘special relationship’’ that was said to exist between the United States and Britain. On that May 1997 trip, Clinton faced a group of British journalists who, hoping to lure Clinton into an embarrassing faux pas that might produce an anti-Blair headline, asked the American president what he had come to Great Britain to teach the new prime minister.1 Without missing a beat, President Clinton informed the gathered journalists that he was in England to see what he could learn from Blair. After all, Clinton reminded the reporters, the prime minister had a built-in majority in Parliament, a disciplined party, and a set agenda, plus he had the legislative power to implement his legislative program. As Clinton jealously eyed the vastly superior political perch from which the new British prime minister would govern, it became clear just why the American president suffered from ‘‘power envy.’’ The power envy stems from the fact that American presidents operate in a separation of power system,2 while the British prime minister operated in a fusion of power system. Separating power creates a difficult starting point for American presidents. They are dependent on legislators over whom they may have only marginal control at best. But fusing legislative and executive power together, such as exists in Great Britain, gives the prime minister real clout within and over the Parliament. Thus, presidential leadership is contextually much more difficult to exercise than prime ministerial leadership.3

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‘‘Presidential leadership’’—the phrase is misleading, and something of a misnomer. Rarely are the conditions properly aligned to allow a president to overcome the many roadblocks that litter the presidential path. In order for a president to actually lead, structure, context, resources, and skill must be compatible and aligned. This rarely occurs.4 To be successful, a president must be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of all. Since power floats in the United States,5 since it is so elusive, a power vacuum is the natural order, and someone or something fills it. Usually, the vacuum is filled by those who wish to protect the status quo; as the protectors of what is, they have most of the advantages over the advocates of change. In the United States, there is a great deal of negative power, multiple veto points, but there are few opportunities to promote political change. Many political rivals attempt to fill the power void, but no one is better situated to do so than the president. In effect, the presidency is the only truly ‘‘modern’’ institution of American government. The Congress acts slowly, the Court must wait for a case to arrive. But the presidency is a modern institution in the sense that it can adapt quickly. As the world becomes smaller, as communication becomes almost instantaneous, as travel speeds up, as technology progresses, the perceived need to move quickly, adapt, and adjust heightens. The presidency, with a single hand at the helm, can move, can fill the power vacuum. Congress then faces an adaptation problem if not a crisis when confronted by the more streamlined, modern presidency.

PRESIDENTIAL DIRECT ACTION AND THE UNITARY EXECUTIVE By what means can a president fill that power vacuum? It can be filled either by direct action or by presidential leadership. Direct action refers to those recognized or utilized powers a president may employ. Leadership refers to the ability to move, persuade, and influence people and events. Power versus leadership are two options from which presidents may choose when setting strategic and tactical goals for their administrations. And while direct action (employing power) may be attractive to presidents, there are only limited areas where a president may successfully exercise independent power and be reasonably certain of achieving success. Often, the situation demands that a president attempt to exercise leadership if he or she is to achieve goals. It is thus important to distinguish between the exercise of power and the use of leadership in assessing the president’s ability to move the nation and the machinery of government. A wise and skilled president knows when to use direct action and when he must attempt to lead. The wrong choice can spell

Presidential Leadership

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disaster and embarrassment for a president. The right choice can lead to success. In recent years, greater scholarly attention has focused on the president’s ability to employ direct action as chief executive or as commander in chief.6 During the George W. Bush presidency, these two functional roles of the president were merged together to form ‘‘the unitary executive’’ theory of presidential power. 7 This theory of a robust, powerful, even quasiindependent presidency developed a certain cache in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, tragedy, but in time it became somewhat discredited among academics. The academic cache for the unitary executive comes primarily from several law journal articles touting a ‘‘new originalist’’ construction of the robust version of presidential power.8 These law review articles have given a brand of academic legitimacy, if not acceptability to the unity executive view. While this view has become the theory de jour of post-9/11 neoconservative thought within the Bush administration, many traditional conservatives are skeptical of this newly discovered originalist construction. Dissecting the unitary executive doctrine, conservative columnist George F. Will refers to ‘‘this monarchical doctrine,’’ writing ‘‘It is that whenever the nation is at war, the other two branches of government have a radically diminished pertinence to governance and the president determines what the pertinence shall be.’’ 9 The unitary executive is a constitutional model of presidential power positing that ‘‘all’’ executive powers (defined very broadly) belong exclusively to the president. And here, executive powers are seen as remarkably expansive and comprehensive.10 In its most expansive form, the unitary executive is disembodied from and even above the separation of powers and checks and balances, and thus seems in contradiction or contradistinction to the original model of constitutionalism as envisioned by the Framers. In general, the unitary executive consists of seven parts: 1. Executive prerogative (based on John Locke’s Second Treatise). 2. ‘‘Energy’’ in the executive (grounded in Alexander Hamilton’s defense of presidential authority). 3. The ‘‘coordinate constitution’’ view of the Constitution (where the ‘‘executive power’’ is fused with the ‘‘Commander-in-Chief’’ clause). 4. The doctrine of ‘‘necessity’’ (as practiced by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War). 5. The ‘‘constitutional dictatorship’’ (as described by Clinton Rossiter in Constitutional Dictatorship). 6. Precedent (past practices of U.S. presidents). 7. Supporting Court decisions (e.g., United States v. Curtis-Wright).

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JOHN LOCKE’S ‘‘EXECUTIVE PREROGATIVE’’ Initial support for the independent authority of the executive comes to us from John Locke. Is a president ever justified in violating the law or Constitution? While the word emergency does not appear in the Constitution and the Framers chose not to include provisions for emergency government in the Constitution, some scholars suggest that the Founders did envision at least the possibility of a president exercising ‘‘supraconstitutional powers’’ in a time of national emergency.11 Historically during a crisis, the president has assumed and exercised extraconstitutional powers.12 The separate branches—which, under normal circumstances, are designed to check and balance one another—will often defer to the president in times of national crisis or emergency. The president’s institutional position offers a unique vantage point from which he can more easily exert crisis leadership, and the Congress, Court, and public will generally accept the president’s judgments and added power. The belief that the United States has one set of legal and constitutional standards for normal conditions and another for crisis or emergency conditions raises some unsettling questions regarding democratic governments and constitutional systems. 13 Can democratic regimes function in any but calm, peaceful circumstances? Or must the United States rely on the strength of a despotic ruler to save it from disaster? Are constitutional governments simply incapable of meeting the demands of crisis? Can democracy work in the twenty-first century, or is it a relic of quieter times? Democratic theory is deficient in addressing itself to the problem of crisis government and democratic objectives. In most instances, democratic political theorists have seen a need to revert to some form of authoritarian leadership in times of emergency. John Locke called this power executive ‘‘prerogative,’’ and to Rousseau, it is an application of the ‘‘General Will.’’ In cases of emergency, when extraordinary pressures are placed on democratic regimes, many theorists suggest that these democratic systems—in order to save themselves from destruction— may embrace the ways of totalitarian regimes. Laws decided upon by democratic means may be ignored or violated under this proposition. As Locke wrote, in emergency situations the Crown retains the prerogative ‘‘power to act according to discretion for the public good, without the prescription of the law and sometimes even against it.’’ 14 While this prerogative could properly be exercised only for the ‘‘public good,’’ one cannot escape the conclusion that for democratic governments this is very shaky ground on which to stand. And what if the executive acts wrongly? Here Locke is forced to abandon secular concerns, and he writes that ‘‘the people have no other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to Heaven.’’ 15


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ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S ‘‘ENERGY’’ While most scholars of the presidency and the Constitution conclude that the Framers invented an executive with limited authority grounded in a separation and sharing of power under the rule of law,16 some executive power advocates, often referred to as presidentialists, are willing to ignore the overwhelming bulk of the evidence and ‘‘cherry pick’’ the evidence, selectively choosing to highlight only those bits and pieces that support their strong executive preference, while ignoring the voluminous evidence against their preferred position.17 They dismiss their critics without facing them, creating a convenient constitutional shroud for expansive presidential power without doing the heavy lifting of making the case for the robust presidency they so desire, and making the separation of powers sing with a distinctly, almost exclusively presidential voice. Who, among the Framers, is their guiding light? Not James Madison, the father of the Constitution, nor Thomas Jefferson, writer of the Declaration of Independence; not George Washington, the first president, but Alexander Hamilton. And while most scholars do not associate Hamilton with a unitary executive, advocates of the unitary executive nonetheless claim Hamilton as an intellectual father. Elements of Hamilton’s case for an energetic presidency (though hardly unitary executive) can be found in Federalist Paper, number 70. It reads in part: There is an idea, which is not without its advocates, that a vigorous executive is inconsistent with the genus of republican government. . . Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks: It is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws, to the protection of property against those irregular and high handed combinations, which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice, to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction and of anarchy. . . A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution: And a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be in practice a bad government. . . Taking it for granted, therefore, that all men of sense will agree in the necessity of an energetic executive; it will only remain to inquire, what are the ingredients which constitute this energy. . . The ingredients, which constitute energy in the executive, are first unity, secondly duration, thirdly an adequate provision for its support, fourthly competent powers.

But it should be noted, an energetic presidency is not an imperial presidency, or at least it should not be. And Hamilton’s energetic executive is but one part of the Framer’s story. Even Hamilton did not advocate so robust and independent a presidency as the unitary executive advocates suggest. Taken in

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its totality, the evidence that emerges from a thorough examination of the writings, speeches, and constitutional handiwork of the Framers reveals a more circumscribed presidency than the unitary executive advocates choose to embrace.

COORDINATE CONSTRUCTION OF THE CONSTITUTION In combining two separate constitutional provisions, the executive power clause and the commander-in-chief clause (both found in Article II), advocates of the unitary executive theory of presidential power see a geometric expansion of executive authority where the parts, when added together, are substantially greater than the whole. Conveniently forgotten is the fact that the president takes an oath of office to ‘‘preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.’’ He must therefore, ‘‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’’ even the laws that he may personally dislike. Some Bush administration officials see presidential authority in times of war as creating an executive of virtually unchecked scope and power. A September 25 Office of Legal Counsel memo argues that ‘‘These decisions [in wartime] under our Constitution are for the President alone to make.’’ 18 Other memos suggest that the president may make things that are unlawful, lawful, and that neither the Congress nor the Courts have the authority to review presidential acts in a time of war. No previous president has made such bold claims to power. But such an expansive reading clearly violates both the spirit and the letter of the law, and the Supreme Court, in cases such as Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) and Rasul v. Bush (2004), and the Congress, in efforts such as their ban on the use of torture (a bill the President signed, but in a ‘‘Signing Statement’’ argued that while he was signing the bill into law, he did not consider himself bound by the law he had just signed), have attempted to reclaim some of the power that was lost, delegated, ceded, or stolen.

THE DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY Perhaps no other claim by the Bush administration and the unitary executive advocates resonates as powerfully in a crisis as the ‘‘necessity’’ argument. The old Roman adage Inter Arma Silent Leges (in war time, the laws are silent), while not constitutionally valid, still holds impressive persuasive power.19 Abraham Lincoln relied on this as the doctrine of necessity during the Civil War, arguing to a special season of Congress on July 4, 1861: The attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one who is sworn to ‘‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’’ should not himself


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violate them. Of course some consideration was given to the questions of power, and propriety, before this matter was acted upon. The whole of the laws which were required to be faithfully executed, were being resisted, and failing of execution, in nearly one-third of the States. Must they be allowed to finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear, that by the use of the tenderness of the citizen’s liberty, that practically, it relieves more of the guilty, than of the innocent, should, to very limited extent, be violated? To state the question more directly, are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself to go to pieces, lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken, if the government should be overthrown, when it was believed that disregarding the single law, would tend to preserve it?

Lincoln believed that it was a union and its Constitution that above all else had to be preserved, because without that union, the Constitution would be meaningless.20 In a 1864 letter to Senator Albert Hodges, Lincoln gives his rationale for the exercise of extraordinary presidential power, writing: I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. . . . And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. . . . I did understand however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by ever indispensable means, that government—that nation—of which that constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the constitution, if, to slave slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution all together.21

Even the ‘‘small government’’ advocate Thomas Jefferson, when confronting a time sensitive political choice, resorted to a ‘‘necessity’’ argument in his constitutionally questionable purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France. Jefferson wrote: A strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of selfpreservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of the higher obligation.

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Leadership and Politics To lose our country by scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.22

When strong executive advocates rely on the necessity argument, they are on persuasive (if unconstitutional) ground. But they go much further. They claim that not only is it necessary (for national security reasons) to go beyond the law, that in such cases, violating the law is not really violating the law. They are above the law; they are the law in times of war . . . or so the claim goes. President Lincoln never made such bold and audacious claims. Even as he went beyond the letter of the law, he never claimed an inherent authority to breach the law, and always recognized that Congress had the authority to reject his claims of power. If Lincoln momentarily went beyond the law— out of perceived necessity—it was still the law and not his will that was supreme. During the crisis of the Civil War, Lincoln exercised extraordinary powers. On what basis did he act? The President recognized a clear emergency situation; there was widespread agreement that this was indeed a crisis and that the president should act; the President placed his actions before the Congress hoping for (and receiving) their approval (after the fact of course), and he never claimed to be above the law or above the Constitution. The doctrine of necessity guided Lincoln. Under the doctrine of necessity, only if acts are truly necessary to preserve and protect the nation can a president act in ways beyond the scope of the law or the Constitution. Lincoln was a servant of the law and the Constitution, even as he acted beyond their literal scope, never claiming an inherent power to go beyond the law. Lincoln believed that the authority of the government was, during a crisis, the authority to act in defense of the nation, acknowledging that he was venturing on congressional territory and skating on constitutional thin ice. The President never claimed that all authority was his, but only that in a crisis, the doctrine of necessity embodied authority in the government; authority the president brought to life. He suggested that acts ‘‘whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon, under what appeared to be a popular demand, and a public necessity. It is believed that nothing has been done beyond the constitutional competency of Congress.’’ Thus, in a legitimate emergency, the people demand that the president act, and the president’s actions are constitutionally permissible if the Congress maintains its authority to ultimately control and limit the actions of the president. ‘‘Must,’’ he asked, ‘‘a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people or too weak to maintain its own existence?’’ He also said that ‘‘Actions which otherwise would be unconstitutional could become lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the Constitution and the Nation.’’ And he posed the dilemma as an analogy: ‘‘Often a


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limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb.’’ In similar fashion, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his early response to the crisis of the Great Depression, confronted the task ahead by admitting that some of his actions might go beyond the law and expectations. In his March 4, 1933, first inaugural address Roosevelt sounded the call for expanded power: It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure. I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring speedy adoption. But in the event that Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis, broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

Supporters of the rule of law and constitutionalism are quite concerned with such visions of expansive power. But adherents to the doctrine of necessity do not see the Constitution as a suicide pact23 and see the Constitution as ‘‘bendable’’ in times of crisis. But, as Justice David Davis wrote in Ex Parte Millegan (71, U.S. 2, 18 L. ed. 281, 1866): The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false; for the government, with the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it, which are necessary to preserve its existence. . .

Likewise, Justice Robert Jackson’s concurring opinion in the Youngstown case rebuts the necessity doctrine. Jackson wrote that the Framers ‘‘knew what emergencies were, knew the pressures they engender for authoritative action, knew, too, how they afford a ready pretext for usurpation. We may also suspect that they suspected that emergency powers would tend to kindle emergencies.’’ 24

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SUPPORTIVE COURT DECISIONS Overall, the courts have not always served as a very effective check on presidential power.25 While there have been times when the courts were willing to stand up to the president (e.g., some of the Civil War cases, early in the New Deal era, late in the Watergate period, and late in the war against terrorism), in general, the courts have tended to shy away from direct confrontations with the presidency, and were often willing to defer to or add to the powers of the presidency. Defenders of the strong presidency model gravitate towards one court case in particular, United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. (1936). In that case, Justice George Sutherland, drawing on a speech in the House of Representatives by John Marshall, referred to the president as ‘‘the sole organ’’ of American foreign policy. While Sutherland’s ‘‘sole organ’’ remark was a judicial aside (dicta), it has become the unofficial executive branch mantra for the president’s bold assertion of a broad and unregulated power over foreign affairs. But scholars have found little in Curtiss-Wright to rely on in the defense of the robust presidency, and other than defenders of presidential power, this case is not seen as significant in granting presidents expansive powers.26 It may be of comfort, but only small comfort to defenders of presidential power and exclusivity in foreign policy.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL DICTATORSHIP Political scientist Clinton Rossiter ’s ‘‘Constitutional Dictatorship’’ is a modern effort to confront the same problem that democratic theorists attempted with little success to solve.27 The ‘‘Constitutional Dictatorship’’ is an admission of the shortcoming of democratic theory and of its weakness in covering the full range of governing requirements. To protect democracy, we reject democracy. In cases of emergency, we must reject democracy for the more expedient ways of the dictator. In this manner, democratic theory opens the door to a strong, extraconstitutional, power-aggrandizing executive. Of course, nowhere in the Constitution is it specified that the president alone should have additional powers in times of crisis. But history has shown us that in times of crisis or emergency, the powers of the president have greatly expanded. And while Justice Abe Fortas writes that ‘‘Under the Constitution the President has no implied powers which enable him to make or disregard laws,’’ 28 under the microscope of political reality we can see that this is precisely what American presidents have done and, in a genuine crisis, gotten away with. The consequence of this view of an enlarged body of presidential power in emergencies has been characterized by constitutional scholar Edward S.


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Corwin as ‘‘constitutional relativity.’’ 29 Corwin sees the Constitution as broad and flexible enough to meet the needs of an emergency situation. By this approach, the Constitution can be adapted to meet the needs of demanding times. If the times call for quasi-dictatorial action by the executive, the Court might well find this approach acceptable. The problem of emergency actions in democratic systems is not easily solved. If the power of the state is issued too little or too late, the democratic state may face the possibility of destruction. But if this power is used arbitrarily and capriciously, the exercise of this power could lead the system to accept a form of permanent dictatorship. In a contemporary sense, the constant reliance on the executive to solve the many ‘‘emergencies’’ (some self-defined by the executive) facing the nation could well lead to the acceptance of the overly powerful executive and make the meaning of the term ‘‘emergency’’ shallow and easily susceptible to executive branch manipulation. With each new emergency, the public and our political system may become more accustomed to accepting a broader definition of presidential power to meet each new crisis. But the Court under Rossiter’s constitutional dictatorship generally recognizes the need for government to have inflated powers with which to deal with the emergency, and it will often allow for a ‘‘flexible’’ interpretation of constitutional powers of the president, who is expected to deal with the crisis. And Rossiter comes to this conclusion: ‘‘In the last resort, it is always the executive branch in the government which possesses and wields the extraordinary powers of self-preservation of any democratic, constitutional state.’’30 The Court recognizes the emergency and allows the president to employ additional powers. But to be legitimate, the constitutional dictator must also recognize the limits of his responsibilities. Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1942, after requesting of Congress a grant of unusually large amount of power, assured the legislature that ‘‘when the war is won, the powers under which I act automatically revert to the people—to whom they belong.’’ 31 The executive, in short, is to return the extraordinary powers he was granted during the crisis back to their rightful place. But serious questions remain as to (1) whether presidents have returned this power, and (2) whether, even if the president desires to do so, a complete return to normality is possible after dictatorial or quasi-dictatorial power is placed in the hands of one man.

PRECEDENT Advocates of the powerful presidential model of the unitary executive position argue that there is sufficient precedent to justify the acceptance of their expansive view of power. Lincoln during the Civil War, Woodrow Wilson in World War I, Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Great Depression and

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World War II, and others paved the path that Bush is following. But so too did Richard Nixon, and while his acts are condemned, his ‘‘when the president does it that means it is not illegal’’ motto lives on in the Bush administration.32 But precedent is an uncertain guide in today’s current war against terrorism. After all, this is war without end. Even if one is tempted to give President Bush and the unitary executive advocates some leverage in this, a permanent imperial presidency would do such constitutional violence to the American system as to force the abandonment of constitutional government in favor of something more closely resembling one-man rule. It would be full circle from a revolution against the executive tyranny against the King of England, to the embrace of imperial rule in the modern era. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and others exercised legitimate emergency powers in the midst of crises. But other presidents, such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, also attempted to grab extraconstitutional power, and were rebuffed and condemned. What made Lincoln and FDR heroes, and Nixon and Reagan usurpers? The predicate is both a legitimate and a widely recognized crisis. But only when there is a genuine emergency can the president attempt to exercise extraconstitutional power. Also, the other branches and the public must be willing to cede to the president these extraconstitutional powers. Third, the president must remain willing to bow to the will of Congress if it chooses to set policy or limits the president’s exercise of emergency power. And the president cannot use secrecy and distortion to hide from Congressional or public scrutiny. In general, Lincoln and FDR followed these guidelines; Nixon and Reagan did not. And what of the case of President George W. Bush in the post-9/11 era? President Bush may have had the predicate, but he was reluctant to place himself within the rule of law, bowing only when his popularity plummeted to the 30 percent range; the Courts chided him on several occasions, and Congress belatedly asserted some of its authority. Until then, he exercised extraconstitutional power and claimed that his acts were not reviewable by Congress or the Courts, often cloaking his actions in secrecy and duplicity. Such a bold and illegitimate interpretation of the president’s powers is unsupportable in law or history. The Bush administration takes the unitary executive further than its predecessors, claiming that in emergency or war, the president’s actions are ‘‘nonreviewable’’ (source: 2003 Defense Department memo, often referred to as the ‘‘torture memo’’). Thus, the Bush administration asserts a crisis presidency that is truly above the law, above the Constitution, and unbound of the separation of powers, rule of law, and checks and balances. In this, the Bush defense would add a seventh leg to the unitary executive: no other


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branch may question our actions. And if the Bush administration’s view is accepted, who is to say that the emperor has no clothes? Extreme times may sometimes lead to extreme measures. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, became the predicate allowing an obscure theory of presidential unilateralism to assume center stage and attach the patina of legitimacy to what otherwise would likely be dismissed out of hand as an extreme and indefensible proposition. After all, the Framers flatly rejected Locke’s prerogative in favor of checks and balances. They also rejected Hamilton’s expansive executive for Madisonian notions of balance and equilibrium; and while ‘‘necessity’’ is a powerful argument, it is not a constitutional argument. They did, in Article II, give the president executive power, but it was not absolute power; and they did make the president commander in chief, but made the office subject to the Congress, so the coordinate construction doctrine cannot be seen in isolation but can only be understood along with Article I. The constitutional dictatorship may well describe our political response to crisis, but that by no means confers constitutional legitimacy to this view; precedent clearly establishes that over time the powers of the president have evolved and grown, but so too has history shown us times when the Congress has chosen to tame the prince and limit executive authority; and while Curtiss-Wright may be canonical to executivists, a thorough examination of court cases dealing with executive power reveals a much more nuanced and complex portrait of a court that may shrink from confrontations with the executive; but may also stand up to and limit power grabs by the president (as Hamdi, Rasul, and Hamden all suggest).

PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP What of the alternative means of a president filling the power vacuum? What of presidential leadership? Presidential leadership refers to more than merely office holding. Leadership is a complex phenomenon revolving around influence—the ability to move others in a desired direction. Successful leaders are those who can, within the context of the given situation, take full advantage of their opportunities, resources, and skills, within the structure or system under which the president must operate. A president’s level of political opportunity is the context of power.33 This political opportunity level is measured by such factors as the president’s margin of victory in the last election; the issues the president ran on in the election; the number of the president’s party in Congress; political ripeness of issues; and public mood and the level of their demand for action. Resources reflect the power granted to the president. As mentioned, constitutionally the president has limited power. Further, the structure of government, the separation of powers, also reflects

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limited presidential powers. Skill is the repertoire of experience, ability, and judgment each individual brings to the job. Skill refers to that which each individual president brings to the office. In general, a president will need experience, intelligence, optimism, creativity, honesty, and a bit of cunning, wisdom, courage, judgment, a sense of humor, sensitivity and empathy, a healthy sense of self-esteem, compassion, caring, a thick skin and a rugged stamina, a good power sense, a knowledge of self, the world, and the system, a sense of history, the ability to communicate and persuade, political and managerial skills, the ability to judge others and appropriately delegate responsibility, vision, quick thinking, self-confidence but not arrogance, the ability to put a team together and make them work in concert, emotional intelligence . . . in short, a president must be what Harold Laski in The American Presidency calls, ‘‘an exceptional man,’’ a ‘‘man for all seasons’’ 34 who, as Richard Neustadt wrote in Presidential Power, ‘‘plays every ‘role’, wears every ‘hat’ at once.’’ 35 And often these traits will be in conflict with each other as our paradoxical demands and expectations pull presidents in a variety of different directions at once. A successful leader converts resources to power, but it is not automatic. To convert resources to power requires skill. Structure refers to the separation or power system in which the president operates. This system tends to bend or inhibit presidential power as the president must share power with other political actors. The leader’s skills—their style, political acumen, experience, political strategy, management skill, vision, ability to mobilize political support, character traits, ability of public presentation, and personal attributes—provide a behavioral repertoire, a set of competencies. Opportunities, resources, and skills interact to determine the potential for success or failure in attempts to lead and influence.36 A president who can play to the maximum the cards of opportunity, resources, and skill has a chance of succeeding politically. Such a leader can resemble Leviathan rather than a Gulliver tied down by thousands of lesser figures. But unusual is the president who is able to maximize power. More often, the president resembles the helpless giant. The presidency, as popularly understood, simply cannot work as advertised. Public demands and expectations are too high and the president’s powers too thin: so many roadblocks, so few useful road maps; so many veto points, so few avenues to gain and use power. As political scientist Thomas E. Cronin has written, ‘‘Their [presidents’] responsibilities exceed their meager powers.’’ 37 The surprise should not be that most presidents cannot lead effectively; the surprise is that some do lead. We still cling to the romantic myth of FDR and ask why all presidents cannot do what he did. However, few presidents are FDR, and few face the opportunities for leadership that Roosevelt enjoyed. Power in the American system is dispersed; it


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‘‘exists only as a potential. Leadership is the means by which the president can exploit that potential. This is no easy task.’’ 38 The president has vast responsibilities, with overwhelmingly high public expectations but limited resources. However, as an institution, the presidency has proved to be somewhat bendable or elastic; it sometimes stretches to accommodate skilled leaders in situations of high opportunity, but it also contracts to hem in the less skilled leaders.39 Noting the variable nature of the power potential in the presidency, political scientist Robert Dahl has written: ‘‘The Presidency is like a family dwelling that each new generation alters and enlarges. Confronted by some new need, a President adds on a new room, a new wing; what began as a modest dwelling has become a mansion; every President may not use every room, but the rooms are available in case of the need.’’ 40 Generically, the presidency is a somewhat weak and dependent political institution. The president is especially vulnerable (to outside veto points) and dependent (on others to go along with him). His independent powers are quite limited. It is an office of enormous responsibility, extravagant expectations, but of limited power. How do presidents make up for this shortage? How do they lead? Of course, it must be noted that while the Founders sought a governing structure that was slow, deliberative, and multifaceted, they also wanted a government of some power and energy, but a specific type of energy—energy that resulted from consensus and cooperation. Theirs was a shared decision working model of governing. What model or type of leadership is required to move such a system? A model based on consensus, not fair accompli; influence, not command; agreement, not independence; cooperation, not unilateralism. Such a model requires the president to think strategically and to lead.41 If the model of leadership built into the presidency is one of cooperation and consensus, what political pathways are open for presidents? Under what conditions can a skilled president take a relatively limited office and exert pressure and leadership? What are the fuels that ignite presidential power? And what are the preconditions for successful presidential leadership? In the social sciences, the words ‘‘leadership’’ and ‘‘power’’ are quite often used interchangeably. But this is a mistake. Leadership is influence; power is command. Leaders inspire and persuade; power wielders order compliance. Leaders induce followership; power holders can force acceptance. Officeholders have some degree of power merely by virtue of occupying an office. Leaders, on the other hand, earn followership. The officeholder uses the powers granted to their official position. The leader tries to reshape the political environment; ‘‘he seeks to change the constellation of political forces about him in a direction closer to his own conception of the political good.’’ 42

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On some occasions, a president can act of his own authority, ‘‘independent’’ of other political actors. However, in most cases, presidents share power. Therefore, leadership, the informal ‘‘powers’’ so eloquently discussed by Richard Neustadt, became important to presidents who wish to promote political change. All presidents have power, some ability to command. But such power is short-term and limited, and ceases to exist when the president leaves office. Its effects can often be reversed by a new president. A president’s formal power—for so long the central point of presidential studies43—includes constitutional authority, statutes, delegated powers, and those areas in which others are willing to follow a president’s command. But with the publication of Richard Neustadt’s hugely influential book Presidential Power in 1960,44 the more informal power to persuade took center stage in presidential studies. But rather than take an either-or approach to the debate over formal versus informal powers, one should see these two potential sources of presidential strength as complementary, as potential presidential options in the pursuit of political goals. While presidents derive some of their powers from constitutional sources, they derive others from political, contextual, and personal sources. Effective presidents use all the resources at their disposal. They assess the situation and determine where their best chances for success are, and they are flexible enough to make the adjustments necessary to optimize their political power. In short, effective presidents are able to adjust their dance to fit whatever music is being played. True political leadership occurs when presidents are able to exploit the multifaceted nature of the opportunities both to command and to influence. In his classic study, Leadership, James M. Burns rightly suggests that leadership takes place when Persons with certain motives and purposes mobilize, in competition or conflict with others, institutional, political, psychological, and other resources so as the arouse, engage, and satisfy the motives of followers . . . Leadership is exercised in a condition of conflict or competition in which leaders contend in appealing to the motive bases of potential followers.45

Given the multiple veto points built into the American system, only presidential leadership can regularly overcome the lethargy that is intentionally built into the system and give consistent direction to government. On rare occasion, Congress can take the lead on a policy, as was the case when Congress overcame opposition from Ronald Reagan and imposed economic sanctions on the White minority government of South Africa, or in the early days of Newt Gingrich’s time as Speaker of the House during the Clinton presidency. But such cases are infrequent and generally short lived. Congress


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simply is not institutionally designed to provide consistent national leadership over extended periods of time. Thus, in the second half of the twentieth century, citizens have most often looked to the White House for leadership and direction. If the president does not lead, gridlock often results. In this sense, John F. Kennedy’s view that ‘‘The presidential office is the vortex into which all the elements of national decision are irresistibly drawn’’ 46 rings true. Presidential leadership remains the key for moving the machinery of government, but, given all that is arrayed against a president, how can they lead rather than merely preside?

UNDERSTANDING THE FORCES THAT IMPART PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP Presidential leadership (as opposed to the exercise of raw power) is grounded in the interconnection between structure, context, resources, and skill. Context, sometimes called level of political opportunity,47 refers to political conditions under which the president operates. Is there a war or crisis, or does the president govern in neutral or routine times? In a crisis, the president’s power expands dramatically; in normal times, it contracts. Is the president dealing with foreign or domestic affairs? Generally, the president will have greater authority to act in foreign affairs than in the domestic arena. Putting structure, context, resources, and skill together is a daunting task. However, in an effort to get to the core of presidential leadership, I offer a pre-theoretical dyadic model of presidential leadership designed to both highlight the key variables in understanding leadership and predict levels of presidential power (see Figure 4-1). The dyadic model suggests an interrelationship between key variables, organized as dyads for theoretical and predictive utility. This model is offered as a ‘‘pre-theory’’ to build towards a theory of the presidency. Political scientist James N. Rosenau described a pre-theory as one that ‘‘involves the need to develop an explicit conception of where causation is located.’’ 48 In this model, the dependent variable is ‘‘power.’’ We want to understand and explain when presidents are more and less powerful. We then present six independent variables that account for—in order of significance—variations in the dependent variable. At the bottom of the model, we suggest 64 levels of power resulting from the model. These levels suggest hypotheses that can be tested. The first and most important relationship posited is the crisis versus routine dyad, and it is asserted that presidents exert more power and authority in crisis versus noncrisis situations. Political scientists have long noted that during a crisis, the restraining web of the checks and balances comes unglued, and we defer power to the executive. While crises may be few and far between,

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Figure 4-1 A Dyadic Model of Presidential Leadership


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it is clear that during an emergency, the power of the presidency swells, and the influence of the Congress recedes. The second dyad in predictive power is the foreign versus domestic policy relationship, with the assumption being that presidents wield greater authority in foreign versus domestic affairs. Again, political scientists, starting with the seminal work by Aaron Wildavsky, have noted that presidents usually have greater power in foreign affairs than over domestic or economic policy.49 While this power may be constitutionally questionable, it has become the political reality. The third set of variables is skill level, with high skill resulting in greater power than low, or more limited, skill. While it may seem obvious to assert that skill matters, it must be noted that skill is not enough. High skill presidents facing low opportunity situations may be more circumscribed than lower skilled presidents who face high opportunity settings. Fourth, is the partisan membership of Congress, wherein a president should be more powerful when his or her party controls the Congress, and less when the opposition party controls the Congress. While divided government does not necessarily mean deadlocked government, it is clear that a president with a commanding congressional majority has smoother political sailing than a president who faces a Congress controlled by the opposition party. The fifth level is presidential popularity, with a highly popular president being able to exert higher levels of power than unpopular presidents. While popularity may not always be a fungible resource, it is clear that high popularity often leads to an increase in power and decrease in opposition. Finally, the level of presidential response is important, with a more activist president exerting more power that a president of restraint. Presidents who appear weak and hesitant, who seem paralyzed by high stress situations, tend to lose respect rather quickly. Americans like a firm, even tough, response to troubles, and expect presidents to ‘‘take charge’’ and be the nation’s problem solver. Each level of the dyadic model of presidential leadership connects to the others, leading one down the scale to the scores at the bottom of the table. Those scores predict the level of power a president will have in each of the relationships. For example, one expects the president to be most powerful, to exert his highest leadership level, as in box 1: a crisis in foreign policy where the president is highly skilled and has the position backing of the dominant party in Congress, or when the president is highly popular and exerts an activist approach to the problem at hand. Conversely, the president is least able to exert leadership, as in box 64: in routine domestic affairs, where the president’s skills are limited, facing a Congress controlled by the opposition party, or when the president has low popularity ratings and takes a more restrained approach to confronting the problem.

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Understanding presidential leadership, as opposed to raw power, demands that we play a complex and nuanced game. We are drawn to the multiple forces that affect presidential influence, and must discern how these forces blend together as structure, context, resources, and skill interact.

CONCLUSION This model invites rigorous testing. And while a cursory examination of the categorizations pass the ‘‘smell test’’ of plausibility, only through a thorough testing can one assert a robust viability of the dyadic model. I thus invite young, hungry academic bounty hunters to explore the viability of this model—both in its component parts and in its totality. When the presidential stars are properly aligned, presidents can exert strong leadership. But the stars are only rarely aligned. By viewing presidential leadership as a set of interconnected variables, we arrive as a greater appreciation of the roadblocks that litter the president’s path, but also of the forces that contribute to the open pathways to active leadership. This greater appreciation of the complex and changing world of presidential leadership should also sensitize us to the forces that inhibit as well as unleash presidential power and leadership.

NOTES 1. Alison Mitchell, ‘‘In London, 2 Young Guys Sit Talking About Democracy,’’ New York Times, May 30, 1997, sec. A, p. 3. 2. Charles O. Jones, The Presidency in a Separated System (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1994). 3. Michael Foley, The Rise of the British Presidency (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993); Peter Hennesy, The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders Since 1945 (New York: Palgrave, 2000); Anthony King, ed., The British Prime Minister (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1985); Graham P. Thomas, Prime Minister and Cabinet Today (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998). 4. Michael A. Genovese, Memo to a New President: The Art and Science of Presidential Leadership (Los Angeles: Roxbury, 2007). 5. Hedrick Smith, The Power Game (New York: Ballantire, 1988). 6. Kenneth R. Mayer, With the Stoke of a Pen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); Phillip J. Cooper, By Order of the President (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002); William G. Howell, Power Without Persuasion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). 7. John Yoo, The Powers of War and Peace (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003). 8. Michael Stokes Paulsen, ‘‘The Constitution of Necessity,’’ 79 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1257 (July 2004); and see also, Steven G. Calabresi and Kevin H. Rhodes, ‘‘The Structural Constitution: Unitary Executive, Plural Judiciary,’’ 105 Harvard L. Rev. 1153 (1992).


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9. George F. Will, ‘‘No Checks Many Imbalances,’’ The Washington Post, editorial, February 16, 2006, A27. 10. Christopher S. Yoo, Steven G. Calabresi, and Anthony J. Colangelo, ‘‘The Unitary Executive in the Modern Era, 1945–2004,’’ 90 Iowa L. Rev. 601 (2004); Christopher S. Yoo, Steven G. Calabresi, and Laurence D. Nee, ‘‘The Unitary Executive During the Third Half-Century, 1889–1945,’’ 80 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1 (2004); Steven G. Calabresi and Christopher Yoo, ‘‘The Unitary Executive During the Second Half-Century,’’ 26 Hav. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 668 (2003); Steven G. Calabresi and Christopher S. Yoo, ‘‘The Unitary Executive During the First Half-Century,’’ 47 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 1451 (1997); Steven G. Calabresi and Saikrishna B. Prakash, ‘‘The President’s Power to Execute the Laws,’’ 104 Yale L. J. 541 (1994). 11. Daniel P. Franklin, Extraordinary Measures: The Exercise of Prerogative Powers in the United States (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991). 12. Michael A. Genovese, ‘‘Presidential Leadership and Crisis Management,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly (Summer 1986); Michael A. Genovese, ‘‘Presidents and Crisis: Developing a Crisis Management System in the Executive Branch,’’ International Journal on World and Peace (Spring 1987): 108–117. 13. Michael A. Genovese, ‘‘Democratic Theory and the Emergency Powers of the President,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly (Summer 1979): 283–289. 14. John Locke, Treatise on Civil Government and a Letter Concerning Toleration (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1937), chap. 14, 109. 15. Ibid., chap. 14, 113. 16. See Michael A. Genovese, The Power of the American Presidency, 1789–2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 17. Terry Eastland, Energy in the Executive: The Case for the Strong Presidency (New York: Free Press, 1992). 18. Jane Mayer, ‘‘The Hidden Power,’’ New Yorker, July 3, 2006, 51. 19. Niccolo` Machiavelli, The Discourse on Livy, in The Portable Machiavelli, ed. Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa (New York: Penguin Books, 2007), chap. 34 on the Roman use of temporary dictatorship in times of crisis. 20. Daniel Farber, Lincoln’s Constitution (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003). 21. Letter from Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, to Albert G. Hodges, U.S. Senator (April 4, 1864), in Speeches and Writings, supra note 17, at 585. 22. Letter from Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, to John B. Colvin (September 20, 1810), in Basic Writings of Thomas Jefferson 682 (Phillip S. Foner, ed., 1944). 23. Richard A. Posner, Not a Suicide Pact (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). 24. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952). 25. Glendon A Schubert, The Presidency and the Courts (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1957); Michael A. Genovese, The Supreme Court, the Constitution, and Presidential Power (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1980); Louis Fisher, ‘‘Judicial Review of the War Power,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 35 (September 2005): 466–495.

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26. David Gray Adler, United States v. Curtiss-Wright (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, forthcoming). 27. Clinton Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1948). 28. Abe Fortas, ‘‘The Constitution and the Presidency,’’ Washington L. R. 49 (August 1974), 100. 29. Edward S. Corwin, Total War and the Constitution (Westminster, MD: Knopf, 1947), 80. 30. Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship, 12. 31. ‘‘President Speaks,’’ New York Times, September 8, 1942, 1 (text of speech is on p. 17). 32. Michael A. Genovese, The Power of the American Presidency (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 33. William W. Lammers and Michael A. Genovese, The Presidency and Domestic Policy: Comparing Leadership Styles, FDR to Clinton (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000). 34. Harold Laski, The American Presidency (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1940), 41. 35. Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power (New York: Wiley, 1960), viii. 36. Michael A. Genovese and Seth Thompson, ‘‘Women as Chief Executives: Does Gender Matter?’’ in Women as National Leaders, ed. Michael A. Genonese (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993), 1–2. 37. Thomas E. Cronin, The State of the Presidency (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975), 145. 38. Robert Shogan, The Riddle of Power (New York: Dutton, 1991), 5. 39. Michael A. Genovese, The Power of the American Presidency (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 40. Robert A. Dahl, Pluralist Democracy in the United States (New York: Rand McNally, 1967), 90. 41. James P. Pfiffner, The Strategic Presidency: Hitting the Ground Running (Chicago: Dorsey Press, 1988). 42. James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (San Diego, CA: Harvest/HBI, 1984), 197. 43. Edward S. Cronin, The President: Office and Powers (New York: New York University Press, 1957). 44. Neustadt, Presidential Power. 45. James M. Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1982), 18. 46. John F. Kennedy, Foreward to Theodore C. Sorenson, Decision-Making in the White House (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), xi. 47. William W. Lammers and Michael A. Genovese, The Presidency and Domestic Policy: Comparing Leadership Styles, FDR to Clinton (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000). 48. James N. Rosenau, ‘‘Pre-Theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,’’ in Approaches to Comparative and International Politics, ed. Robert B. Farrell (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1976), 40. 49. Aaron Wildavsky, ‘‘The Two Presidencies,’’ in Perspectives on the Presidency, ed. Aaron Wildavsky (Boston: Little Brown, 1975).

5 Making the Vision a Reality: Presidential Leadership in Congress VICTORIA A. FARRAR-MYERS

Leadership in the American political system is an instrumental part of the demand of our representative democracy for the building of majority consensus to achieve change. This means, however, that our governmental system that separates power and provides counterweights through checks and balances to avoid concentrations of power in the hands of one institution is a constraint on the wielding of leadership. In fact, when an actor attempts to lead quickly in a new direction and provide a decisive vision, the very boundaries of our system of governance are strained by what may be seen as an attempt to pull more authority into one institution, thus posing the threat the Founders wished to avoid. Leadership, therefore, is both a demand and a curse. In its successful wielding lays legacies and great, heralded change; its unsuccessful wielding or instances of backlash leave those actors powerless to write their own fate. This is the subtext underlying the quest for presidential leadership in the legislative branch. Many presidents have attempted to wield the powers granted in Article II of the Constitution in manners that expand the authority, defined as ‘‘the ability to affect change and the perceived right to do so,’’ 1 but have learned that the separation of powers system cannot be thwarted for long. The counterbalance of a powerful legislative branch when awakened into action can be—as the system designed—the ultimate check on presidential leadership. Much of this seemingly precarious role the presidency has assumed, leader in chief in the legislative process, rests on the informal institutions of authority that

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have developed over time, but the hubris of its wielding by the most ‘‘powerful’’ office is just that—built upon a foundation that can crumble in the wake of its constitutional counterweights actions. The system itself has become more cluttered with interests, making even attempts at unitary presidential action difficult.2 The existence of strong partisanship within the Congress and the decoupling of the president from the party head position with the advent of more individually centered campaigns have further eroded the claim for presidential leadership in the legislature. This has left the presidency in the position of having demands for action and leadership in navigating governmental stalemate, all the while having to contend with the harsh realities of a system that is still structurally designed to prevent such action and in many instances has built-in mechanisms to constrain such efforts when taken. Nevertheless, despite the many obstacles to the successful exercise of presidential leadership, presidents are able to, and certainly expected to, lead within our governmental system generally as well as in the legislative process. The institution possesses the powers to lead and has developed the authority that allows it to do so. Certainly, in order to govern and reach the compromises necessary to do so, presidents are required to engage in transactional leadership, which focuses on obtaining short-term goals. In modern political parlance, transactional leadership by presidents in the legislative process implies building coalitions of support behind a bill, initiative, or policy agenda. With the buildup of presidential authority (discussed below), presidents are often looked to for leadership, not just in the mundane world of building legislative coalitions, but as agents for broader change in our political system. James MacGregor Burns called this form of political leadership ‘‘transformational leadership,’’ which he describes as Occur[ring] when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality. Their purposes, which might have started out as separate but related, as in the case of transactional leadership, become fused. Power bases are linked not as counterweights but as mutual support for common purpose. Various names are used for such leadership, some of them derisory: elevating, mobilizing, inspiring, exalting, uplifting, preaching, exhorting, evangelizing. The relationship can be moralistic, of course. But transforming leadership ultimately becomes moral in that it raises the level of human conduct and ethical aspiration of both leader and led, and thus it has a transforming effect on both.3

The expectations for exhibiting transformational leadership, both in the political system generally and in the legislative process specifically, provide great opportunity for and deference to presidents, but also serve as a foil for those who fall short of such expectations. As a result, presidents often will

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need to take advantage of all the trappings of the presidency—all the powers and authority vested in the institution—in order to even hope to achieve a level of transformational leadership. To understand more fully the extent of and demand for presidential leadership in the legislative process, we must place the inquiry within the backdrop of the Constitution, the original understandings, the structural and functional aspects of the office. Additionally, we must understand the reinterpretations of the executive’s role, what these changes mean for presidential governance and actions as witnessed through the current administration, and what this all means for the future of the executive branch in American politics and its ability to lead the legislative branch.

STRUCTURAL ASPECTS OF PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP Unlike the legislative branch, the list of the executive branch’s constitutionally enumerated powers is not spelled out in much detail. The Constitution sets out certain defined powers for the president, such as acting as commander in chief of the nation’s military, making treaties, and designating appointments. These powers may have implications for presidential leadership in the legislative branch (as will be seen below). Nevertheless, the primary structural basis for such leadership can be found in several open-ended grants of authority. The enacting clause of Article II of the Constitution provides that ‘‘The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.’’ The vagueness of this clause left open the possibility that it ‘‘might confer a set of unspecified executive powers’’ derived from and grounded in the Constitution itself.4 Such prerogative powers of the executive—a concept grounded in John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government—might be required to be exercised by the executive during times in which laws and constitutional provisions were not sufficient to meet the events of the day.5 The prerogative and other unspecified powers derived by the open-ended grant of executive power to the president provide the basis by which vitally important precedents can be established. These precedents extend not only in exercising the constitutionally enumerated executive powers, but also in accumulating authority to allow the office of the presidency to function in a manner different from what the mere words of the Constitution would seem to dictate. Whereas the enacting clause in Article II creates the constitutional basis for presidential leadership generally, two clauses within Article II, Section 3, place the presidency squarely in the heart of the policy-making process. There, the president is authorized to ‘‘recommend to [Congress’s] Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient’’ and to ‘‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’’ Thus, the constitutional structure

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sets out the relationship the executive has in the production of the ends of government. This structure carves out a role for the presidency at the start of the process as the legislative agenda is established and alternatives are developed, as well as at the other end of the process when laws must be interpreted and implemented. Combined with the constitutional requirement that the president must sign bills into law, the presidency has a basis for authority for exerting leadership in Congress; after all, as noted in Federalist No. 47, ‘‘The executive magistrate forms an integral part of the legislative authority.’’ Although the basis for presidential leadership in the legislative branch can be traced to the Constitution, the presidency has not necessarily had the authority to act in such a manner. Certainly, at the time of the founding, the legislature was considered the first and most powerful branch of government. In fact, the veto power granted to the president in the Constitution was necessary in part to ensure that the presidency could defend itself against ‘‘an immediate attack upon the constitutional rights of the Executive’’ by the legislature.6 Further, throughout much of the first century after the Constitution’s ratification, presidents tended to adhere to a Whig notion of the presidency in which Congress was responsible for initiating policy and the president’s view to veto only those bills that constituted an attack on the Executive’s constitutional rights. Alexander Hamilton’s conception of the executive developed in Federalist No. 70, though, underlies a complicated developmental process for an institution that would be called upon to rectify the needs of the people for leadership and the systemic design to thwart such efforts. According to Hamilton, ‘‘energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government’’ and essential for the efficient administration of the laws. In the Founders’ design, the legislative branch could become the ‘‘vortex’’ drawing in all the power of the federal government.7 Thus, the Founders saw the need to craft a system of separation of powers and checks and balances where the fundamental human nature of self-interest could be harnessed such that ‘‘ambition [would] be made to counteract ambition’’ 8 and where the legislative branch would be checked by an energized executive. In their formulation of the executive branch, as noted above, they laid the groundwork for development of a role for the executive that engendered leadership as a desirable ends; but they also provided structural mechanisms that the legislative branch would later enhance that would demand that leadership. Energy for Hamilton entailed unity, duration, adequate provision for its support, and competent powers. A unitary executive would provide the ability to hold the executive accountable. Duration at the founding entailed the ability of presidents to serve as long as they were in good standing with the public. Unlike today’s term-limited presidency, the original design was done in such a manner as to provide the presidency a long-term view for its


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national constituency. Adequate provision for its support was necessary to ensure that the legislative branch would not use the power of the purse to exact retaliation for an undesirable presidential act. Finally, competent power refers to the Article II sphere of executive power for presidents to wield on their own as well as the assurance that the role carved out for the executive was to be a counterbalance to the legislature in the legislative-making process. Some argue that the constitutional structural was really setting the groundwork for the ‘‘invitation to struggle’’ between the Congress and the executive.9 The struggle lies in the diffusion of powers10 and requirements placed on each office and in the many interactions in the sometimes messy process of governing that demands leadership to craft a winning position to determine the direction of the nation. Compromise, often necessary to obtain the ultimate ends of our system, is not easily achievable, and when impatience grows regarding inactivity the promises of singular action and degradation of institutional confidence by the public are deafening. This leads presidents to demand action and to provide vision of where one needs to go both internationally and domestically. Even more so, the incentive exists to read into the Constitution additional implied powers to justify greater action. For example, the president’s utilizing his role of commander in chief of the military to allow for greater direction of the military all the while coming into direct conflict with the Congress’s power of the purse, or preventing Congress from participating in the policy-making process by utilizing executive orders and other forms of unilateral action. Political scientist Richard Neustadt made the astute observation that the system of separation of powers and checks and balances between the legislative and executive branch was really ‘‘separated institutions sharing powers.’’ 11 He believed it was this later characterization that defined the institutional relations. The refined notion of separation of powers coupled with some fundamental changes in the political and governing environment provided the executive branch with inroads to enhancing the institutional authority. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the expansion of the nation and the role and scope of the national government, both at home and abroad, demanded that the government pass more laws in a wide breadth of policy areas, thus providing the executive branch with greater opportunity to faithfully execute the laws. Correspondingly, the bureaucracy necessary to implement the laws resulted in Congress providing to the presidency an increasing administrative apparatus subject to the president’s leadership as ‘‘Chief Executive.’’ 12 Bolstered by the expansion of the presidency as a formal institution and taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the increased national discourse of politics during this era, presidents—with the assistance or at least the acquiescence of Congress—helped build the informal

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authority of the presidency and carved out a greater structural role for presidential leadership in the legislative process.13

FUNCTIONAL ASPECTS OF PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP With a more prominent role for the presidency in the political system, and the expectations that occupants of the Oval Office will take such a proactive role, presidents have been afforded greater opportunities to exhibit their leadership, both generally and, in the legislative process, specifically. Whereas the above discussion focused on structural aspects of presidential leadership, these additional opportunities are more functional in nature. They stem largely from the roles—or functions—that presidents have come to be expected to play in the American political system. Certainly, many of these functions are grounded in the structure of our governmental system and may employ powers expressly enumerated in the Constitution. As a mechanism of presidential leadership, though, their importance is tied to the nation’s collective understanding of presidents’ expected behavior. The following examples are some, but not all, of the key functional aspects of presidential leadership.

State of the Union Address and Other Public Statements Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution provides that the President ‘‘shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union.’’ Although presidents throughout the nineteenth century and early twentieth century would include requests for certain legislative action, their annual messages were sent to Congress in writing. Woodrow Wilson, however, restarted the practice initially followed by George Washington and John Adams by delivering the State of the Union Address in person to Congress, and his successors in office have continued the tradition. This practice can be tied to the increased role of the presidency in the political system. ‘‘As the presidency had greater behavioral expectations being placed upon it, presenting the State of the Union in a more visible forum was a way in which to fulfill the expectations of the office.’’ 14 The State of the Union still allows the president to lay out various requests for legislative action on carefully selected priorities. As presently utilized, though, the president’s delivery of the State of the Union address each January in front of a joint session of Congress is a political event. It provides a fulcrum for the president to leverage his position in the political system to set the legislative and governing agenda. Together with other public statements, such as inaugural addresses, press conferences, speeches to large groups, and televised prime time addresses from the Oval Office,15 presidents have ample


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opportunities to provide cues to the domestic audience of the public, media, and other governing institutions, and externally to other nations and the world, about what the nation’s governmental priorities are (or at least should be) and where the nation’s efforts and resources should be expended. Such speeches and other public appearances also offer presidents the opportunity to garner additional support for their proposals as well as build political capital for future legislative battles.16 Further, they can serve as ‘‘spectacles’’ in which the president demonstrates his leadership through a ‘‘kind of symbolic event, one in which particular details stand for broader and deeper meanings.’’ 17

Presidential Rhetoric and Public Opinion Political scientist Jeffrey Tulis distinguishes between, what he refers to as, two constitutional presidencies. One such presidency is based on the design of the Constitution, and the limits and constraints that it places on presidential leadership, similar to the view of the presidency discussed above that many of the Framers had and that prevailed through much of the first century of U.S. constitutional history. The second constitutional presidency—the small-c constitution in Tulis’s theory—‘‘puts a premium on active and continuous presidential leadership of popular opinion.’’ 18 Starting with Woodrow Wilson, who attacked the non-Hamiltonian Federalists’ limited view of presidential leadership, the more modern presidents have used their rhetoric to frame for the general public how to think about the issues of the day. In Tulis’s words, ‘‘The Federalist and the Constitution proscribe popular leadership. Wilson prescribed it. Indeed, he urged the president to minister continually to the moods of the people as a preparation for action.’’ 19 To extend this principle more fully, presidency scholar Samuel Kernell indicated that the president can utilize this rhetorical style to ‘‘go public’’—a ‘‘strategy whereby a president promotes himself and his policies in Washington by appealing to the American public for support.’’ 20 In effect, the president goes over the heads of Congress directly to the people; in return, the public would then place pressure on Congress to produce the president’s desired outcome. The more common usage of a going-public strategy is tied to a shift in the political system from institutional pluralism to individual pluralism in which members of Congress ‘‘are more sensitive to influences from beyond Washington’’ than congressional leaders; as a result, ‘‘the president’s hand in mobilizing public opinion has been strengthened.’’ 21 In short, presidential rhetoric is a functional tool that allows presidents to lead the nation and guide its public opinion. Further, leading public opinion and drawing upon the influence that support of the public offers to presidents are a means to accomplish the president’s policy goals. The use, then,

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of public rhetoric permits the president to exhibit leadership traits in two ways: to mold public opinion, and then to utilize this support as political capital to obtain preferred legislative outcomes.

Vetoes and Veto Threats or Bargaining One of the primary presidential powers in the legislative process—that is, the requirement that the president sign a bill into law and the corresponding power to veto legislation of which he disapproves—is not found in Article II of the Constitution. Instead, it can be found in Article I, Section 7, discussing the process for enacting legislation into law: ‘‘Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated. . . .’’ Political scientist Paul Light describes the president’s veto power as ‘‘the most visible method for the President to emphasize his opposition to congressional initiatives. Despite other, informal channels for opposition, the veto is the most convenient measure.’’ 22 Since a veto can be overridden only upon a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress, most vetoes will be sustained even in what might otherwise be an unfavorable legislative environment for the president. For example, Gerald Ford, who faced large Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress and public approval ratings below 50 percent for most of his presidency, saw 54 of his 66 vetoes (81.8 percent) sustained. Thus, the president’s veto power offers presidents a means to keep Congress from advancing policy initiatives in ways that the president opposes. But as a Ford assistant noted, ‘‘The veto strategy had certain costs. Each veto crippled future opportunities for success; each veto eroded the President’s already limited base of support.’’ 23 Vetoes and even the threat of a veto, however, can be incorporated as part of the president’s legislative strategy. Presidents spend much of their time in what Richard Neustadt refers to as bargaining or persuading other actors to do what he wants by convincing them that it is also in their best interest to comply. Presidents will use their reputation and prestige to effectively pressure Congress to mold their legislation in the manner desirable to the executive. Along these lines, the presidential veto power provides a powerful bargaining chip in the president’s institutional negotiations with Congress in shaping legislative outcomes. Political scientist Charles M. Cameron has demonstrated that vetoes, particularly on important and landmark legislation, are part of a sequential veto bargaining process between the president and Congress, particularly during times of divided government.24 During this sequential bargaining process, presidents often are able to extract


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concessions from Congress as it works to pass a bill that the president would approve; Cameron notes that 80 percent of bills repassed by Congress after a presidential veto contain some concession to the president. Further, given the success rate presidents have—both in sustaining vetoes generally and in extracting concessions from Congress following a veto—a veto threat offers presidents a rhetorical tool that can be used preemptively to try to structure a bill to the president’s liking before it even passes Congress. The use and threatened use of a veto then provide a public incentive for members of Congress to comply with the chief executive’s legislative wishes.

Shaping the Budget and the Budgetary Act of 1921 On the surface the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 appears to simply be a means for Congress to streamline the reporting of requests from the executive branch via a coherent and single medium: the president. In looking more closely, however, this Act can be seen as a case of administrative adaptation and defining of institutional roles. For with this law and the new system came a more expansive role of the executive in the policy arena along with additional informational resources in the form of the Bureau of the Budget (later the Office of Management and Budget). The presidency now by law was dictated to craft a budget, not just of numbers, but one that included clear economic plans. In addition, the president was protected by that law from having agency heads competing for a role in the budgetary process. The presidency’s new and more active role in the budget process meant that the legislative presidency was provided the key ingredients to grow in the economic realm. The institution now had an outlet that allowed presidents to express their priorities. This allowed presidents to utilize the budget as an additional agenda-setting item for the Congress, public, and press to see. The president also had an additional mechanism to create a vision and become the key player in crafting the country’s direction. More fundamentally, though, the foci for leadership in the budgeting realm transferred to the executive. With this shift in focus came authority and expectations, and a new form of symbolic leadership arose. After all, the public rightfully could perceive the executive, who went first and ‘‘had the responsibility’’ for the budget, as being in charge. Not everything that came with the executive budgetary system can be viewed as positive for the growth of the presidency. One could contend that this codification of authority for the presidency led to the expectations of presidents controlling the economy and being held accountable if it were to go astray. As a consequence of this Act, the American public (i.e., the president’s constituency) perceives the person who holds the office as the one responsible for the direction of the nation’s economy. Individual presidents

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may feed this misperception by laying claim to economic successes while they are in office; however, institutionally the presidency still is only one stop in the checks and balances system, for the ultimate power of the purse remains with Congress. This Act also laid the foundation for increased institutional struggle between the Congress and the presidency. The members of Congress may not necessarily share the president’s budgetary priorities. From Congress’s perspective, many subsequent reform efforts in the area of the budget have sought to reassert legislative primacy in the process; some of which was lost as a result of the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. Congress even had to develop its own internal processes further and to create an additional source-gathering agency itself to keep the presidency’s informational advantage from allowing that institution to reign supreme. What Congresses after 1921 may have realized is that it did not necessarily have to turn to the executive to gain better control over the budget process, but instead needed to strengthen its own institutional apparatus to address the budget. By the time Congress learned this lesson, however, the role of the presidency in formulating a budget had been too well established to return to its pre-1921 role. The case of the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 indicates that sometimes short-term policy changes may have lasting and sometimes unintended consequences.

National Crisis The demands that a national crisis poses for energy, dispatch, and, at times, secrecy clearly highlight the advantage that the executive branch has for providing fundamental leadership in such times. These crises provide golden opportunities for ‘‘rally around the flag’’ events where presidential public support soars. Correspondingly, presidents are better suited to build on this groundswell of support and improve their ability to obtain preferred policy outcomes. Consider, for example, the passage of the USA Patriot Act, which occurred a mere 45 days after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Shortly after the attacks, George W. Bush declared a war on terrorism, and the Patriot Act was the legislative response to strengthen the federal government’s ability to combat foreign and domestic terrorism. Critics of the Patriot Act, though, contend that it significantly curtailed individuals’ civil liberties, as well as disapproved of the manner in which it was rushed through Congress (the legislative process is typically much slower than 45 days for a piece of major legislation). Despite these criticisms, the Patriot Act has continued to be a central feature of the ‘‘war on terrorism’’ pursued by the Bush administration. Such adherence to the Patriot Act demonstrates the deference given to presidents during times of national crisis.


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GOING IT ALONE—UNILATERAL ACTION The problem of a singular leader trying to lead in the legislative process— given Congress’s 535 members in two chambers and its own institutional power and divergent interests—poses a significant leadership challenge for presidents. Trying to negotiate and bargain in such an institutional context can frustrate presidents in trying to achieve their preferred legislative outcomes. As a result, presidents have made use of several constitutionally derived powers to take unilateral action vis-a`-vis the legislative branch, such as the use of the commander in chief and chief diplomat powers. Despite the constitutional foundations of such actions as well as the broader scope of presidential authority, the ability of the president to make policy decisions binding the nation has at times called into question their impact on our system of checks and balances. The following discussion explores ways in which the presidency can either direct or act independently of the legislative process based on a president’s exercise of unilateral powers.

Executive Orders Executive orders are a meaningful tool for presidents to wield in unilaterally leading the policy-making process. They are intended to be, and generally used as, a means to interpret legislation and guide executive agencies in implementing laws passed by Congress. Executive orders are effective upon their issuance by the president without any congressional action, but they still have the full force of law. As a result, presidents at times have used executive orders to promote specific policy goals without having to work with Congress to enact legislation. For example, going back to the Emancipation Proclamation, presidents have utilized executive orders at times to advance civil rights issues ahead of meaningful legislation on the subject matter. Executive orders were used to desegregate the U.S. military (EO 9981 by Harry Truman) and schools (EO 10730 by Dwight Eisenhower), and to prohibit racial discrimination in federal hiring, housing, and contracting (various EOs issued by John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson). Executive orders have also been used as tools of foreign policy. Sometimes referred to under such names as National Security Presidential Directives (George W. Bush) and Presidential Decision Directives (William Clinton), national security directives are ‘‘presidential directives that establish policy through the National Security Council (NSC) and that are intended to implement and coordinate military policy, foreign policy, or anything else that is defined within the rubric of national security.’’ 25 National security directives have been employed in such matters as leading a coup that overthrew the Guatemalan government in 1954, the Iran-Contra

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arms-sales scandal during the Reagan administration, and U.S. military involvement in Yugoslavia under President Clinton. Undertaking major policy initiatives by means of executive orders without input from the legislative branch exposes a president to claims of making ‘‘end runs around Congress.’’ 26 Cooper cites President Clinton’s order prohibiting the awarding of federal contracts to companies that permanently replace striking workers (EO 12954); President Johnson’s order establishing the basis for employing affirmative action programs in federal contracting (EO 11246); and President Ronald Reagan’s orders related to family (EO 12606), federalism (EO 12612), intergovernmental review of programs (EO 12372), and governmental taking of private property (EO 12630) as instances in which the president pursued a policy objective or promoted the interests of a core constituency in situations where he was not able to achieve success in Congress.27 Although the extensive reach and impact of executive orders often go unchecked, presidents may still be reigned in by checks within the political system. Certainly, Congress could enact legislation (potentially over a presidential veto) in response to an overreaching presidential initiative. Also, executive orders may be struck down in the courts as being unconstitutional. The most notable example of this is the Supreme Court in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (343 U.S. 579 [1952]) negating President Truman’s order for seizing steel mills during a labor dispute; another recent example is the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia striking down President Clinton’s order discussed above related to replacing striking workers.28 As an additional check, just as one president may pursue a policy initiative without congressional authorization using an executive order, a subsequent president can rescind another president’s executive order through issuing a separate order without congressional input as well. For example, President Reagan’s executive order prohibiting using federal funds for international nongovernmental organizations that provide abortion counseling was rescinded by a subsequent order issued by President Clinton; George W. Bush, in turn, rescinded Clinton’s order with one of his own that reinstated Reagan’s policy.

Executive Agreements Unlike treaties, which the president is required to submit to the Senate for ‘‘advice and consent’’ and which require two-thirds approval in the Senate for ratification, executive agreements are made without involving Congress. Executive agreements constitute approximately 90 percent of all international agreements made in recent years. 29 Although most are of a technical or administrative nature, others can be very significant and high profile in nature. As a result, the use of executive agreements provides ‘‘the executive


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branch [with] enormous latitude in crafting foreign policy without direct input from the legislative branch’’ and ‘‘represents a powerful presidential tool in the conduct of foreign policy.’’ 30 To some, the use of executive agreements represents a distortion of the institutional balance between the presidency and Congress in making foreign policy (as distinguished from the conduct of foreign affairs). Certainly, the president, as commander in chief, head of state, and the ‘‘sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations’’ (in the words of the Supreme Court),31 has great inherent authority in shaping the course of the nation’s international affairs. The question underlying the use of executive agreements, however, is the extent to which presidents should be able to bind the nation without being checked by Congress. The Case-Zablocki Act in 1972 required presidents to disclose to Congress (or at least certain members of Congress) when the executive branch entered into an executive agreement. Senator Clifford Case (R-NJ), the legislation’s primary sponsor, indicated that the Act was designed to ‘‘restore the constitutional role of Congress in making this country’s foreign policy,’’ and described his efforts and his intentions as follows: Some commentators have mentioned my actions as part of what is known as the re-emergence of Congress in foreign affairs. This is a correct interpretation as far as it goes. But I would look at it more as an effort to return to the letter and the intent of the Constitution. I am not at all interested in an aggrandizement of Senatorial power. What I am interested in is preventing the executive branch from committing our country to significant and often irrevocable courses of action without approval of the Congress and ultimately the people.32

Despite Senator Case’s efforts to limit the president’s ability to commit the country to significant courses of action, presidential use of executive agreements for significant policy initiatives have continued in the years since the passage of the Case-Zablocki Act. Significantly, though, such usage may not be attributable to the desire of the president to evade a policy debate with the legislative branch over an agreement. Instead, evidence supports the idea that presidents utilize executive agreements more out of a sense of expediency—that is, executive agreements provide an efficient means to conduct the nation’s foreign affairs.33

Signing Statements Presidential signing statements developed as occasional written proclamations made by the executive to accompany the signing of a law. Although James Monroe issued the first signing statement, presidents used them rarely throughout much of American history. Starting with Ronald Reagan in the

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1980s and continuing with his successors, however, presidents have increased their use of signing statements in an attempt to ‘‘increase the power of the Executive to shape the law.’’ 34 Even with the recent increase in signing statements, presidents continue to use them for what are generally considered to be ‘‘uncontroversial’’ purposes, such as ‘‘to explain to the public, and more particularly to interested constituencies, what the President understands to be the likely effects of the bill, and how it coheres or fails to cohere with the Administration’s views or programs.’’ 35 A similar, generally uncontroversial use of signing statements is in offering presidential guidance to executive agencies in interpreting and enforcing the new law. Used in this way, signing statements are useful cuegiving tools for the president to signal to Congress, the executive branch, and interested constituencies how the newly enacted legislation fits—or will be interpreted by the administration in order to fit—within the president’s policy agenda. Recent presidents’ usage of signing statements, however, has extended beyond employing them as an agenda-setting tool to more controversial efforts of trying to give such statements some sort of legal effect. The Reagan administration undertook an initiative to use signing statements as a means for establishing presidential intent, comparable to legislative intent, so that ‘‘Presidential signing statements [could] assume their rightful place in the interpretation of legislation.’’ 36 Some courts have given credence to presidential signing statements in making their judicial determinations. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, for example, cited a presidential signing statement in support of its interpretation of a law: ‘‘[T]hough in some circumstances there is room for doubt as to the weight to be accorded a presidential signing statement in illuminating congressional intent, President Reagan’s views are significant here because the Executive Branch participating in the negotiation of the compromise legislation.’’ 37 Nevertheless, questions such as ‘‘In general, is presidential intent entitled to the same weight as legislative intent or is it of much less significance?’’ and ‘‘What happens when there is a clear conflict between the congressional and presidential understanding?’’ go to the heart of how much weight ultimately would be afforded to presidential signing statements if their legal effect were directly challenged.38 Another controversial use of signing statements, as described by Walter Dellinger, Assistant Attorney General in the Clinton administration, in a memorandum to Bernard Nussbaum, Counsel to the President: is the use of signing statements to announce the President’s view of the constitutionality of the legislation he is signing. This category embraces at least three species: statements that declare that the legislation (or relevant provisions) would be unconstitutional in certain applications; statements that purport to construe the legislation in a manner that would ‘‘save’’ it from


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unconstitutionality; and statements that state flatly that the legislation is unconstitutional on its face. Each of these species of statement may include a declaration as to how—or whether—the legislation will be enforced.39

To some, such use of presidential signing statements resembles an unconstitutional line-item veto. Similarly, presidential signing statements may be a means by which the president asserts what he purports to be a constitutional basis for waiving, ignoring, or not following a law enacted by Congress.40

Recess Appointments The Constitution grants the president the power to appoint ambassadors, judges, and other government officials subject to the approval of the Senate. Foreseeing the need to provide for some temporary mechanism to keep the government functioning during times in which the Senate was not in session, the Framers of the Constitution also built in the presidential power to make recess appointments. Article II, Section 2, states: ‘‘The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.’’ Presidential appointments sometimes become a bargaining chip in the institutional struggle between the president and Congress over setting the legislative agenda. For example, the Senate, or at least certain senators, will block action on presidential appointments until the president provides a concession in return, such as support for certain bills or compromises from the president’s party members in Congress on other bills. Although such institutional bargaining typically arises in times of divided government where the president and the majority party in the Senate are different, individual members of the president’s party occasionally raise the idea of blocking votes on a presidential appointment in order to sway the member’s party leaders.41 The president’s recess appointment power, however, removes or at least weakens the Senate’s negotiating leverage. By waiting to make appointments when Congress is not in session, the president is able to place his nominees into office without having to make any concessions. Further, when the Senate reconvenes in the next session and the president makes the permanent nomination of his recess appointee, he maintains a leverage advantage; he is no longer seeking to fill a vacancy, but instead looking for the Senate to confirm somebody who is already in office. Although the Senate may still fail to confirm the appointment, the President would benefit by having the appointee in office for an extended period of time before the appointee would be forced to resign. Such was the case with George W. Bush’s August 2005 recess appointment of John Bolton as U.S. representative to the United Nations,

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who served in that position for over a year even though the Senate never subsequently ratified his appointment.

TODAY’S GOVERNING REALITIES FOR EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP Today’s pluralistic system both domestically and internationally has placed significant limitations on presidential legislative leadership. Bargaining alone can be a minefield full of competing interests where even tactics of bringing along certain members of Congress or rallying the public do not ensure legislative success. The use of unilateral action can obtain desired outcomes, but in some ways represents a form of leadership by force rather than one of bringing interests together around a coalescing force. Nevertheless, presidents are expected to provide leadership in our system and in the legislative process. Furthermore, presidents come into office often with great expectations for themselves as to the type of leaders they want to be. In today’s political world, however, the expectations and desires for presidential leadership may often be constrained by the governing realities that presidents face.

Lessons from the George W. Bush Presidency The presidency of George W. Bush offers great insights into the state of contemporary presidential leadership both within the legislative process and the political system more broadly. It demonstrates the ambitions of a president aspiring to be a transformational leader, as Bush’s personal leadership style is based on his persistence in doing what he sees as ‘‘right, even if not popular.’’ This approach evokes the image of a leader who blazes a new path in the belief that once he shows the proper course, others will follow. His presidency, however, also shows what happens when a president falls short at times of both his own and general expectations of presidential leadership. Near the end of his administration, one can see that Bush’s legacy will not be one of a changed institution or a changed polity. Instead, his presidency will be about the limitations of presidential leadership and perhaps a legacy of ‘‘don’ts.’’ Consider some of the facets of Bush’s leadership style. The first trait that stands out is his personalization of presidential leadership. Bush portrays himself as reflecting the values of the American people: his compassion, his conservatism, his faith. Bush has sought to parlay this mirroring of values into a basis for pursuing his vision and agenda; it is, after all, what the American people want. These efforts reflect Tulis’s second constitutional presidency discussed above, as Bush sought to frame issues in ways consistent with these values,


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while drawing support for his political and legislative efforts by the coherence of his and the public’s values. Second, Bush’s leadership style has been steeped in the politicization of foreign policy. As noted above, the presidency is recognized by many as the sole organ of foreign affairs in the American political system. Without a doubt, events during the Bush presidency caused the president and the nation to turn their attention to international matters. In Bush’s words from his 2006 State of the Union address, ‘‘we have been called to leadership in a period of consequence.’’ Bush has sought, though, to extend the deference given to the presidency in foreign affairs to other areas by tying them to foreign policy and national security. An examination of the issue Web sites on WhiteHouse.gov during the Bush administration would show, for example: • Issues related to immigration reform and social policy issues related to veterans were included within the policy area of ‘‘National Security.’’ • Bush’s energy policy was equated to ‘‘Energy Security’’ and required lessening the dependence on oil from ‘‘unstable parts of the world.’’ • In discussing Bush’s budget priorities, the first item listed was the War on Terrorism.

Bush’s leadership style has been based on the premise that if issues are viewed as matters of national security in this manner, due deference—particularly in Congress—should be given to the presidency to pursue an appropriate course of action. A third primary component of Bush’s presidential leadership style is the extensive use of vice-presidential power. Many observers have noted that Dick Cheney may be the most powerful vice president in history, from his behind-the-scenes influence in shaping policy to formal powers like having the ability to classify and declassify materials (by means of Executive Order 13292). Such power enhances the leadership ability of ‘‘the Bush administration’’ and broadens the scope of institutional leadership. Utilizing the vice president in this way provides more avenues and different means for exercising leadership than just what the president can do; particularly with Cheney’s extensive experience as a member of Congress and his familiarity with the internal workings of the legislative process. The vice president serving in this manner, though, raises an interesting juxtaposition with the personalization of presidential leadership mentioned above. On one hand, a stronger vice president focused on policy leadership, particularly in Congress, allows the president to promote his personal characteristics. On the other hand, if presidential leadership is all about the individual, the vice president should not have a meaningful role to play, no matter how powerful. Relying on a personalized leadership style while

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utilizing an ‘‘administration’’ approach to leadership definitely requires a balancing act. Fourth, Bush often attempted to lead by sheer will. At times, he displayed a leadership style based on nothing more than the fact that he is pursuing something that he wants, and he expected others to follow because he says so. This approach to leadership utilizes the president’s unilateral powers, but is more encompassing as a leadership style. Sometimes this works particularly when based on the exercise or threat of exercise of unilateral powers, such as the initial commitment of American troops first in Afghanistan and then Iraq; sometimes it does not, for example, his attempt to appoint Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Despite Bush’s efforts to be a transformational leader, his successful exercise of leadership abilities have mainly come at times of what might be called situational leadership. He was successful in turning the post-9/11 rally-aroundthe-flag effect into several key policy wins, mostly related to the war of terror: pursuing the Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and getting congressional approval to bring the war to Iraq on the international front; and creating the Department of Homeland Security and obtaining passage of the Patriot Act on the domestic front. He had more difficulty in other areas, however, such as social security privatization or the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. In other words, his leadership has not been successful in all situations. One key to having a lasting effect on the institution of the presidency is to create a set of shared understandings about the institution that is widely accepted.42 One needs to distinguish, however, between having widespread acceptance of the president’s vision and having no strong organized opposition. The former is evidence of a shared understanding; the latter is that there is no countervailing force to the president’s view. In the absence of a voice providing a clear alternative to the president’s view, presidential action will be seen as leadership. Bush’s standing during the second half of his administration, though—from low public approval ratings to questions of his handling of the war in Iraq to other failed efforts to, perhaps most significantly, the loss of Republican majority control in both chambers of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections—highlight the shortcomings in both Bush’s own leadership style and the limitations of presidential leadership generally. His attempts to personalize presidential leadership worked following September 11 because the events of the day played into the strengths of his leadership style. For example, his blow-horn moment at Ground Zero following the 9/11 terrorist attacks where he displayed both his compassion for a grieving country and his determination to go forward on his terms. His words and action there gave the nation what it needed at a time of great


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national self-doubt. But Bush has generally not been able to adapt his leadership style as the nation returned to the normalcy of everyday politics. As a result, his style seemed disconnected at times to the events of the day. With the possible exception of bolstering the role of the vice president, Bush’s overall leadership style has not been about transformation. He based his leadership on transitory factors: his personal characteristics, building off the events of the day, trying to lead others by sheer will. Bush also relied heavily on his foreign policy politicization as a basis for his leadership. His emphasis on short-term factors for developing his basis for leadership undercut his ability to have any long-term impact on the presidency’s ability to lead. The shortcomings of his leadership, though, show that a president must draw upon multiple sources of authority for presidential leadership. Bush’s attempts to make many issues be about national security and foreign affairs can only be pushed so far. Each president will face many important domestic issues—ones that the American people care very much about and in areas in which Congress is on stronger institutional footing vis-a`-vis the presidency. The president needs to find ways to lead on those issues as well.

The Meaning of Increased Presidential Authority After examining the foundations and growth of presidential leadership in the legislative arena, as well as the challenges that current presidents face in exercising such leadership, we must consider what the wielding of an increased amount of authority for the presidency means for the legislative branch, presidential leadership, and our system of separation of powers and checks and balances. The buildup of the informal authority of the executive branch through the individual actions by various presidents and congresses has enhanced the basic structure of the presidency as outlined in Article II. Therefore, functionally today, presidents wield considerable authority to lead the legislative process and dictate the important issues facing the nation. This activity raises the question of why Congress has seemed complacent in allowing such inroads into the legislative arena by the presidency, or why it has been unable to successfully reign in presidential authority even when attempts have been made to do so (e.g., 1970s-era reforms such as the War Powers Resolution and the Case-Zablocki Act mentioned above). Various reasons contribute to this effect—ranging from congressional members’ reelection imperative, to lack of judicial standing or judicial deference to the presidency, to poor political timing in raising the question of presidential authority during times that favor the use of such authority by the president. Perhaps most importantly, the muse of leadership and the desirability of decisive action have lulled the Congress into complacency. It is easier as an

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institution to go along allowing the risk taking by the executive and only rearing up to check the presidency when scandal, defeat, or policy position failure makes it easy to wield the institutional power of oversight. Devoid of these incentives, the quiet giant of Congress sleeps and is complacent to allow the executive to position itself even further into the heart of the legislative process and the political system. In such a position, though, the chief executive is held by the public to a standard of leadership. As a result, the president is held accountable for such matters as the economy, and the development of foreign policy has become decoupled from Congress. The office of the presidency, however, lost part of its original design, which had provided for a long-term view by allowing presidents to serve unlimited terms. With the passage of the Twenty-second Amendment limiting the number of terms a president could serve, the office has fallen prey to its own set of reelection imperatives in the first term and lame duck status in the second. As a result of all this, the president is forced to focus on short-term imperatives throughout his first term and the early part of the second term (if reelected). Only in the latter part of a second term do many presidents start to focus on broader issues in an attempt to leave a political legacy. The problem with doing so, however, is that the governing realities of such lame duck status reign in the authority underlying presidential leadership. In many ways, presidential leadership has also taken a more fundamentally distinctive twist in recent years. The wielding of unilateral leadership is no longer merely a choice to act alone or push the boundaries of the separation of powers and checks and balances system. Because of the buildup of demands, presidents are turning to unilateral action for expediency and not solely to avoid legislative resistance in order to achieve either the short-term goals they need to meet or to help establish their legacy. Herein lies perhaps the greatest challenge for presidential leadership in the early twenty-first century. We as a nation hunger for transformative leaders. Yet the public, Congress, and even presidents themselves require the chief executive to deliver legislative results. Further, the dispersion of power and the increase in individual pluralism make it more difficult for presidents to engage others to raise the president and the nation in a transformative manner. As a result, presidents are forced to return to the exercise of transactional leadership or situational leadership to attempt to satisfy the immediate expectations they face. Doing so, however, also results in the presidency usually falling short of the desire for transformational leaders. While the story woven above considers the leadership advantages that the executive branch has enjoyed in its relations with the legislative branch, its favored position has not come without costs. Today’s executive branch has demands placed upon it far greater than the constitutional provisions of


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power provide. Although presidents wield informal authority, they do so by resting on precedent, years of complacency by Congress, and a quiet judiciary and public. The true limitation looming for the executive is that the separation of powers system is incredibly good at self-correction; if not so, our Constitution and representative democracy would not have thrived for so long. Unfettered executive leadership will eventually be met with the challenges posed by the systemic mechanisms to ensure safety. Therefore, the president is in a catch-22: although the public and other political actors expect leadership to emanate from the office and its occupant, the system is designed to constrain such attempts at presidential leadership.

NOTES 1. Victoria A. Farrar-Myers, Scripted for Change: The Institutionalization of the American Presidency (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007), 8. 2. For further discussion, see Charles O. Jones, The Presidency in a Separated System, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press, 2005); Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1993); William G. Howell, ‘‘Unilateral Powers: A Brief Overview,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 35 (2005): 417–439; and Kenneth R. Mayer, ‘‘Executive Orders and Presidential Power,’’ The Journal of Politics 61 (1999): 445–466. 3. James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 20. 4. Richard Pious, The American Presidency (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 29. 5. Michael Nelson, The Presidency and the Political System (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2003), 41. 6. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (New York: Penguin), 73. 7. Ibid., 48. 8. Ibid., 51. 9. See James A. Thurber, ‘‘An Introduction to Presidential-Congressional Rivalry,’’ in Rivals for Power: Presidential-Congressional Relations, ed. James A. Thurber (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1996). 10. See Jones, The Presidency in a Separated System, 2005. 11. Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power (New York: Wiley, 1964), 42. 12. See Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 13. See Farrar-Myers, Scripted for Change. 14. Ibid., 22. 15. Samuel Kernell, Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1993), xiii; see also Martha Joynt Kumar, Managing the President’s Message: The White House Communications Operation (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).

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16. George C. Edwards III, At the Margins: Presidential Leadership of Congress (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 101–102. 17. Bruce Miroff, ‘‘The Presidential Spectacle,’’ in The Presidency and the Political System, ed. Michael Nelson (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2003), 279. 18. Jeffrey Tulis, ‘‘The Two Constitutional Presidencies,’’ in The Presidency and the Political System, ed. Nelson, 80. 19. Ibid., 101–102. 20. Kernell, Going Public, 2. 21. Ibid., 39. 22. Paul Light, The President’s Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Reagan (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 111. 23. Quoted in Light, The President’s Agenda, 111–112. 24. See Charles M. Cameron, Veto Bargaining: Presidents and the Politics of Negative Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 25. Phillip J. Cooper, By Order of the President: The Use & Abuse of Executive Direct Action (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 144. 26. Ibid., 55. 27. Ibid., 55, 58. 28. See Chamber of Commerce v. Reich, 74 F.3d 1322 (D.C.Cir. 1996). 29. Kiki Caruson and Victoria A. Farrar-Myers, ‘‘Promoting the President’s Foreign Policy Agenda: Presidential Use of Executive Agreements as Policy Vehicles,’’ Political Research Quarterly 60 (2007): 631. 30. Ibid. 31. United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304 (1936) (citing John Marshall as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives). 32. Statement to Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary during a Hearing on ‘‘Congressional Oversight of Executive Agreements,’’ April 24 and 25; May 12, 18, and 19, 1972. See the transcript for Congressional Oversight of Executive Agreements: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the Committee on the Judiciary at p. 107. 33. Glen S. Krutz and Jeffrey S. Peake, ‘‘The Changing Nature of Presidential Policy Making on International Agreements,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 36 (2006): 391–409. 34. Samuel A. Alito Jr., ‘‘Memorandum dated February 6, 1986, to Litigation Strategy Working Group, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, 1986.’’ Available at http://www.archives.gov/news/samuel-alito/accession-060-89-269/ Acc060-89-269-box6-SG-LSWG-AlitotoLSWG-Feb1986.pdf (last visited December 1, 2007), 2. 35. Walter Dellinger, ‘‘Memorandum dated November 3, 1993, regarding the Legal Significance of Presidential Signing Statements.’’ Available at http://www.usdoj.gov /olc/signing.htm (last visited December 1, 2007), 1. 36. Alito, ‘‘Memorandum dated February 6, 1986,’’ 1. Much of this effort tied back to a memorandum prepared by then Deputy Assistant Attorney General (and later Supreme Court Justice) Samuel Alito Jr. to the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel’s Litigation Strategy Working Group. 37. United States v. Story, 891 F.2d 988, 994 (2d Cir. 1989).


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38. Alito, ‘‘Memorandum dated February 6, 1986,’’ 3. 39. Dellinger, ‘‘Memorandum dated November 3, 1993,’’ 1–2. 40. For example, see Charlie Savage, ‘‘Bush Could Bypass New Torture Ban: Waiver Right Is Reserve,’’ Boston Globe, January 4, 2006. Available at http://www.boston.com/ news/nation/washington/articles/ 2006/ 01/04 /bush _ could _ bypass _ new _ torture _ban/ (last visited November 24, 2007). 41. For example, in 2002 John McCain, a Republican senator and one of the primary advocates for campaign finance reform legislation, threatened to attempt to hold up all of Republican President George W. Bush’s nominations until Bush appointed a member (required to be a Democrat) to the Federal Election Commission. 42. See Farrar-Myers, Scripted for Change.

6 Leadership and the Supreme Court: First among Equals? CHRISTOPHER SHORTELL

Chief justices of the United States have famously been described as primus inter pares, or first among equals.1 The chief justice sits on a Court with eight other justices, who all have lifetime appointments and are in no way beholden to the chief justice. The chief justice has neither the power to hire nor to fire. The chief justice’s vote counts just the same as every other justice’s vote. On top of that, the Court operates in a common law system relying heavily on precedent and a conservative approach towards change. In that environment, how much leadership is possible? The answer is ‘‘plenty.’’ The first among equals notion is rather misleading. In the American system of government, no political leader has absolute control over policy but it does not eliminate the need for leadership. In fact, the lack of an authoritative center makes leadership more necessary. Article II of the Constitution grants only limited powers to presidents, yet the most successful have been able to change the course of American politics. Congress faces numerous collective action problems, yet congressional leaders are able to successfully shepherd preferred policies into law. While chief justices are unquestionably constrained in how much direct authority they have over the Court, the ‘‘chief’’ in the title is not merely a formality. Chief Justice William Taft commented shortly before being appointed to the bench that ‘‘he is, if he be a man of strong and persuasive personality, abiding convictions, recognized by learning and statesmanlike foresight, expected to promote team-work by the Court, so as to give weight and solidarity to its opinions.’’ 2 There are both formal and informal powers, exercised internally and

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externally, that allow chief justices to play a major role in shaping not only the jurisprudence of the Court, but also the prestige and influence of the institution. Understanding those powers and how they are used is at the heart of effective leadership on the Court. John Marshall and Earl Warren, for example, demonstrated just how influential a chief justice can be by making the most of their positions. Before considering what those powers are and how they operate, it is necessary to consider what it even means to be an effective leader in a legal context. On the Supreme Court, there are three key areas that we can look at to determine whether a chief justice is an effective leader. The first area has to do with implementing changes in the content and substance of the legal decisions from the Court to better reflect the preferences of the chief justice. A successful chief justice should be able to move the law in the direction that he prefers. The second area involves the administration of the Court and lower courts, for which the chief justice is ultimately responsible. This includes not only the smoothness of operations but also the development of collegiality and professionalism among the associate justices. The third and final area of success has to do with managing the institutional legitimacy of the Court. The reputation of the Court with other political actors and the public at large directly impacts its effectiveness in influencing American politics.3 Chief justices play a central role in how the legitimacy of the Court is perceived. While chief justices are vital for each of these elements, they do not have total control over any of the outcomes. A chief justice may be hampered in moving the law in a preferred direction if there is not a majority of similarminded justices also sitting on the Court. Effective administration may be challenged by budget shortfalls from Congress and poor appointments to the lower courts by presidents. Finally, some chief justices face greater challenges in maintaining legitimacy if there are strong conflicts driving American politics at the time. Nonetheless, chief justices are still capable of demonstrating more or less effective leadership within the constraints of their particular historical circumstances. Before evaluating the leadership of chief justices, I will begin with a careful review of the office’s formal and informal powers to show what tools chief justices have to work with as leaders. The powers of a chief justice are exercised both internally on the Court and externally with the other branches of government and the public at large, so I will pay attention to how that dynamic is relevant. Once the tools of the chief justice are clearly established, I will turn to evaluating how those powers have been used to achieve each of the three elements of successful leadership on the Court. The chapter concludes with a consideration of what makes a successful chief justice and the role that leadership plays.

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FORMAL POWERS OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE Article III of the Constitution establishes the judicial branch, but no mention is made of the office of chief justice. The only mention of the office in the Constitution is found in Article I, where the chief justice is to preside over presidential impeachment trials in the Senate.4 This power has only been exercised twice in the nation’s history and is hardly an integral part of how chief justices carry out their jobs. The rest of the powers of the office, then, come from Congressional statutes and from internal Court rules. Some of the formal powers are directed toward the operation of the Supreme Court itself, while others are external in nature and relate to the chief justice’s role as Chief Justice of the United States. The powers have changed significantly over time, as the nation has grown and the Court has taken on a more mature role. I will focus primarily on the powers of modern chief justices, with reference to earlier eras where appropriate.

Internal Powers One of the most visible roles of the chief justice is as the presiding officer of the Court. It is the chief justice’s responsibility to preside over oral arguments, especially in maintaining the time limits for the attorneys arguing before the Court. Except in very unusual circumstances, each side is granted only 30 minutes to speak and it is up to the chief justice to enforce that limit. Some chief justices have been very strict about the rule, even to the point of cutting off lawyers in mid-sentence, while others take a more lax view and allow each side slightly more time if deemed necessary. The real action, however, takes place in conference. Once oral arguments have been heard, the justices meet on Fridays to discuss the cases and take an initial nonbinding vote on the outcome. The chief justice also presides at these meetings. The chief justice has two privileges as presiding officer, each of which can have some effect on the outcome. First, the chief justice is responsible for presenting the issues in the case to the other justices and offering his preferred outcome first. While seemingly minor, the way in which a case is presented can shape the views of some of the justices. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes was particularly regarded for his skillful presentation of the cases to be discussed. His colleague, Justice Owen Roberts, noted that the Chief Justice spoke from lead pencil notes at which he occasionally glanced. His presentation of the facts of a case was full and impartial . . . When this had been done, he would usually look up with a quizzical smile and say, ‘‘Now I will state where I come out,’’ and would then outline what he thought the decision of the Court should be. Again, in many cases his treatment was so complete that little, if anything, further could be added by any of the Justices.5


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The ability to present the initial facts and issues often shapes and guides what the following justices will focus on in their discussions.6 Similar influence occurs in conferences dealing with case selection.7 The initial presentation of a case can influence how the rest of the justices proceed. The second privilege that chief justices may exercise during conference is the ability to control the pace and depth of discussion on cases. This is an area of great variation between chief justices and reflects quite distinctly the different leadership styles employed. Chief Justices Edward White and Harlan Fiske Stone were notable for leading unwieldy conferences. Chief Justice White seemed incapable of exerting leadership in conference and often responded to difficult cases by saying that he did not know what to do. Not surprisingly, such an approach led to excessive and far-wandering debate that made it difficult to accomplish much. Chief Justice Stone’s conferences were characterized by hot tempers and dramatic arguments, leading to increased personal hostility on the Court. Stone exacerbated the underlying tensions by permitting conferences to go on for days rather than hours.8 On the opposite end of the spectrum, Chief Justice Hughes ran conferences that were described as ‘‘taut’’ and extremely efficient. 9 Chief Justice William Rehnquist is also regarded as having been an efficient conference leader, keeping discussions on track and moving smoothly.10 Chief Justice Warren falls somewhere in between, with a more relaxed atmosphere in conference while still maintaining control.11 Control of how the conference proceeds can have a substantial impact on how the Court functions as well as the satisfaction of the justices with the process. Perhaps the most influential of the chief justice’s powers is exercised after the conference is over. If the chief justice is in the majority on a case, it is his prerogative to assign the writing of the majority opinion to one of the justices in the majority.12 It is the opinion that spells out the legal reasoning behind the decision and gives guidance to lower courts in similar future cases. While justices are free to write their own separate opinions if they disagree with the majority opinion, it is the majority opinion that carries the force of law. Through this, the chief justice has the potential to shape the direction of the decision in notable ways. For example, in a case in which liberals and some conservatives agree on the outcome but not necessarily the reasoning, a conservative chief justice might assign the majority opinion to a conservative justice so as to end up with an outcome more to his liking. This is not an approach without risk, however. Chief Justice Warren Burger angered his colleagues by joining the majority even if he did not necessarily agree with that outcome just so that he could assign the opinion to himself or another justice that would produce the narrowest possible holding. Chief justices are also more likely to assign the opinions in major cases with far-reaching

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implications to themselves, such as Chief Justice Warren’s opinion in Brown v. Board of Education.13 Opinion assignment has received extensive scholarly attention, but there are real limits on how useful the power is in shaping the law the way the chief justice wants.14 Chief justices face competing demands in determining how to assign opinions. Perhaps the single most important expectation is that chief justices will distribute the workload of writing opinions fairly and equitably among the justices.15 Writing opinions is very time-consuming, and sharing the workload between the justices is important in maintaining collegiality and a manageable workload. Poor management of opinion assignments can lead to problems. Chief Justice Burger generated animosity from Justice William Douglas because of his opinion assignments, resulting in ‘‘a frayed and bitter Court full of needless strains and quarrels.’’ 16 The remainder of the formal powers that chief justices exercise in the Supreme Court are administrative in nature. The chief justice is solely responsible for appointing the administrative assistant to the chief justice and appoints in consultation with the rest of the Court the court counsel, curator, director of data systems, and public information officer.17 The Court jointly appoints the clerk, marshal, librarian, reporter of decisions, and the director of the administrative office, although the chief justice often takes the lead in those appointments. Further, the chief justice is broadly responsible for ensuring the functioning of the Court building and its staff. This role has little effect on the substantive outcomes of the law by the Court, but the selection of qualified employees and the proper treatment of those employees does lead to a smoother functioning organization, one of the measures of successful leadership on the Court.

External Powers The chief justice is also given official responsibilities that extend beyond the Supreme Court. Many are purely ceremonial, although they can play a role in maintaining institutional legitimacy. The chief justice administers the oath of office to the president, serves as Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institute, acts as Chairman of the Board for the Supreme Court Historical Society, and sits on the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Art and the Hirshhorn Museum. Each of these activities represent demands on the chief justice’s time, but also represent opportunities to reinforce the important role of the Supreme Court in American society. Not all administrative roles are purely ceremonial, however. The chief justice has two major responsibilities for administering the federal court system. Chief justices serve as chairs of the Judicial Conference of the United States and of the Federal Judicial Center, the two central administrative arms


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of the federal judiciary. The Judicial Conference of the United States is the principal policy-making body for the federal courts and is composed of the chief judges from each appellate circuit as well as a district court judge from each region.18 The Conference is integral in overseeing the drafting of budget proposals for Congress, statistical reporting, judicial ethics rules, and the procedural rules that govern all federal court proceedings. 19 The chief justice effectively has agenda control for the conference and can determine what issues will be addressed by the conference and what issues will be ignored. Since the Conference guides the administration of all federal courts, the impact of the Conference is extensive. Chief Justice Rehnquist, early in his tenure as chief justice, pushed recommendations to limit habeas corpus proceedings in death penalty cases, something eventually adopted by Congress, and emphasized each year the importance of raising judicial salaries.20 Chief justices also appoint all of the members of the numerous committees created by the Conference, offering another opportunity for influence. These include interbranch committees such as the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws, the Commission on Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Salaries, and the National Study Commission on Records and Documents of Federal Officials. The Federal Judicial Center conducts research into the courts in an effort to improve their administration and aid in the training of new judges. As chair, the chief justice can direct the Center to investigate areas that she is particularly interested in. Chief Justice Burger, for example, initiated a review of criminal jury instructions and the federal courts’ rulemaking system.21 The information generated by the Center is then used by the Conference to develop policies. Through these two agencies, the chief justice can shape the administration of the judiciary in far-reaching and lasting ways. Other external powers are more closely related to traditional judicial roles. The chief justice presides over impeachment trials for presidents, although this is an extremely rare occurrence. Of greater interest is the chief justice’s role in appointing judges to specialized courts established by Congress. The 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) and the 3-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review are particularly significant. These courts act on executive branch requests for electronic surveillance in national security investigations, including investigations into suspected terrorist activities. The chief justice may appoint any currently sitting Article III judge to these panels. Chief justices also appoint judges to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation that handles the consolidation of similar litigation in different districts and, until 2000, the Special Division of the D.C. Circuit that was responsible for appointing independent counsels to investigate presidential administrations and determining the scope of their investigations. 22 Since the chief justice is the sole appointer, he has tremendous

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influence on the direction of these courts, especially the check on executive power provided by the FISA courts and the Special Division of the D.C. Circuit. Chief Justices Burger and Rehnquist each appointed almost 50 judges to these courts.23 Although few people are aware of these additional powers of the chief justice, they play a major role in how the chief justice can exercise influence and power within the judiciary. Not all powers are formally established, however. In addition to powers established by Congressional statute and Court rules, chief justices exercise informal power both on the Court and off. These informal powers, discussed below, often determine just how effectively the formal powers can be exercised and are critical to effective leadership.

INFORMAL POWERS OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE As with presidents, the true power of the chief justice is the power of persuasion. Given the limited formal powers of the office, in the absence of effective persuasion, the influence of a chief justice will be quite limited. With effective persuasion, the impact of a chief justice can be dramatic. How, then, do chief justices exercise persuasion? Their efforts are directed both internally and externally, with each serving a vital function in the leadership of the office.

Internal Persuasion The persuasive role of the chief justice has long been a topic of interest to political scientists. David Danelski identified two key areas of leadership through which chief justices can exercise influence—task leadership and social leadership.24 Task leadership consists of making suggestions for the substantive resolution of cases that are esteemed among the other justices. The task leader usually has compelling ideas and argues passionately and forcefully for those ideas.25 For example, Chief Justice Hughes’s remarkable abilities at summarizing the key issues in cases and offering a clear rationale for his decisions was widely respected on the Court.26 In conference, he was clearly running the show. This persuasive act can take place both in conference during discussion of the cases and afterwards through the circulation of draft opinions and responses. Where chief justices are respected for their intellectual prowess, they are more capable of shaping the direction of the law decided by the Court. Social leadership, on the other hand, involves relieving tension, easing conflicts, and creating a sense of cohesiveness among the justices. The social leader is usually the best-liked member of the court.27 Chief Justice Morrison Waite ‘‘complimented his associates on the style of their opinions, expressed


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concern about their health or personal misfortunes, wrote letters of welcome to new judges, and established the practice of permitting new appointees to choose their first opinions.’’ 28 In the course of doing this, he established goodwill among the justices on the Court, including several who were openly hostile when he began his term.29 Persuasion through social leadership does not necessarily directly impact the outcome of a specific case. It does, however, create an environment conducive to collaboration and cooperation. Social leadership is most valuable in maintaining collegiality and professionalism in the institution and in sustaining the legitimacy of the Court among the public. Petty bickering and incivility make coalitions harder to form and indicate to the public that the Court is deeply divided. Where social leadership is exercised well, the Court is more likely to have unanimous opinions in contentious areas and more respectful dissents when unanimity is impossible. As the descriptions indicate, chief justices may be good at one style of leadership yet fail in another area. Chief Justice William Taft, for example, was illsuited to the role of task leader, but excelled as a social leader.30 The chief justice, however, because of the formal powers of the office, is well situated to serve both functions. The strongest and most effective chief justices have served as both task and social leaders.

External Persuasion In addition to persuading fellow justices on the Court, chief justices play an essential role in persuading other institutions and the public to support the Court. Along with the formal external positions held by the chief justice, the holders of the office are also expected to testify before Congress, occasionally advise presidents, and engage in public relations outreach through speeches, writings, and attendance at events. All of these efforts can aid in exercising effective leadership. As the head of the Judicial Conference of the United States, chief justices are expected to submit recommendations for legislation from the Conference to Congress. However, in practice the role of the chief justice extends well beyond just submitting recommendations. Every chief justice since Taft has worked to lobby Congress through both personal contact and public testimony. Most chief justices have extensive contacts on Capitol Hill from their own previous political activities, and they do not hesitate to use those contacts to the advantage of the federal courts. This is necessary in order to secure resources for the judicial branch. As Judge Harold Stephens once noted, no member of Congress ‘‘would expect the bill to pass if the judges are not interested in it.’’ 31 Chief Justice Taft was perhaps the most wellknown and successful lobbyist for the courts. He got Congress to pass bills

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increasing the discretion of the Court in the cases it accepts, creating additional district court judgeships, and securing funds for the construction of the current Supreme Court building.32 The fact that Chief Justice Taft was a former president certainly helped his cause. Most chief justices have sought to limit their lobbying efforts to issues involving ‘‘the administration of justice.’’ 33 Chief Justices Rehnquist and John Roberts both made public appeals to Congress to increase judicial salaries. However, it is a distinction that does not necessarily exclude involvement in issues of public policy. For example, the push by Chief Justice Rehnquist for more limited habeas corpus petitions for those sentenced to the death penalty was both administrative and substantive. Chief Justice Burger, presumably concerned about increased caseloads, sought to remove provisions from a product safety bill that would have increased access to federal courts for aggrieved consumers.34 Through these efforts, chief justices seek to attain what they perceive as the necessary resources for the operation of the courts. A skilled chief justice must secure those resources and ensure the continued influence of the judicial branch through lobbying. Sometimes, just appealing to Congress is not sufficient. Chief justices must also reach out beyond Congress, especially to professional elites. Chief justices annually give speeches before the American Bar Association and the American Law Institute, prominent institutions with a broad membership of lawyers and judges. They are also regularly invited to speak at law schools and to other law-related organizations such as the Federalist Society. These speeches can be used to advocate on behalf of the judiciary and to set out the chief justice’s legislative agenda. Chief Justice Roberts, for example, emphasized to the American Law Institute in 2006 that issues of judicial resources, pay, and independence should not be influenced by agreement or disagreement with particular Court decisions in the legislative branch. The chief justice’s additional responsibilities on boards for the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Hirshhorn Museum offer further opportunities for private interactions with elites that can be used to sway opinion. Ensuring adequate resources is only part of the position’s responsibilities, however. Chief justices also have an interest in maintaining the prestige and legitimacy of the institution. Because of the prominent role that chief justices can play in American politics, it is not unusual for a chief justice to occasionally serve as a quasi-diplomat in foreign affairs.35 Among the early chief justices, such a role was common. Chief Justice John Jay was sent to Great Britain by President George Washington for a year as ambassador while still serving on the Court. Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth was dispatched to France by President John Adams to ease hostilities between the two countries.36 The acceptance of such dramatic and time-consuming positions declined as the


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responsibilities of the office increased, but presidents continued to ask. Chief Justice Melville Fuller was asked by President William McKinley to serve on a Peace Commission at the end of the Spanish-American War, but declined.37 Chief Justice Fred Vinson was asked by President Harry Truman to act as a presidential emissary to Moscow to ease the developing Cold War.38 More recently, chief justices have taken on more informal diplomatic duties. Chief Justice Burger traveled to China at the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Justice and was present at the opening of an exhibition of American paintings.39 Chief Justice Roberts met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris while abroad. In addition to foreign travel, chief justices regularly host diplomatic envoys from other countries, including representatives from foreign judiciaries. Though not often noticed by the public, these activities reflect the important role of the Supreme Court and offer an opportunity for a chief justice to secure domestic political support among elites who are paying attention. Relationships between presidents and chief justices have also been notable. From the days of Chief Justice Jay in the 1790s, the Court has refused to give formal advice to presidents about the constitutionality of laws and actions. However, the role of informal presidential adviser has persisted. Chief Justice Roger Taney provided President Andrew Jackson with extensive written and oral advice. Chief Justices White, Taft, Vinson, and Warren were all noted for their close relationships with presidents. Chief Justice Vinson, for example, played poker regularly with President Harry Truman. These relationships were often two-way. Chief justices sought support from presidents while presidents sought support from chief justices. Chief Justice Burger was a frequent visitor to the Nixon White House to advocate for reform of the federal courts, but President Nixon took the opportunity to also discuss issues before the Court such as school integration, the death penalty, and the rights of the accused.40 Because of the fact that the judiciary is dependent on the other branches of government for resources, it is a necessary function of chief justices to engage in politics outside of the Court. These forays into legislative and executive politics can serve to enhance the chief justice’s leadership credentials, such as Chief Justice Taft’s success in securing desirable outcomes, or to damage them severely, as when it was revealed that Chief Justice Vinson assured President Truman of the constitutionality of his actions in seizing steel mills before the Court heard the case.41 It is a risky arena for chief justices to work in, but absolutely necessary for the needs of the judiciary.

WHAT MAKES AN EFFECTIVE CHIEF JUSTICE? In order to be successful leaders, chief justices must skillfully combine the formal and informal powers of the office. This is not an easy task, though.

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Chief justices face demands internally and externally, making it very difficult to succeed in each endeavor. Chief justices may be successful leaders in one area, such as managing the operations of the judiciary, while being unsuccessful in other areas, such as moving the law in a favored direction. Looking back at past chief justices, we can distinguish between effective and ineffective leaders in each of the three areas where such leadership can make a difference.

Shaping the Law The first area in which the leadership of a chief justice can be measured is in his influence over the course of the substantive law decided by the Court. Law, essentially a form of policy, is shaped by the politics of the Court and the nation within the constraints of legal process. Chief justices, like other justices, have preferences for how they would like cases decided. Getting the other justices to agree with your approach, not just once but consistently, is the mark of an effective leader. Ineffective chief justices, on the other hand, are unable to consistently shape the law in desired ways. As noted previously, a chief justice’s ability to succeed in this area is dependent in part on the other justices appointed to the Court during their tenure. Nonetheless, effective leadership should be able to overcome that to some degree, while ineffective leadership may squander opportunities and good fortune. Chief Justice Warren is a well-known example of effective leadership in shaping the course of the law. Warren, an appointee of President Dwight Eisenhower, joined the Court at a time when it was cleaved by personal division and strife. Chief Justice Vinson, who preceded Warren, was widely regarded as an ineffectual leader under whose guidance the bickering prevented any cohesive legal vision. Warren was expected to be an effective administrator, but unlikely to influence the law much. Warren was faced with members of the Court who had legendary egos such as Justices Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, Robert Jackson, and William Douglas. While each of those justices was appointed by a Democratic president, they held significantly different views about the law. Justice Frankfurter became a leader of the conservative bloc on the Court, while Justice Douglas was regarded as the most liberal member. Warren, a Republican appointee, had ideas of his own about the law and he was quick to implement them. The Warren Court era featured significant changes in the law ranging from apportionment to the rights of the accused to civil rights. Despite turnover among the justices on the Court during his tenure, Warren was able to consistently and successfully achieve outcomes that matched his personal preferences. Most famously, Warren brokered a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education despite initial strong disagreement from several of the justices.42 While a majority of


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justices agreed with the ultimate outcome of Brown from the beginning, justices such as Frankfurter and Stanley Reed preferred a different approach. Warren recognized that a unanimous ruling was necessary in order to ensure the broadest possible legitimacy of the decision. Warren worked carefully and gently with the justices to secure unanimity.43 Warren used both his formal and informal powers to achieve this result. Immediately recognizing the importance of unanimity, Warren used his authority as the presiding justice in the conference to implement some unusual procedures. Rather than voting immediately after discussing the case, he kept the discussion open for months. Law clerks were left almost entirely out of the opinion drafting process to maintain secrecy, and the final vote in conference was never recorded. These procedures helped to avoid polarization because it allowed extensive back-and-forth between the justices and time for reflection. Those formal powers were not enough, though. Reed, a southerner, remained a holdout who was planning on issuing a dissenting opinion in the case. Warren met with Reed extensively in the months that the case was under consideration, applying gentle but unwavering pressure. He frequently had lunch with Reed, inviting along Justices Sherman Minton and Harold Burton with whom Reed was close. The message conveyed subtly but unmistakably was that Reed was all alone on this. In the end, Reed agreed to join the majority opinion, making it unanimous. The combination of formal procedures and informal pressure present in the deliberations on Brown are the hallmarks of effective leadership. Chief Justice Rehnquist was well-regarded among his colleagues, but in outcomes he was not as effective as he could have been at changing the substance of the law through his leadership.44 Rehnquist was appointed to the Court originally by President Richard Nixon. Rehnquist quickly gained a reputation as the lone dissenter who was frequently in disagreement with the more liberal justices on the Court.45 Rehnquist shared the views of many conservatives that the Warren Court had created bad law and overreached its powers. By the time of his appointment as chief justice in 1986, though, six of the justices had been appointed by Republican presidents. That number increased to eight with the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1991. No longer the lone dissenter, Rehnquist enjoyed a significant majority of conservative justices. He hoped to direct a dramatic rollback of Warren Court precedents. He experienced some significant success, especially in the area of federalism, but it is reasonable to say that he underperformed on the expectations and potential of the Court he led. By the time of his death in 2005, Rehnquist had moved the Court in a distinctly more conservative direction, but was frustrated in a number of different areas. This disappointment is evident in two major areas of law—abortion and religious liberty. Rehnquist was a dissenter from Roe v. Wade and never

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backed down from that position.46 In the seminal case of Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania, however, he was unable to garner a majority to overturn the case.47 Five Republican-appointed justices—Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Harry Blackmun, and John Paul Stevens—voted to uphold Roe. A switch in vote by any one of these justices would have been sufficient to achieve Rehnquist’s goals, but he was unsuccessful in accomplishing that. Access to abortions was limited, but the decision was nowhere near the victory for which Rehnquist and other conservatives had hoped. Likewise, Rehnquist’s attempts to interpret the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment more narrowly were on the whole unsuccessful. In cases such as Allegheny County v. ACLU, Lee v. Weisman, and Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, a majority of justices continued to interpret the Establishment Clause broadly, prohibiting certain religious displays on public land and maintaining the unconstitutionality of school-sponsored prayer.48 What explains these outcomes despite having what appeared to be a supportive Court? Chief Justice Rehnquist was generally regarded as an effective administrator. He managed conferences well, kept oral arguments on time, and distributed the workload equitably. Informally, he also demonstrated success as a task leader, serving as a principled voice for conservative legal doctrine. As a social leader, however, Rehnquist was not as strong. The addition of strong personalities such as Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas served to alienate more moderate justices such as O’Connor and Kennedy, who were the critical swing votes.49 Scalia’s scathing dissents in cases where he was on the losing side created further distance between the conservative bloc and the more moderate justices. Rehnquist was either incapable or unwilling to mend those rifts, despite being friends with O’Connor since their days in law school. These tensions served to drive O’Connor and Kennedy to the more liberal justices repeatedly, blunting the impact of Rehnquist’s push for conservative decisions. The number of dissenting and concurring opinions increased, suggesting an increasingly fractured Court. While very capable in the formal responsibilities of the office, Rehnquist did not demonstrate effective leadership in smoothing over the social tensions that develop in an institution of nine independent individuals.

Court Administration The second area in which leadership of a chief justice can be evaluated is in the administration of the courts. Chief justices bear large responsibility for the ways in which not only the Supreme Court but the entire federal judiciary operates. Efficiency, equity, and collegiality are all measures of effective administration. With ineffective administrators, the functioning of the Court


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can get bogged down in irrelevant details and needless disputes. The Court has had a fair share of chief justices that fall into each category, but Chief Justices Hughes and Stone are particularly emblematic of the extremes. Chief Justice Hughes ranks as one of the most effective leaders in the history of the Court, despite presiding at a time when the Court was losing popular support and facing substantial personnel changes. Early in Hughes’s term, he was faced with the Four Horsemen (Justices George Sutherland, Willis Van Devanter, Pierce Butler, and James McReynolds) on one side and the Three Musketeers (Justices Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, and Harlan Fiske Stone) on the other. These groups of justices held diametrically opposite views of the role of government power to regulate the economy. Navigating between the two groups was not an easy task. In addition, disputes with Franklin Roosevelt’s administration led to the introduction of the Courtpacking measure in 1937. Key to the success Hughes achieved in this environment was his renowned ability at administering the Court. Hughes used his formal powers as the presiding officer to make sure that oral arguments began precisely on time and ended precisely on time. Conferences were not the unwieldy affairs that they can be under some chief justices. Hughes presented everything clearly and quickly, limiting unnecessary commentary, leading to the description of his conferences as ‘‘taut.’’ 50 This approach to managing conferences served to defuse tensions and allow productive work to proceed. He was also very skilled when it came to managing opinion assignments. While he divided the workload fairly, he had other priorities as well that served to make the institution run well. To Hughes, each justice was a generalist, so justices were not assigned all of the opinions within a certain area of expertise. Instead, justices were expected to be able to write opinions in all areas. This spread the responsibilities out and made sure that justices were engaged in all of the different areas of law before the Court. Hughes was also adept at assigning opinions to justices holding the most moderate position in the majority. For example, if a liberal joined a conservative result, Hughes would have him write the opinion and vice versa. This approach served to keep the most extreme elements on the right and left in check and to garner more support for the opinion. Finally, Hughes encouraged changes to draft opinions to take into account the concerns of other justices so as to keep the coalitions together. Outside the Supreme Court, Hughes managed the administrative bodies of the federal judiciary with similar proficiency. He ran the Judicial Conference and appointed the head of the Administrative Office. He worked with circuit and district court judges to direct the reform of judicial administration, most notably in the Administrative Office Act of 1939.51 Once it was passed, he was instrumental in implementing the legislation and ensuring proper oversight over the lower courts. Not only was Hughes able to keep the Supreme

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Court working smoothly, he took seriously his role in heading the entire federal judiciary. As with Warren, formal powers were not enough. Hughes demonstrated skill in deploying informal influence to keep the Court running smoothly. He maintained warm relations with all the justices, despite the large ideological differences between them. He could switch quickly from running a productive conference considering contentious cases to enjoying a sociable lunch dealing with everything from local events to world news.52 Justice Frankfurter noted his ability to defuse tense situations with humor.53 His personable manner extended outside of the Court. Even after President Roosevelt attempted his Court-packing plan, Hughes still retained a friendly relationship with him. Hughes was also a prime mover in getting the Administrative Office Act of 1939 passed through Congress.54 He worked closely with the president of the American Bar Association, Congressional leaders, and the Roosevelt administration to reach a compromise on judicial administration acceptable to both judges and Congress. Hughes was a remarkable and widely respected leader who ran an efficient institution even during turbulent times. Ironically, it was Hughes’s immediate successor who was one of the least capable chief justices when it came to administering the Court. Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone had served as an associate justice for 16 years before his appointment to the top position. He was well-liked by his colleagues and respected as a man of integrity.55 Unfortunately, he was also strongly averse to conflict and suffered from vanity that prevented him from compromising to achieve a better result. As a result of those characteristics, he was unable to effectively exercise the formal powers of the office. Stone failed to show leadership, instead behaving more as an associate justice. Conferences were drawn-out affairs, sometimes lasting up to four days. They were run more as a university seminar than a conference where decisions must be reached. Stone, eager to avoid conflict, was not willing to assert authority to keep the discussion on track. As a consequence, conference discussions often broke down into petty disputes and ideological bickering among the associate justices. Instead of acting as a leader, Stone would descend into the partisan fray, with the confidence that his position was right. This further limited his ability to focus the Court on the issues that it needed to consider. Consensus broke down between the justices and there was a dramatic spike in the frequency of dissenting opinions.56 All of these factors led to an institution that was not running smoothly. The justices were divided and became increasingly set in their views. Stone’s inability to engage in either task or social leadership prevented him from effectively exercising his formal authority to run the conference.


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Institutional Legitimacy The final area in which the chief justice’s leadership can play a role is in the Court’s perceived legitimacy. Unlike the previous two areas, this one is exclusively external in focus. The relevant audience is Congress, the president, and the public. Since the Court has neither the power of the sword nor of the purse, the judiciary’s reputation is especially important. An effective chief justice can increase support for the Court’s decisions and influence in American politics. Ineffective leadership can result in disastrous consequences and a deeply weakened institution. Factors beyond the control of the chief justice can influence the Court’s legitimacy at any given time, but good leadership can still be vital in shaping how the institution is perceived. John Marshall is an easy choice for an example of a chief justice who managed to not only protect, but increase, the legitimacy and public support for the judiciary. Serving as the nation’s fourth chief justice, he redefined the institution and successfully threaded the way through turbulent political waters. Recognizing that the nation was still uncertain about the role that the Court played in the political system, Marshall set out to ensure that its place would be both influential and secure. The task was by no means easy. Marshall and many of his fellow associate justices were Federalists at a time when the party was disappearing from the political scene. The Democratic party of President Thomas Jefferson was ascendant, putting Marshall at a disadvantage in garnering political support. Instead of reaching out to politicians, Marshall developed a constituency among those in the public interested in a stronger national government. His first step to achieve that goal was to present a united front for the Court. Prior to his appointment, decisions were made seriatim. This meant that each justice wrote out his reasoning for deciding the case without any consultation with others. Whichever side got more votes won, but there was no majority opinion. Marshall changed that in his first term, setting the norm that the chief justice would speak for the Court as a whole. In later years, he would occasionally assign opinions to other justices, but he still handed down the bulk of the opinions during his term. This practice reinforced the notion in the mind of the public that the law was certain and judges were merely discovering the law rather than making it. Marshall also made clear that the chief justice was the presiding officer of the Court, both in open session and in conference. His demeanor suggested that the Court was authoritative, even when the reality of that perception was not certain. Justice Joseph Story noted that watching Marshall in open court made you feel that you were ‘‘in the presence of the very oracle of law.’’ 57 It was also critically important to him for the Court to appear to remain above partisan political disputes. Taking sides in disputes that were

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clearly partisan would be a sure way to undermine the Court’s burgeoning legitimacy. In cases such as Marbury v. Madison that had clear partisan overtones, Marshall tread carefully, focusing his opinion on following the higher law of the Constitution rather than acknowledging the political circumstances.58 President Jefferson and his followers were eager for Marshall and the other Federalist justices to engage in partisan decision making because it would justify the calls for impeachment that Jefferson supported early in his presidency. Aware of this, Marshall sought to establish a clearly professionalized institution that could resist the efforts of president and Congress to strip its powers. Marshall created many of the modern formal powers of the office, but knew how to supplement them with informal trappings of authority that were necessary to minimize political interference from other branches. Such a position for the Court was appealing enough to the public that even bitter enemies such as Jefferson found that they could not touch the Court. While Marshall carefully built up institutional legitimacy even in the face of political opposition, Chief Justice Salmon Chase was in the more difficult position of restoring the influence of the Court during his term. While he made some headway, he was not as successful of a leader as other chief justices may have been. Chase had the unfortunate luck to succeed Chief Justice Roger Taney, the author of the very unpopular Dred Scott decision.59 The decision, handed down prior to the Civil War, resulted in a catastrophic collapse in public support for the Court in the northern states. During the Civil War, the Court was largely powerless to challenge any of the actions taken by President Abraham Lincoln.60 Chase was appointed chief justice in 1864 when the Court’s authority was at low ebb. These disadvantages are certainly significant in evaluating Chase’s tenure, but it is equally significant how little he did to restore the Court’s legitimacy. The replacement of Taney with a well-known antislavery activist such as Chase did help with the public reputation of the Court in the North, but Chase’s leadership added little beyond that. For example, in the cases dealing with the Legal Tender Act of 1862, the Court reversed itself in less than two years. Chase pushed through a decision in the first case, Hepburn v. Griswold, despite the fact that the Court was down to just seven members and was split on the vote prior to the retirement of one of the ailing justices.61 In declaring unconstitutional an act that Chase himself had supported as Secretary of the Treasury, he put himself and the Court in an awkward position. President Ulysses Grant and the Republican majority in Congress strongly favored the constitutionality of the act, and it was unclear how the ruling would influence debts owed by the federal government. Given the opportunity to appoint two new justices, Grant made sure that his appointments were supporters of the Legal Tender Act. As soon as they were on the Court, they sided with the previous dissenters in the Legal


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Tender Cases to overturn Hepburn.62 Such a quick turnaround in the Court’s stance further damaged the perceived legitimacy of the Court. Chase, a consummate politician and a leader of the abolition movement, seemed a natural choice to serve as chief justice. However, Chase harbored grand presidential ambitions and viewed the position as a stepping stone to higher office. In a time when the Court faced challenges from many sides, its chief justice was not fully focused on the job at hand. He was not willing to use his considerable abilities to protect the status of the Court, instead focusing on opportunities to advance his own career. For example, even though the Court faced a growing caseload during his tenure, Chase was an advocate for reducing the number of justices to seven. That way, he argued, judicial salaries could be raised for the remaining justices.63 While helpful to Chase, the decision was harmful to the ability of the Court to manage its workload. Chase possessed the skill, but not the incentive, to use the powers of the office to advance the interests of the institution. As a consequence, the Court continued to languish with relatively limited support from the public and other branches.

CONCLUSION Leadership can be a difficult quality to measure and evaluate, but there are common characteristics of effective leaders that appear across time. For chief justices, mastery of the informal powers of the office are necessary in order to effectively exercise the formal powers. In some areas, such as influencing the direction of the law, the most relevant powers are those directed internally to the Court. In other areas, such as maintaining legitimacy, it is the externally focused powers that play the biggest role. To achieve success as a leader, then, chief justices must be able to deftly move from internal disputes to external matters and back again, relying on persuasion and the inherent advantages of the office. The great chief justices have experienced success in all three areas, while the majority of them have been more successful in one area than another. Being chief justice is a demanding position, and it is considerably more than merely being first among equals.

NOTES 1. See, for example, Alpheus Thomas Mason, ‘‘The Chief Justice of the United States: Primus Inter Pares,’’ Journal of Public Law 17 (1968): 23. 2. Quoted in Walter Murphy, Elements of Judicial Strategy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 83.

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3. See, for example, William Mishler and Reginald S. Sheehan, ‘‘The Supreme Court as a Countermajoritarian Institution? The Impact of Public Opinion on Supreme Court Decisions,’’ American Political Science Review 87 (1993): 87–101. 4. U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 3 5. Quoted in Peter G. Fish, The Office of Chief Justice (Charlottesville, VA: White Burkett Miller Center of Public Affairs, 1984), 24. 6. See John P. Frank, Marble Palace: The Supreme Court in American Life (New York: Knopf, 1958), 75. 7. The Supreme Court receives over 9,000 appeals a year, but only hears between 70 and 80 cases. The justices must decide which cases they wish to hear by sifting through all of the petitions for a writ of certiorari. If four justices agree to hear a case, a writ of certiorari is issued and the case is allowed to proceed. 8. Robert J. Steamer, Chief Justice: Leadership and the Supreme Court (Columbus: University of South Carolina Press, 1986), 28. 9. Ibid., 54. 10. See generally Linda Greenhouse, ‘‘How Not to be Chief Justice: The Apprenticeship of William H. Rehnquist,’’ University of Pennsylvania Law Review 154 (2006): 1365– 1372; and Russell R. Wheeler, ‘‘Chief Justice Rehnquist as Third Branch Leader,’’ Judicature 89 (2005): 116–120. 11. Steamer, Chief Justice, 65. 12. If the chief justice is not in the majority, the opinion assignment is made by the most senior associate justice in the majority. 13. Steamer, Chief Justice, 29; 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 14. See, for example, Paul J. Wahlbeck, ‘‘Strategy and Constraints on Supreme Court Opinion Assignment,’’ University of Pennsylvania Law Review 154 (2006): 1729–1755; Forrest Maltzman, James F. Spriggs II, and Paul J. Wahlbeck, Crafting Law on the Supreme Court: The Collegial Game (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Forrest Maltzman and Paul J. Wahlbeck, ‘‘May It Please The Court?: Opinion Assignments in the Rehnquist Court,’’ American Journal of Political Science 40 (1996): 421–443; Sue Davis, ‘‘Power on the Court: Chief Justice Rehnquist’s Opinion Assignments,’’ Judicature 74 (1990): 66–72; Elliot Slotnick, ‘‘The Chief Justice and Self-Assignment of Majority Opinions,’’ Western Political Quarterly 31 (1978): 219–225; and Elliot Slotnick, ‘‘Who Speaks for the Court? Majority Opinion Assignments from Taft to Burger,’’ American Journal of Political Science 23 (1979): 60–77. 15. Wahlbeck, ‘‘Strategy and Constraints on Supreme Court Opinion Assignment,’’ 1730–1731; Slotnick, ‘‘Who Speaks for the Court?’’ 62–66. 16. Quoted in Wahlbeck, ‘‘Strategy and Constraints on Supreme Court Opinion Assignment,’’ 1730–1731. It is worth noting that Justice Douglas had this impression despite the fact that Justice Burger was among the fairest in distributing the number of assignments. See Slotnick, ‘‘Who Speaks for the Court?’’ 66. 17. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/briefoverview.pdf (accessed August 2, 2007). 18. It also includes the Chief Judge of the Court of International Trade. 19. Wheeler, ‘‘Chief Justice Rehnquist as Third Branch Leader,’’ 116–117. 20. Ibid., 117–118.


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21. Fish, The Office of Chief Justice, 107–108. 22. Theodore W. Ruger, ‘‘The Judicial Appointment Power of the Chief Justice,’’ University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 7 (2004): 341–402, esp. 364–367. 23. Ibid., 343. 24. David J. Danelski, ‘‘The Influence of the Chief Justice in the Decisional Process of the Supreme Court,’’ in American Court Systems, ed. Sheldon Goldman and Austin Sarat (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1978), 509–510. 25. Ibid., 509. 26. Fish, The Office of Chief Justice, 24. 27. Danelski, ‘‘The Influence of the Chief Justice,’’ 510. 28. Steamer, Chief Justice, 132. 29. Ibid., 132. 30. Taft relied on his close friend Justice Willis Van Devanter to serve as the task leader for the Court. 31. Fish, The Office of Chief Justice, 115 32. Steamer, Chief Justice, 184–185. 33. Fish, The Office of Chief Justice, 114–115. 34. Ibid., 116. 35. Ibid., 127 36. Ibid., 127. 37. Ibid., 127–128. 38. Opposition from Secretary of State George Marshall and premature disclosure of the plan eventually cancelled the event. Fish, The Office of Chief Justice, 128. 39. Ibid., 128. 40. Ibid., 133. 41. The case was Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952). The advice did President Truman little good—the Court declared the president’s actions unconstitutional, with Chief Justice Vinson writing in dissent. 42. 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 43. The account below is drawn largely from Dennis Hutchinson, ‘‘Unanimity and Desegregation: Decisionmaking in the Supreme Court, 1948–1958,’’ Georgetown Law Journal 68 (1979): 1–44; and Stephen Ellmann, ‘‘The Rule of Law and the Achievement of Unanimity in Brown,’’ New York Law School Law Review 49 (2004): 741–784. 44. Two books make this case explicitly. The first is James F. Simon, The Center Holds: The Power Struggle Inside the Rehnquist Court (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995). The second is Jan Crawford Greenburg, Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court (New York: Penguin Press, 2007). For a differing perspective, see Erwin Chemerinsky, ‘‘Assessing Chief Justice William Rehnquist,’’ University of Pennsylvania Law Review 154 (2006): 1331–1364. 45. Rehnquist dissented alone 62 times as an associate justice. The next closest justice dissented only 16 times. Harold J. Spaeth, ‘‘Chief Justice Rehnquist: ‘Poster Child’ for the Attitudinal Model,’’ Judicature 89 (2005): 108–115. 46. 410 U.S. 113 (1973). 47. 505 U.S. 833 (1992). 48. 492 U.S. 573 (1989); 505 U.S. 577 (1992); 530 U.S. 290 (2000).

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49. See Greenburg, Supreme Conflict. 50. Steamer, Chief Justice, 54. 51. See Peter Graham Fish, ‘‘Crises, Politics, and Federal Judicial Reform: The Administrative Office Act of 1939,’’ Journal of Politics 32 (1970): 599–627. 52. Steamer, Chief Justice, 55. 53. Felix Frankfurter, ‘‘The ‘Administrative Side’ of Chief Justice Hughes,’’ Harvard Law Review 63 (1949): 1–4. 54. Fish, ‘‘Crises, Politics, and Federal Judicial Reform.’’ 55. Much of the following is drawn from Steamer, Chief Justice, 263–274. 56. This increase is considered further in Thomas G. Walker, Lee Epstein, and William J. Dixon, ‘‘On the Mysterious Demise of Consensual Norms in the United States Supreme Court,’’ Journal of Politics 50 (1988): 361–389; and Stacia L. Haynie, ‘‘Leadership and Consensus on the U.S. Supreme Court,’’ Journal of Politics 54 (1992): 1158–1169. 57. Quoted in Steamer, Chief Justice, 52. 58. 5 U.S. 137 (1803). 59. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856). 60. An attempt to order the release of a prisoner in Ex Parte Merryman, 17 F. Cas. 144 (1861), resulted in President Lincoln flatly ignoring the order. 61. 75 U.S. 603 (1870). In 1866, Congress passed a law limiting the size of the Court to seven justices as existing justices retired. In 1871, Congress increased the number back to nine. 62. 79 U.S. 457 (1871). 63. Steamer, Chief Justice, 250.

7 Leading a New Organization: Ridge, Chertoff, and the Department of Homeland Security RICHARD S. CONLEY

The study of leadership is at the core of political science. Yet James MacGregor Burns’s lament over three decades ago still rings true today: ‘‘Political leadership is one of the most widely noted and reported and least understood phenomena in modern politics.’’ 1 The convention in the United States has been indubitably to focus on the presidency. Traditionally, studies examined the president’s formal, constitutional role.2 Richard Neustadt’s pathbreaking work redefined presidential power from the formal, legal, to the informal— the ‘‘politics of persuasion’’—and spawned a veritable cottage industry of research that continues to this day.3 Scholars have assiduously searched for evidence of presidential power in chief executives’ ability to galvanize support for their agenda in the public arena, convince Congress to adopt their policy proposals, or influence press coverage. By contrast sub-presidential leadership—in particular, the work of cabinet heads—has received scant attention in the literature. Hugh Heclo’s A Government of Strangers, which conveys the quotidian frustrations of presidential appointees, remains one of the few major oeuvres in studies of subpresidential politics of the executive branch.4 Of course, the United States does not have ‘‘cabinet government’’ in the same way that its parliamentary analogues do. Presidents prefer to rely on close advisers in the White House rather than cabinet appointees, whom they judge to be subject to ‘‘capture’’

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by the bureaucracies they lead. Still, the ‘‘inner cabinet’’—the Attorney General and Secretaries of Defense, State, Treasury, and now Homeland Security —figure prominently among the president’s advisors—and they have the responsibility of overseeing policy implementation. It is at this level that the president’s agenda takes shape and policies have a direct impact. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the quintessential test of leadership for any contemporary cabinet secretary. In late fall 2002, just over a year after the murderous terror attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, and an extended clash between the executive and legislative branches, the U.S. Congress awarded President George W. Bush broad authority to embark on the most significant reorganization of the federal bureaucracy undertaken since the creation of the Department of Defense in the National Security Act of 1947. The creation of the DHS in March 2003 fused 22 federal agencies and more than 170,000 employees and eyed a single, unflinching goal: Protect the United States and its interests from terrorist threats and avoid a repeat of the devastation and loss of life of 9/11. Yet the pursuit of that critical objective translated into a dizzying myriad of new responsibilities, policies, and need for cross-agency coordination, particularly with the intelligence community not merged into the inchoate DHS. Moreover, maneuvering through a minefield of congressional turf wars, attempting to create agency coherence and a culture of cooperation in the new department, alerting the public to terror threats, and coordinating everything from airport security and vital infrastructure security with other federal, state, and local agencies is the onerous task with which the new Secretary of the DHS has been charged. Managing the colossal new organization has fallen thus far to two men who have led the DHS since its inception: Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge (March 2003–February 2005), and former federal prosecutor and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Chertoff (February 2005–present). The time is nigh for a critical assessment of their leadership, and this chapter takes that challenge to task. The chapter unfolds in several stages. First, some standard criteria are required in order to base evaluations of Ridge’s and Chertoff’s leadership in light of the unique organizational challenges surrounding the DHS and the junctures at which each assumed direction of the agency. This analysis employs a theoretical framework common in organizational and public administration studies that focuses on differences in ‘‘transactional’’ and ‘‘transformational’’ leadership. Second, key observations and empirical evidence on each Secretary’s leadership and style are brought to bear—from ‘‘vision’’ and public relations to personnel management and coordination of the Homeland Security bureaucracy. The final section concludes with observations on the legacy of Ridge and Chertoff, and continuing homeland security challenges in the next presidential administration.

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TRANSACTIONAL VERSUS TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP: THE RIDGE-CHERTOFF CHALLENGE One key distinction in studies of public administration and organizational management in the public and private sectors is between ‘‘transactional’’ and ‘‘transformational’’ leadership. Transactional leaders are more concerned with following established norms, guidelines, and frameworks for policy implementation. As Bass and Avolio note, ‘‘A ‘pure’ transactional culture focuses sharply on explicit and implicit contractual relationships. All job assignments are unambiguously spelled out along with conditions of employment, disciplinary codes, and benefit structures.’’ 5 By contrast, the transformational leader seeks to ‘‘evoke fundamental changes in the basic political and cultural systems of the organization.’’ 6 This is particularly true in attempting to manage a newly formed organization, where norms, rules, and procedures have not yet taken root or are otherwise not deeply established across time. Any new leader—regardless of the context of a new or existing organization—faces the proble´matique that while he or she ‘‘may have more levers for action than any other organizational member . . . without deep knowledge of how the organization works, he or she is vulnerable to making errors.’’ 7 The transformational leader of a new organization is principally hindered by the lack of a history of ‘‘organizational learning.’’ Such leaders do not have the precedents that otherwise enable them to successfully tackle the inherent tension between new situations that arise and the need for organizational continuity. They have little available information on which to base decisions and avoid past errors. ‘‘Strategic renewal’’ of the organization’s goals is impeded by a clean slate.8 The task falls to the new leader to establish and solidify a culture of organizational cooperation around his/her vision and policy goals. In time, ‘‘the basic challenge of organizational learning,’’ Vera and Crosson posit, ‘‘is the tension between assimilating new learning (exploration) and using what has been learned (exploitation).’’ 9 Within this framework of transformational and transactional leadership, leaders seek to shape organizational dynamics. The organizational leader’s task is to mold the organization around his vision and convince followers to further its change and development.10 Robert J. Sternberg argues for a comprehensive framework he entitles ‘‘WICS’’—wisdom, intelligence, and creativity, synthesized—to define leadership.11 Sternberg identifies ‘‘wisdom’’ as the leader’s ability to make good judgments on the basis of available information. ‘‘Intelligence’’ may constitute, de minimis, both academic and practical intelligence—the ability to solve everyday problems and shape real-world responses based on available knowledge. Creativity concerns the generation of new ideas and the capacity to convince others to engage and

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follow those ideas. The synthesis of these qualities enables the leader to ‘‘think beyond the box’’ and reconcile long- and short-term organizational interests.12 The degree to which organizational leaders are able to maneuver through these critical issues may have a pivotal effect on the future of the organization. Some scholars suggest a form of ‘‘path dependence’’ may be created, as ‘‘Organizations set on a course at founding from which change may be costly or difficult, suggesting that early patterns of organizing may limit the range of future strategic actions that firms are likely to consider.’’ 13 Leaders also have to reconcile competing values they wish to secure in any organization. Hooiberg and Choi suggest that organizational leaders face a continual tension between internal and external foci. On the one hand, leaders must show empathy and flexibility in terms of personnel management and see to the stability of day-to-day operations (internal focus). On the other hand, they must also take into account the need to adapt to new situations and orient personnel towards their tasks (external focus).14 The measure of any leader of a complex organization surely must take into account these countervailing forces that are the pivot points of successful management. These theoretical perspectives, drawn as they are from various elements of management and organizational theory, place the leadership challenges of Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff into sharp relief. Ridge, originally chosen to head the president’s ‘‘Office of Homeland Security’’ in the Executive Office of the President, faced the colossal task of coalescing 22 agencies of the federal government into a cohesive unit beginning in March 2003. Ridge’s mission was clearly transformational: To create a culture of organizational cooperation where none had existed before. Yet his job also necessitated a focus on the transactional: His tenure was critical in establishing initial norms, rules, and procedures that would guide the fledgling department into an uncertain future. His tasks, then, entailed everything from attempts to win funding from a Congress engaged in its own internecine battles concerning oversight of the new department and convincing agencies fused under the aegis of DHSs—and the public—to support his vision, all while setting up a plan for routinization of subagencies’ responsibilities. Moreover, he had to seek cooperation from state and local governments, as well as the private sector, to solidify the DHS’s mission success. Finally, Ridge had to use available information to assess current terrorist threats and convey them to the public to heighten awareness of the possibility of a future terrorist attack without creating panic. Michael Chertoff’s challenge has been not only to solidify and refine transactional procedures undertaken at the DHS by his predecessor but also to continue transformational leadership by further reorganizations aimed at honing the department’s capabilities against terrorist threats. One of the most daunting problems Chertoff has faced is the significant turnover of high-level staff


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at the DHS and the continuing vacancies that have worsened during his tenure. Part of Chertoff’s leadership style has been to focus greater effort on law enforcement—not surprising given his experience as a former prosecutor. Yet, like Ridge, he has struggled to manage beyond the ‘‘tyranny of the inbox’’ or daily crises that the DHS has confronted. The unique interplay of transformational and transactional leadership of Ridge and Chertoff and their relative ability to synthesize wisdom, intelligence, and creativity are the subjects of the sections that follow.

TOM RIDGE’S VISION AND PRACTICE OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP A six-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives, two-term governor of Pennsylvania, and chief advisor to presidential candidate George W. Bush in the 2000 election, Tom Ridge is regarded by his supporters and his critics alike as an affable, mild-mannered professional. President George W. Bush appointed Ridge to head a hastily structured ‘‘Office of Homeland Security’’ in the Executive Office of the President, created via executive order in October 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. That position did not require Senate confirmation. No sooner did Ridge take up the role than critics began to charge that he had neither the requisite financial nor human resources to effectively coordinate antiterror programs across the federal government. As a cacophony of voices in Congress raised the idea of reorganizing federal departments to meet the new terrorist threat, President Bush—who had previously rebuffed calls for a new cabinet department—reversed positions, preempted Congress with a sweeping proposal for a new Department of Homeland Security, and eventually won congressional approval for a massive reorganization of federal responsibilities on his terms. Bush gained broad latitude to set personnel policies in the DHS. That issue, above all others, had placed him and Senate Democrats at loggerheads during the summer of 2002. Following the 2002 midterm elections, which restored control of the upper chamber to Republicans, Senate Democrats begrudgingly conceded the issue and the stage was set for a massive reconstitution of federal responsibilities.15 It followed naturally that Ridge, the president’s ‘‘point-man’’ in the White House for antiterror programs, would head the new DHS. Ridge won Senate confirmation unanimously, 94–0. Upon Ridge’s swearing-in ceremony, President Bush lauded his former advisor’s qualifications: ‘‘He’s a decisive, clear-thinking executive who knows how to solve problems. He’s a person of integrity and a person of good judgment . . . the Department is under the command of a superb leader who has my confidence.’’ 16 In so many words Bush, a president who is fiercely loyal to his staff and expects nothing less

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in return, suggested that Ridge’s leadership style would closely follow the WICS model. But did it? Ridge’s primary objective in the days before his confirmation, during the first ‘‘100’’ days of his cabinet secretariat, and thereafter was to try to wade through the muddy waters that entailed raising public awareness of a possible terrorist attack. The leitmotiv of his public statements was a basic vision of the necessity of public preparedness as federal agencies arduously began to fold into the structure of the new DHS in March 2003. Ridge remained convinced that another terrorist attack was eminent.17 He had good reason for this view, dating to his appointment as Director of the White House Office of Homeland Security (OHS) in October 2001. Just several weeks after the terrorists’ hijacking of four U.S. aircraft on 9/11, letters containing the deadly agent anthrax were delivered to NBC News in New York, suspected to have been delivered by mail to an office in Florida, and were followed by suspicious letters containing white powder sent to Senator Tom Daschle’s (D-SD) office on Capitol Hill. Federal authorities never solved the cases, nor were they able to make a connection between the anthrax scare and Al-Qaeda. The anthrax attacks claimed their first fatality just three days before Ridge was appointed to head the OHS. Whatever the source of the deadly biological agent, Ridge described the failure to prevent the attacks as the low point in his career, though solving—let alone preventing—such attacks perpetrated via the postal system poses enormous if not insurmountable challenges.18 Ridge’s conviction that Americans had to ready themselves for another possible terrorist attack—whether from biological, chemical, or nuclear attacks, or through some other type of sabotage to U.S. infrastructure— prompted him to announce the ‘‘Ready Campaign’’ before DHS opened its doors in March 2003. Addressing the local chapter of the American Red Cross in Cincinnati, Ohio, Ridge echoed the motto of the campaign: ‘‘Don’t Be Afraid, Be Ready.’’ The multimillion dollar campaign included public service announcements, a Web site, and a toll-free number so that Americans could devise plans in the ‘‘unlikely’’ event of a future terrorist attack in their community. Ridge urged citizens to assemble ‘‘kits’’ of water, food, and other special necessities, including gas masks and duct tape in the event of a biological or chemical attack.19 Critics quickly assailed Ridge and the Bush administration for allegedly having little else to offer in terms of civil defense than duct-taped windows. As Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) posited, ‘‘This administration is going to have to do better than that.’’ 20 Others, such as prominent editorialist Tom Friedman of the New York Times, suggested that Americans themselves, not the federal government, were overreacting to the terrorist threat. 21 Although there is no tangible evidence to suggest how


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many Americans followed the advice of the ‘‘Ready Campaign,’’ Ridge can be credited at some minimum level for attempting to create public awareness without precipitating full-scale mass hysteria—and for suggesting that while the federal government attempted to reorganize, citizens had to assume some responsibility to make their own preparations and remain vigilant. If anything, Ridge’s public voice provided the basis for a necessary civic debate on the question of personal and governmental responsibilities in the post-9/11 world. Still, the color-coded ‘‘terrorist alert system’’ instituted on March 11, 2002, was far more the subject of confusion rather than enlightenment—and engendered a barrage of media and congressional ridicule and critiques that led to a continual public relations fiasco for Ridge. It is important to clarify that while the alert system was Ridge’s brainchild, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is primarily responsible for changes in the five-level, color-coded system aimed at providing citizens with information about the potential threat of a terror attack. Nonetheless, Ridge, like his colleagues John Ashcroft (Attorney General) and FBI Director Robert Mueller—the trifecta of the president’s most important homeland security apparatus—found themselves in the quintessential conundrum of trying to defend the decisions for changes in the threat level without divulging intelligence and placing national security in jeopardy. When the terror threat level was raised to its second highest level in February 2003 (orange–high risk), Ridge was careful to posit that Americans take ‘‘rational steps’’ and ‘‘not take government recommendations too far’’ by misconstruing general government warnings.22 Yet critics, like Christopher Cox, the Chair of the House Committee responsible for Homeland Security, later condemned the ‘‘senseless, unfocused, nation-wide response’’ that he contended was frequently the result of such ‘‘unspecified threat alerts.’’ 23 Critics rightly pointed to public exasperation at seemingly contradictory signals. As one example, when U.S. forces captured a high-ranking AlQaeda operative, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in early March 2003, Ridge, alongside Attorney General Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller, publicly praised ‘‘the work we are doing to make America a safer home for us, for our children and for generations to come.’’ At the same time, as Walter Shapiro notes, the cognitive disarray felt by many was palpable: ‘‘It was confusing to go from February’s orange alert (elevated risk) to March’s we’ve-got-alQaeda-on-the-run assertions by Ashcroft and Mueller. Were we wrong to be frightened last month? Or are we misguided in feeling reassured now?’’ 24 Ridge was not insensitive to such critiques and evidenced some ‘‘learning’’ on this account. As his tenure as Secretary of the DHS evolved, one important step he took was to focus attention away from broad threats of a potential attack to specific sectors of the economy. In August 2004 Ridge did precisely that when he referenced the New York Stock Exchange, the World Bank and

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International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C., and the Prudential Financial, Inc., headquarters in Newark, New Jersey, as potential terrorist targets. The warning was complemented by enhanced security screening at area airports and heightened local police searches. Ridge’s information apparently came from a Pakistani computer engineer captured abroad some time earlier by U.S. forces.25 Ridge’s public engagements in the war on terrorism were matched by efforts to leave a considerable imprint on the institutional machinery of the DHS. At his Senate confirmation hearing he outlined that the new agency would have six critical missions: (1) intelligence and warning; (2) border and transportation security; (3) domestic counterterrorism; (4) protecting critical infrastructure and key assets; (5) defending against catastrophic threats; and (6) emergency preparedness and response.26 Ridge correctly pointed to substantial institutional and programmatic progress made during the first ‘‘100 days’’ of his tenure as Secretary of the DHS. In early April 2003 he announced a significant information sharing venture with the United Kingdom aimed at jointly studying the two countries’ intelligence gathering, infrastructure and border protection, law enforcement, and other practices via a high-level working group composed of officials from DHS and the British Home Office.27 In late April 2003, at a conference at the National Press Club in Washington, he accentuated more directly the tangible progress made by DHS on a number of fronts. Transportation security naturally received the greatest level of attention, and Ridge emphasized security measures led by the U.S. Coast Guard, including escorting ferries and searching cargo containers as part of heightened port security. He also touted new airport security measures, and a new immigration program entitled US-VISIT, which requires digital fingerprints of foreign nationals arriving in the United States by air or sea and allows DHS to monitor more closely the estimated 35 million foreign visitors to the United States every year. The laundry list of accomplishments continued. It included, among others: (1) A new 24-hour Homeland Security Center charged with gathering and sharing intelligence with other agencies, such as the FBI, Department of Defense, and Central Intelligence Agency on domestic terrorist activities; (2) a total of $3 billion in grants from the Office of Domestic Preparedness and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to states and localities to defray costs of new security measures; (3) an increase of 10 percent in the Coast Guard’s annual budget; (4) a $129 million grant to Northrup Grummond to develop a high-tech Coast Guard ‘‘security’’ cutter; (5) joint federal, state, and local governmental efforts to work with chemical plants and other vital infrastructure facilities to improve security; and (6) significant progress in streamlining law enforcement components integrated into the DHS, including the development of a common payroll and personnel system.28


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Critics nevertheless leveled a number of concerns about the capabilities, practices, and accounting procedures of the DHS. Some, like Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), suggested an inevitable loss of efficacy in agencies like the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) as reorganization at the DHS took effect. The INS had come under substantial criticism for allowing the 9/11 hijackers into the United States.29 Fears about airline security were ratcheted up when, in May 2003, Ridge acknowledged ‘‘sloppiness’’ in the recruiting of airport screeners as part of the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA), some of whom were hired despite criminal records. Ridge blamed the tight deadline imposed by Congress to federalize screeners, which in turn precipitated the use of private sector companies to undertake background checks on behalf of the DHS.30 Indeed, attempts to streamline DHS functions appeared highly uneven at the outset of the agency’s inception in other ways. On the one hand, the legislation creating the DHS included a significant provision to establish a ‘‘chief human capital officer’’ charged with ensuring subagency policies and programs coincided with the organization’s stated mission, its strategic goals, and performance outcomes. The issue was critical for DHS in balancing vital resources among its various mission responsibilities.31 On the other hand, just a year after the creation of the DHS the policy appeared to fail rather miserably at the Border and Transportation Security (BTS) directorate, which is charged with inspections and enforcement of the law at U.S. border crossings. BTS, a vital, ‘‘front line’’ agency in the war on terror faced a $1.2 billion budget shortfall by March 2004. A financial audit by the accounting firm KPMG concluded that the DHS had failed to institute ‘‘proper internal controls over financial reporting’’ at the directorate.32 The result was a hiring freeze at the BTS at the very time when the directorate could least afford it, as border security remained at the top of the DHS’s priorities. A similar problem surfaced at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division, another critical front line agency with the responsibility of enforcing laws once the border is crossed. Financial disputes between the new subagency’s former components, the Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service, and Citizenship and Immigration Services, led to a budget deficit of nearly $500 million by the fall of 2004. That crisis resulted in the release of some 25,000 illegal immigrants due to a lack of space to house them, and further exacerbated rivalries between former Customs and INS agents who resented having to work together.33 The White House’s growing ‘‘distance’’ from Ridge and the mission of the DHS in favor of funding the war in Iraq and fighting terrorism abroad—as well as personnel vacancies at DHS and Ridge’s particular style of administrative leadership—all compounded the Secretary’s woes. Some critics contended that the Bush administration, with its sharp focus on Iraq following

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the invasion of that country in March 2003, was pouring vital resources into traditional military programs at the expense of essential homeland defense from which DHS might benefit. Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) posited that the Bush administration’s budget priorities in 2003 had left DHS short by some $14 billion. In a strongly worded statement, Lieberman contended that ‘‘President Bush seems to have checked ‘homeland security’ off on his to-do list, persuaded that the public won’t notice the difference between building a robust, new homeland security effort and merely rearranging the piecemeal efforts we had before.’’ 34 Others suggested that the White House’s diversion of billions to a plan for a national missile defense system was a misguided policy. The focus, they argued, should instead be on streamlining airport security for U.S. carriers abroad or investing in programs to thwart the more probable type of missile attacks terrorists might try to perpetrate abroad or on U.S. soil—shoulder-fired or cruise missiles, rather than intercontinental ballistic missiles.35 Still others, like political scientist Paul Light, argued that Congress, by essentially failing to challenge the Bush administration’s budget priorities, had dropped the ball on DHS funding by trying to ‘‘build this department on the cheap.’’ 36 Staffing shortages arguably intersected with Ridge’s ‘‘hands-off’’ leadership to aggravate progress in DHS’s essential mission. The White House sought to keep staffing levels thin both on the front lines and at the highest levels of the DHS, and the effect was palpable during Ridge’s tenure. As one example, the TSA cut nearly 60,000 airport screeners in the effort to save an estimated $280 million from the DHS budget.37 Across the nation airport officials complained that the cuts left facilities understaffed and exacerbated passenger woes, already compounded by high turnover rates among nowfederalized security screeners.38 At higher levels of the DHS, staffing issues proved even more troubling. The Department’s Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection directorate is a prime example. The majority of DHS’s intelligence analysts did not have computers capable of receiving classified or top secret information four months after the creation of the Department. 39 But to make matters worse as of March 2004 the directorate had only hired 279 employees of the 729 who had been authorized for DHS.40 The staffing shortage was one of the reasons a critical infrastructure review had still not been completed by fall 2004, more than a year after a congressional mandate.41 But it was at the highest levels of the DHS that staffing deficiencies threatened Ridge’s ability to set the agency on sure footing for the future. And Ridge’s failure to take a more active role in transactional leadership—brokering internecine disputes and exerting more of his vision for future planning— arguably undermined his long-term legacy. Stephen Flynn, a former DHS


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official, described the situation at the upper echelons of the DHS in dire terms: staff support for senior leaders within the department is wholly inadequate for them to effectively execute their demanding responsibilities. For instance, the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security is supported by a staff of just five individuals. This is unworkable for a position which is equivalent to the Chief Operating Officer of the third biggest federal department in the U.S. government. A consequence of this parsimonious approach to staffing is that few of the challenging policy issues that land in the inbox at the department each day ever get resolved. Further, there is no time or energy left over for the department’s leadership to engage in strategic thinking.42

Seth Stodder, the former policy and planning director at the Customs and Border Protection agency, described the situation in similarly stark terms: ‘‘It’s very thinly staffed at the top of DHS, and there’s no policy vision . . . thinking through the main threats. DHS practices management by inbox, getting distracted by daily emergencies.’’ 43 Clark Kent Ervin, former inspector general of the DHS, noted that when immigration officers allowed foreign nationals to enter the United States with stolen passports, Ridge chose not to intervene. Ervin described Ridge as ‘‘a prince of a man, but he’s not a tough guy.’’ 44 Moreover, critics charged that Ridge failed to exercise the necessary kind of detail-oriented leadership within the DHS, preferring to delegate tasks to subordinates without the requisite gravitas to make decisions ‘‘stick.’’ 45 Following President Bush’s reelection victory in 2004, many of Ridge’s subordinates—and Ridge himself—chose to exit the DHS. In toto, more than a dozen high ranking officials in the DHS left public service, creating a vacuum at the top of the fledgling agency, which its successor as Secretary, Michael Chertoff, would have to confront squarely and rapidly. Some observers argued that the exodus was less ominous, as a break with continuity might allow a stronger solidification of the Department’s mission and allow more creative thinking ‘‘outside the box.’’46 In sum, Tom Ridge’s legacy of leadership as Secretary of the DHS is, at best, incongruous in terms of both transformational and transactional leadership. Even his severest critics acknowledged that during his tenure important steps were taken to bolster border and transportation security. Enhanced measures for airport security, port security, and cargo screening—in no small way linked to the creation of the TSA—are one of the most important imprints Ridge left on the inchoate DHS. 47 From this perspective, Ridge’s ‘‘intelligence’’ was visible in terms of setting the department on a course to expeditiously confront everyday terror threats. Even Ridge’s detractors also note a fair amount of ‘‘wisdom’’ in his leadership, but he also faced constraints not of his own making. He was credited for

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working ‘‘not only within the beltway, but with public and enforcement officials in state and local governments.’’ 48 Congress did pour billions into border security, the Coast Guard, and emergency preparedness, which facilitated Ridge’s task and gave credence to his priorities. At the same time, Ridge ‘‘discovered that sometimes his most formidable adversaries were not in Afghanistan and Iraq but in Congress and the White House.’’ 49 The 9/11 Commission called congressional oversight of the DHS ‘‘dysfunctional’’ in light of the internecine turf battles that left dozens of committees in charge of the agency. This dynamic aggravated Ridge’s ability to deal effectively with the legislature over funding issues.50 Consequently, he found his indefatigable calls upon state and local governments to ‘‘do more’’ in terms of law enforcement and infrastructure security a ‘‘tough sell.’’ Congressional funding of state/local coordination actually declined by about a half billion dollars during his tenure—a disturbing trend that would continue into Michael Chertoff’s secretariat. 51 And Congressional pork barrel politics ensure that sparsely populated areas of the country continue to receive far greater per capita spending for homeland security efforts than large urban areas more likely to be the target of future terror attacks.52 Ridge’s public leadership was mixed. In fairness, he found himself in an awkward position. President Bush continually reiterated his belief that the best way to avoid future terror attacks was to take the war on terror abroad to Afghanistan and Iraq. As a loyal Cabinet member, Ridge echoed such sentiments, seemingly placing his task of securing the homeland at odds with his rhetoric on homeland defense and preparedness. In addition, Ridge became the butt of many late-night comedians’ jokes about the confusing colorcoded alert system that he helped create. Still, Ridge may nevertheless be credited for his attempts to educate the public on the necessity of preparedness that were complemented by his calm, reassuring demeanor.53 And he evidenced some ‘‘learning’’ in terms of rendering public announcements on terror threats more ‘‘specific’’ as he moved through his tenure. Critical assessments of Ridge’s leadership as he exited office included deficiencies in bioterrorism and cybersecurity measures, in addition to continued problems in halting illegal immigration at the southern border of the United States.54 But perhaps his greatest failing according to the WICS model was the lack of ‘‘creativity,’’ or rather inattention to the transactional issues within the DHS, which might have otherwise left ongoing reorganization efforts in better stead upon his departure. Critics charge that the reorganization of federal responsibilities did not solve interagency coordination.55 As Ridge left office, subagency cooperation remained fragmented and the DHS had still not become the ‘‘clearinghouse’’ for intelligence analysis that its proponents had hoped. 56 Ridge’s reticence to involve himself more directly in


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jurisdictional and budget battles within the agency threatened the very vision for the agency he was trying to create. Just prior to Ridge’s departure, the DHS’s inspector general pessimistically warned that the department ‘‘still has much to do to establish a cohesive, efficient and effective organization.’’57 A report by the Heritage Foundation placed the daunting task in stark perspective: the department faces serious long-range challenges, including the development of a common vision, culture, and management philosophy that are necessary to align and integrate all the discrete parts of the organization. This means not only meshing the diverse operations and functions of those component parts, but also developing a new and fundamentally different leadership culture within the department: a challenge equal in magnitude—and importance—to all the immediate priorities facing DHS. Such an integration of vision and purpose is imperative if DHS is to realize its massive agenda.58

This is not to suggest that Ridge’s leadership was a failure. Many scholars find fault with the institutional structure of the DHS created by Congress, contending that upon its very conception reorganization did not include critical intelligence agencies. Moreover, the vague mission of protecting the nation from further attacks has not enabled bureaus within the department to sort out their ‘‘critical tasks.’’ 59 The lack of funding—for which both the Bush White House and Congress may be blamed—caused serious staffing problems across the organization, which impeded Ridge’s ability to successfully craft an overarching vision or impose tighter controls on the bureaucracy. By most accounts, Ridge was in a ‘‘no win’’ situation. The nation did not experience another catastrophic terror attack on U.S. soil. Whether that fact was because of or in spite of Ridge’s leadership remains a matter of speculation. What is more certain is that Ridge had to start from an entirely blank sheet. Whatever his failings, he arguably left a significant blueprint for his successor, Michael Chertoff, to improve upon and chart the department’s future into uncertain territory. Chertoff’s leadership score on this account is the subject of the next section.

MICHAEL CHERTOFF’S LEADERSHIP AND THE CONTINUING EFFORTS TO TRANSFORM THE DHS Michael Chertoff took up the position as Secretary of the DHS upon his unanimous confirmation by the Senate, 98–0, on February 15, 2005. Thrice before Chertoff had been confirmed by the Senate for positions in the Justice Department and as a federal appellate court judge. President Bush’s pick for the top spot at Homeland Security was lauded by many observers, including

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outgoing Secretary of DHS Tom Ridge, who described Chertoff as a leader with ‘‘great intellect, great energy . . . He comes well-equipped by experience and temperament and background to be a very effective and capable secretary.’’ 60 At Chertoff’s swearing-in ceremony President Bush called him ‘‘a talented public servant, with an outstanding record of achievement and a deep commitment to the cause of justice.’’ The President added: I have given Mike an ambitious agenda to carry out. We will continue to work to fully integrate the agencies within the Homeland Security Department. We will build on the progress that has been made. We will continue working to reduce our nation’s vulnerabilities and prepare effective responses for any future attack. We will speed the development of new 21st century vaccines and treatments to protect Americans against biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological attacks. We will continue our historic investments in homeland security to match the threats facing our country. We will protect the American people from new dangers while protecting their civil liberties.61

It was clear, in reference to the WICS model that Chertoff would bring to the struggling DHS a different type of ‘‘wisdom,’’ ‘‘intelligence,’’ and ‘‘creativity’’ compared to his predecessor. Whether he could be successful in ‘‘synthesizing’’ these attributes remained an open question. Ridge, a politician, was rather more comfortable in the public eye as he had spent a large share of his career running for office or helping others to do so. Chertoff, a graduate of Harvard Law School and a career federal prosecutor and judge, was known for his tough, no-nonsense approach to battling crime and the war on terrorism through law enforcement mechanisms, generally behind the scenes. As a federal prosecutor he successfully brought down five notorious Mafia bosses in New York.62 He had also played an instrumental role in drafting the Bush White House’s homeland security strategy following the 9/11 terror attacks. Chertoff was the principal architect of the Bush administration’s policy of detaining terror suspects as ‘‘material witnesses’’—binding them over for grand jury testimony without charging them with a crime—in an effort to root out potential co-conspirators. This was precisely the tack he had successfully taken against the New York Mafia.63 His belief that intelligence was key in the war on terror made him the administration’s ‘‘point man’’ in arguing for expanded domestic wiretapping authority for the federal government that was passed by Congress in the Patriot Act of 2003.64 But Chertoff was scarcely a household name when Bush nominated him following Bernard Kerik’s withdrawal from consideration for Senate confirmation as Secretary of the DHS. Indubitably, Chertoff has brought a highly skilled legal zest to the DHS’s mission. Moreover, he is widely regarded as a reliable, honest, and indefatigable prosecutor known for working at a frenetic pace. Time Magazine entitled a feature story about Chertoff ‘‘The Running Man,’’ noting that ‘‘He can get


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through the day on a couple of pieces of toast for breakfast, a PowerBar for lunch, and yogurt and an apple for dinner. When he was head of the criminal division at the Justice Department, subordinates remember, he would put a quarter down on the office counter for every personal fax he made.’’ 65 His personal work ethic and unquestionable integrity suggested a solid vision of leadership to impart to the DHS’s continuing mission. Still, Chertoff’s nomination was not without criticism. Some questioned whether he had the requisite managerial skills to administer a 180,000 employee behemoth such as the DHS. 66 Others suggested that Chertoff lacked the ability to speak with ‘‘credibility and authority’’ to the American people on terror threats given his prior positions that did not require sustained public communication. 67 Finally, civil libertarians fretted over Chertoff’s support for holding terror suspects as ‘‘material witnesses.’’ The American Civil Liberties Union cited the Justice Department’s Inspector General, who called the detention of noncitizen terror suspects under his watch ‘‘indiscriminate and haphazard.’’ 68 Many of the detainees faced lengthy incarceration and few prosecutions resulted. From the outset Chertoff confronted the same problems that plagued Ridge upon his exit from the department. These included staffing shortages, budgeting and accounting difficulties in various subagencies of DHS, the challenges of public communication of potential terror threats, and a deepening crisis of employee morale. Moreover, Chertoff came under close scrutiny for the lamentable federal response to Hurricane Katrina, which raised considerable questions about disaster planning at DHS and nearly cost him his job. A closer examination of Chertoff’s approach to managing these problems since February 2005 furnishes a substantial basis to evaluate his leadership style. Chertoff’s endeavors to fill staff positions at the top of the DHS have given the department a sharp law enforcement overlay. But he was also careful to balance those choices with individuals who had White House connections and political experience. While many of Ridge’s subordinates were more likely to come from military backgrounds, Chertoff recruited heavily from the ranks of the Justice Department where he had spent a considerable part of his career. Chertoff named John F. Wood, counselor to former Attorney General John Ashcroft and a former deputy counsel in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as his chief of staff. At least five other top ranking officials had legal or law enforcement backgrounds. Several others, like Philip Perry, had worked in the White House. Perry had been general counsel to the OMB. Chertoff also chose individuals with a considerable mix of private and public sector experience. Chertoff tapped Michael P. Jackson, reputed as a highly skilled organizational manager, as deputy homeland security secretary. Jackson had not only worked for an engineering firm

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but also as Secretary Andrew Card’s chief of staff in the Department of Transportation under President George H. W. Bush.69 Chertoff’s early staff picks reflected the concerns echoed by critics of the DHS, who contended the lack of a strong policy staff at the top of the department had hindered Ridge’s efforts to build a strong organization.70 They were clearly aimed at allaying a continued criticism of Ridge’s leadership—namely that he put off making decisions to avoid confrontation with staff because he did not have a strong team at the top of the DHS.71 Neither Chertoff nor his staff choices had much time to meld into their jobs when the DHS was caught unprepared for a major disaster on the home front —not of terrorists’ making, but rather by the fury of Mother Nature. Chertoff had been Secretary of DHS for just six months when he confronted the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a mammoth category 5 storm on the SaffirSimpson scale, which washed ashore in New Orleans August 29, 2005. The storm leveled homes and businesses in the Crescent City and along the Gulf Coast, precipitated horrific flooding, and caused widespread loss of life. The federal government’s slow and inadequate response to the catastrophe was punctuated by the squalid conditions refugees endured at the Superdome in New Orleans, which was transformed into a makeshift shelter, and lawlessness and chaos that reigned in the city for weeks as many citizens remained trapped on rooftops. The dramatic photos of the immeasurable devastation resembled images of a developing country in crisis. Without launching an appeal, the White House nevertheless declared that it would accept aid from other countries in the storm’s aftermath—a fact that, in retrospect, exacerbated views of both President Bush’s and the federal government’s incompetence or inability to handle the disaster.72 During the early days of the crisis, Chertoff remained out of the public spotlight. At issue was the lackluster response of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which was reorganized into the DHS in March 2003. Originally conceived as an agency with the specific mission of reacting to natural disasters, upon FEMA’s folding into the DHS the relatively small organization of just 4,000 employees nationwide was charged with the additional task of planning for and preventing the loss of property and life in the wake of disasters, whether inflicted naturally or by terrorists. The agency’s response to Katrina convinced critics that it could handle neither task competently. FEMA failed both in terms of preparing for the storm or effectively handling its consequences. While there is certainly much blame to be shared among the federal, Louisiana state, and New Orleans local governments,73 Chertoff’s reticence to engage the public realm after Katrina—combined with his early praise for FEMA Administrator Michael Brown—raised serious questions about his leadership. As Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post noted:


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Chertoff now faces complaints that the skills that distinguished him as a judge and a prosecutor—a sharp intellect and a taste for the jugular when fighting the mob, corruption or terrorism—suit him less well in his new executive role . . . The hurricane response forced Chertoff into an unfamiliar role in front of the television cameras, where his command presence was eclipsed by those of governors and generals. It was a politician’s job that Tom Ridge, a former governor and Chertoff’s predecessor, would have been comfortable taking on, people who have worked with both men said. Reviews of the lawyerly and severelooking Chertoff, even from staunch backers, were not glowing.74

To Chertoff’s benefit, more criticism was directed at FEMA Administrator Michael Brown, who had been derided upon his appointment for a lack of experience in disaster management and seemed to meet ‘‘the expectations of those who warned that he would be a terrible director.’’ 75 After President Bush lauded Brown’s ‘‘leadership’’ in the early days following Katrina when he said, ‘‘Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,’’ Chertoff recalled Brown from the Gulf Coast and he resigned on September 12, 2005. That same day, President Bush appointed a former firefighter and then-head of the U.S. Fire Administration within DHS, R. David Paulison, to head FEMA. Former Administrator Brown leveled a considerable and continuous barrage of attacks at Chertoff’s leadership in the media following his resignation. For his part, Chertoff refused to engage in faultfinding and ignored Brown’s diatribes. Instead, he engaged in the dispassionate analysis for which his colleagues know him. He appeared before Congress on multiple occasions, promising to restructure FEMA to ensure that communications, delivery of supplies, and the rescue of individuals in distress would be better coordinated should a future disaster occur. Critical to this effort was coordination with the Department of Defense and drawing up better response plans. Chertoff’s reassurances and straight talk won him at least partial satisfaction from critics, and probably saved his job. As Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) noted, ‘‘There’s a question out there about him. He came in as an A player. He has the intellect, no question. But the leadership is uncertain. It is not at the level it needs to have been.’’ 76 As the storm of criticism over Katrina receded, Chertoff’s leadership did become apparent in the war on terror— even if praise for his efforts were not commensurate with the criticism he endured over the Gulf Coast response. Over the course of his tenure Chertoff has clearly taken a more sanguine approach to terror alerts, preferring to work rather stealthily in crisis situations and not alert (or alarm) the public without authoritative knowledge of an impending terror event. Chertoff’s handling of purported threats to the New York City subway in October 2005 provides a clear example. FBI intelligence from Iraq suggested the possibility of a potentially imminent attack. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a warning to his city’s residents

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based on that intelligence. Bloomberg seemed justified, given attacks on the London, England, subway system three weeks earlier. The Mayor heightened security measures, including searches in the New York subway, citing that ‘‘This is the first time we have had a threat with this level of specificity.’’ 77 However, DHS played down the threat in the absence of substantial credibility in the reports. Chertoff posited that he did not ‘‘want to get up in public and say the sky is falling if it’s not falling. What I want to resist is what I sometimes observed over the years, is a temptation to feed the desire for information by putting something out there we are not in a position to speak about definitively.’’ 78 Chertoff clearly sought to avoid the alarmism for which his predecessor’s color-coded, general alerts were blamed—some evidence of ‘‘organizational learning’’ from which Ridge also benefited across time. Critics nonetheless suggested the interpretative divide between federal and local officials’ assessment of a terror threat caused public confusion.79 On Capitol Hill, however, Chertoff’s management of the matter won bipartisan support. As Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) put it, ‘‘This is a situation where different people in positions of leadership will reach difference conclusions about how to respond to threat information. To me it is not a question of right or wrong. They both look [sic] at the same information and acted differently.’’ 80 Scholarly assessments of the DHS’s ability to thwart terror attacks, and Chertoff’s role in that mission, are naturally hampered by limited information, much of which is classified or has never been released. Still, there is at least one highly notable case so far in Chertoff’s tenure that provides considerable aperçus into his restrained public approach to terror alerts, the contingent operational plans he has put into place, and his leadership style that spanned international relations. The plot by Al-Qaeda operatives to blow up airliners en route from Europe to the United States in August 2006, foiled by British authorities, stands as one of Chertoff’s greatest verifiable successes in terms of preparation, planning, and execution. An ongoing British investigation revealed the threat of a significant attack on American commercial aircraft in July 2006. The London-based plot appeared to have all the signatures of Al-Qaeda insofar as the plan was to ‘‘carry out coordinated, simultaneous attacks’’ on civil aviation. Security experts worldwide acknowledged that the scheme quite probably amounted to the catastrophic ‘‘Big One’’ since 9/11 that American and international authorities feared.81 Chertoff worked stealthily, holding briefings and quizzing staff on contingency plans for aviation security as British intelligence about the plot emerged. No advance notice was given to the TSA, and few in either the DHS or FBI knew of the possibility of an impending attack. As British authorities prepared to arrest some 23 terror suspects in London, Chertoff ordered


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new security measures be placed into effect. As TSA assistant secretary Kip Hawley noted, the result for U.S. airport and aviation security was that ‘‘changes that would usually take four weeks to execute occurred in four hours in the middle of the night.’’ 82 The British discovered that the terror suspects planned to blow up as many as 10 passenger jets with liquid explosives. 83 The DHS moved quickly to prohibit passengers from carrying liquids and other materials on aircraft while intensifying security screenings. As British authorities linked the 23 arrested terror suspects to alleged coconspirators in Pakistan,84 where further arrests were imminent, Chertoff became convinced that the time was nigh for greater international passenger data and information sharing with the U.S.’s European allies. Following 9/11 the United States and European Union (EU) struck a deal to share such data, but the accord was struck down by the European Court of Justice for technical reasons.85 Although EU leaders remained uneasy about sharing passenger data out of concerns for privacy, the London airline terror plot provided the necessary impetus for Chertoff to make his case. Chertoff’s push to reach an accord with the EU is a prime example of the ‘‘wisdom’’ advocated by Sternberg’s WICS model. He saw a narrow window of opportunity and seized it. An agreement was reached in early October 2006 to enable the DHS to access European airlines’ records on passengers’ personal and payment information three days before travel takes place.86 Seven months later Chertoff addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, and reinforced his support for data sharing between the United States and EU, citing several incidences where the domestic screening of passenger information on airlines led to the detention of suspected terrorists. He further noted that fighting terrorism requires ‘‘all of the elements of national, and dare I say international power including law enforcement, diplomacy, the use of intelligence, and soft power, the battle for ideas.’’ 87 Chertoff can clearly point to a number of other successes during his secretariat, many of which have strengthened the transactional capabilities of the DHS. In May 2007 he announced the completion of an extensive infrastructure protection plan that was long overdue. The goal was to bolster efforts to protect nuclear and chemical plants around the nation, and the DHS doled out some $2 billion in risk-based grants.88 Under the same scrutiny as his predecessor, Tom Ridge, had been for illegal immigration and security breaches at the southern border of the United States, Chertoff accentuated how the DHS had made progress in halting the flow of illegals by adding surveillance technology and additional border security guards. Critics disputed interpretation of the data, but Chertoff contended that fewer arrests were indicative of a net decrease in illegal immigration. 89 Finally, Chertoff underscored progress on many other fronts, including changes in the Urban Areas Security Initiative to enhance counterterrorism measures in America’s largest cities,

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communications interoperability by local, state, and federal agencies, a new emergency communications center in Washington, D.C., ‘‘100 percent’’ screening of passengers and baggage on airlines by the TSA, and plans to increase cargo container screening at ports to 100 percent by fall 2007.90 Paradoxically, Chertoff’s swift operational planning at the top of the DHS in the London bomb plots, his success in brokering accords with the EU, and his efforts to improve infrastructure and transportation security have largely been overshadowed by continuing personnel, management, and budget problems across levels of the Department. In fact, critics charge that the difficulties have become exacerbated under his watch. Just months into his secretariat, Chertoff lost top-ranking officials in the TSA who took positions in the private sector, reviving questions about airport security and the negative consequences of constant changes in the agency.91 In July 2007 the DHS reported that since the same time in 2005, the department itself had lost 23 of 26 top officials who report to the Secretary—a loss twice as elevated compared to other federal agencies. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the House Homeland Security Committee Chair, expressed his frustration this way: ‘‘It is no wonder that this department is struggling with its integration when its own headquarters has lost half of its senior staff to turnover. When senior leadership doesn’t stick around long enough for their coffee to get cold, the nation’s security suffers.’’ 92 The bad news did not stop there. DHS Inspector Richard Skinner issued a report in August 2007 that derided the Department’s efforts at biological surveillance, citing an inadequate system because DHS has ‘‘struggled since its inception’’ to hire sufficient staff for the program.93 The exit of Michael P. Jackson, Chertoff’s right-hand man at DHS in September 2007, aggravated perceptions of the department’s inability to retain essential personnel. Jackson cited personal and financial concerns for his departure. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) once again expressed grave concerns, suggesting that Jackson’s decision underscored that ‘‘The department’s leadership has more holes than Swiss cheese.’’ 94 The staffing shortage seemingly has continued unabated, despite the appointment of Paul A. Schneider to head business and personnel policies at DHS in December 2006. Schneider, a career Naval engineer and procurement specialist, promised to aggressively revamp and build confidence in the department’s financial and personnel policies.95 Schneider faced a daunting task. Just a month earlier, an internal review of the DHS’s Office of Procurement Operations, which is responsible for pricing and managing homeland security contract grants to the private sector, reported that the agency had inadequately overseen nearly $17.5 billion in contracts. According to the investigative reporters Robert O’Harrow and Scott Higham of the


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Washington Post, poor contract management led to ‘‘the inability to obtain quality goods and services at a fair price.’’ 96 Continuing turnover and media reports of the DHS’s various failings have cast continuing doubt on Chertoff’s leadership and resulted in a crisis of morale in the department. As one pivotal example, in summer 2007, an Atlanta resident, Andrew Speaker, who was known to carry tuberculosis and had been placed on the security ‘‘watch’’ list, slipped by a border security agent at a Canadian crossing and boarded aircraft on transatlantic flights. He was later placed under quarantine by the Centers of Disease Control. Critics charged that the incident confirmed that ‘‘Chertoff has zero administrative or leadership skills . . . His one talent seems to be as a Washington operator, keeping the lid on embarrassing inspector general reports.’’ 97 Although Chertoff was not directly responsible for the breach, the ‘‘buck’’ nevertheless stops at his desk in the view of many observers. Such dramatic incidences of major failures at DHS have had a palpable effect on employee morale and public confidence in the new agency. The 2006 Federal Human Capital Survey, administered by the Office of Personnel Management, found that the 10,400 DHS employees gave the department ‘‘rock-bottom scores in key job satisfaction, leadership and management areas’’ compared to 35 other federal agencies.98 And a year after Hurricane Katrina, Chertoff was still suffering a lack of confidence by the general public. Only 38 percent of those surveyed in September 2006 expressed confidence in his ability to ‘‘lead or organize the response to a major disaster.’’ Two years before, 65 percent of those surveyed expressed confidence in Tom Ridge.99 As Michael Chertoff enters his third year of public service as Secretary of Homeland Security, how does his leadership thus far compare to the ideal of the WICS model? His restrained approach to the public has won him acclamation and brought derisive critiques. On the one hand, his refusal to engage in alarmism and work steadfastly behind the scenes to expeditiously put into place well-conceived operational plans, as the London bomb plot showed, suggests a high level of ‘‘wisdom’’ and ‘‘intelligence.’’ Chertoff shaped a critical, ‘‘real-world’’ response based on available knowledge. The covertness of his leadership in that incident, and in the New York subway bomb scare, suggests as well a fair amount of learning in the bid to escape the criticism of his predecessor for alarming the public. On the other hand, Chertoff’s lack of comfort in the public eye in the wake of Hurricane Katrina may be regarded as one of his major failings. His early handling of the Gulf Coast response was neither creative nor positive. Whereas Tom Ridge had a reassuring demeanor and authoritative stature in the public eye, Chertoff appeared disengaged and uncomfortable. There is evidence that transactional issues have been improved on some fronts during Chertoff’s secretariat. As Chertoff has readily pointed out, he

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has continued to refine frontline agencies’ ability to prevent terror attacks through better transportation screening, border security measures, and infrastructure protection. The federal response to Hurricane Katrina also forced him to give greater attention to the requirements of disaster response and planning. The plans that Chertoff and the DHS have drawn up, however, remain an open question pending another major national crisis, which no one hopes will happen. Arguably the biggest challenge that Chertoff has failed to surmount is that of high turnover at DHS and plunging employee morale. Paradoxically, Chertoff’s renewed attempts to ‘‘reorganize’’ components of the DHS—from FEMA to border control and financial accounting—have intersected serious staff shortages and continuing gaps in top management. Representative Hal Rogers (R-KY), the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee contended that ‘‘Managing a department, especially one with such a critical mission, is difficult enough without the constant change.’’ 100 It is little wonder, in light of staff shortages and the third major reorganization of the DHS in only four years, that a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report in September 2007 concluded that the Department ‘‘still has difficulty carrying out policy decisions and setting priorities.’’ 101 Thus, Chertoff, like Ridge, has encountered considerable difficulties integrating the various elements of DHS into a cohesive whole—or synthesizing the ideals of the WICS model into a workable, managerial framework. Congress and the Bush administration, who jointly set budget priorities, bear some of the responsibility for the dilemma. Bush has devoted most of his attention to the continuing war in Iraq, and the many supplemental appropriations necessary to the mission in that country. Congress has been reticent to expend the necessary funds on DHS in light of the agency’s oft-recounted failings to meet its goals. The situation places Chertoff, and his successor, in a ‘‘catch-22’’: Without the requisite funds and staff, DHS is set up for failure. But Congress is unlikely to dole out the funds until DHS shows greater administrative, financial, and planning competence, which seem, at present, impossible in light of human resources constraints. For his part, Chertoff has blamed internal congressional dynamics for inexorable delays in confirming staff to top posts at DHS.102 Obviously, the Secretary has little control over the congressional confirmation process. Not surprisingly, the sum total of these dynamics has precluded Chertoff, like his predecessor, from overlaying a lasting ‘‘vision’’ of how to transform the DHS to meet its mission goals. The result is that neither Ridge nor Chertoff have been able to escape considerably the ‘‘tyranny of the in-box’’ as they selectively chose issues in which to become intimately involved.


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CONCLUSIONS Such is the nature of the top position in Homeland Security. Absent the individual human capacity to intervene substantively in the labyrinth of sublevels, subagencies, and directorates at DHS, the daily work of the Secretary naturally focuses on the ‘‘threat du jour.’’ While scholarly and media attention naturally focuses on the top organizational layers of the department, it is clear that improving interagency cooperation at lower levels deserves greater attention.103 Nonetheless, without adequate staff to engage in the requisite policy and operational planning, aggravated by high employee turnover, notably because of the flourishing career possibilities in homeland security in the private sector where salaries are much higher, and frustrated by negative media reports that have contributed to low employee morale, Ridge and Chertoff have been hard pressed to overlay a lasting ‘‘vision’’ of how to transform the DHS. And transactional issues remain paramount in the future of the department’s mission success. The glass may not be half empty, however. Ridge brought a calm, reassuring comportment at key junctures in his tenure. He strengthened the basic frontline agencies battling would-be terrorists on American soil. Chertoff has overlaid those efforts with a crisper focus on law enforcement, and his gravitas in this domain nearly won a bipartisan compromise on immigration policy in Congress, which fell apart despite his best efforts.104 In sum, each Secretary has contributed significantly to efforts to find the uneasy balance in responsibilities the DHS has assumed, which straddle security countermeasures, preparation, and response to potential terrorist threats. In this way, each has provided a basis for organizational learning—from the unacceptable federal response to Hurricane Katrina to the thwarting of airline bomb plots by working closely with our allies. The potential for organizational chaos in DHS, however, remains a significant concern. As George W. Bush enters his eighth and final year in the White House, one can reasonably anticipate a mass exodus of political appointees. The phenomenon is innately connected to the ‘‘aging’’ of presidential administrations.105 Given the critical mission of DHS, the president Americans will elect in November 2008 must give ample weight to the department’s needs during the transition. This necessarily includes vetting qualified candidates, and working with Congress to ensure adequate funding for the DHS. The next president’s ability to achieve these goals may hinge on the partisan configuration of national institutions and party control of Capitol Hill. Congress has taken important steps to streamline oversight of the DHS, but bipartisan consensus on how to render the department efficient has been mired in conflicts over labor regulations and protections and continuing executivelegislative discord. Yet the pivotal factor remains the war in Iraq, which will

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inexorably draw the president-elect’s attention to his commander-in-chief role and risks making homeland security a second-tier concern in the longer term. The lessons of 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq suggest that foreign policy and domestic security go hand-in-hand. It is up to voters to elect the candidate with the qualities and commitment to balance the two successfully.

NOTES 1. James MacGregor Burns, ‘‘Wellsprings of Political Leadership,’’ American Political Science Review 71 (1977): 266. 2. See, for example, Louis W. Koenig, The Chief Executive (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt, Brace, 1996). 3. Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents (New York: Free Press, 1990); Robert Y. Shapiro, Martha Joynt Kumar, and Lawrence R. Jacobs, Presidential Power: Forging the Presidency for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000). 4. Hugh Heclo, A Government of Strangers: Executive Politics in Washington (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1977). 5. Bernard M. Bass and Bruce J. Avolio, ‘‘Transformational Leadership and Organizational Culture,’’ Public Administration Quarterly 17 (Spring 1993): 116. 6. Noel M. Tichy and David O. Ulrich, ‘‘SMR: The Leadership Challenge—The Call for the Transformational Leader,’’ Sloan Management Review (Fall 1984): 59. 7. Jean-Louis Denis, Ann Langley, and Marc Pineault, ‘‘Becoming a Leader in a Complex Organization,’’ Journal of Management Studies 37 (December 2000): 1064. 8. See John March, ‘‘Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning,’’ Organization Science 2 (1991): 71–87. 9. Dusya Vera and Mary Crosson, ‘‘Strategic Leadership and Organizational Learning,’’ Academy of Management Review 29 (2004): 224. 10. Abraham Zaleznik, ‘‘Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?’’ Harvard Business Review 55 (1977): 67–78. 11. Robert J. Sternberg, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Creativity, Synthesized (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 12. Robert J. Sternberg, ‘‘WICS—A Model of Leadership in Organizations,’’ Academy of Management Learning and Education 2 (2003): 386–401. 13. Warren Boeker, ‘‘Strategic Change: The Effects of Founding and History,’’ Academy of Management Journal 32 (1989): 492. 14. Robert Hooiberg and Jaelil Choi, ‘‘The Impact of Organizational Characteristics on Leadership Effectiveness Models,’’ Administration and Society 33 (September 2001): 403–431. 15. For a detailed history and analysis, see Richard S. Conley, ‘‘Presidential and Congressional Struggles over the Formation of the Department of Homeland Security,’’ in Transforming the American Polity: George W. Bush and the War on Terrorism, ed. Richard S. Conley, ‘‘Real Politics in America’’ Series (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, October 2004), 135–148.


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16. Office of the White House Press Secretary, ‘‘Remarks by the President at Swearing-In of Tom Ridge, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security,’’ January 24, 2003. 17. Eric Lichtblau and Christopher Drew, ‘‘Under Ridge, Color Alerts and Mixed Security Reviews,’’ New York Times, December 1, 2004, 26. 18. Laura Lakes Jordan, ‘‘Two Tough Years on the Job for Homeland Security Chief,’’ Associated Press, October 11, 2003; see also David Chen and Christopher Drew, ‘‘Mailing Lethal Substances Is a Rare Crime, Tough to Solve When Not a Hoax,’’ New York Times, October 17, 2001, B4. 19. United Press International, ‘‘Ridge Launches ‘Ready Campaign,’ ’’ February 19, 2003. 20. Hans Nichols, ‘‘ ‘Duct Tape’ a Sticky Subject On and Off Capitol Hill,’’ The Hill, February 19, 2003, 4. 21. Thomas L. Friedman, ‘‘My Survival Kit,’’ New York Times, February 23, 2003, 11. 22. Marc Helm, ‘‘Ridge Urges ‘Rational’ Security Steps; Recommendations Not to Be Taken Too Far, He Says,’’ Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, February 15, 2003, 9A. 23. Shaun Waterman, ‘‘Lawmakers Lambast Color-Coded Alert System,’’ United Press International, February 5, 2004. 24. Walter Shapiro, ‘‘Swinging Moods Color Us Anxious,’’ USA Today, March 5, 2003, 8A. 25. Sara B. Miller, ‘‘Terror-Alert System: How It’s Working,’’ Christian Science Monitor, August 4, 2004, 1. 26. Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, ‘‘Ridge Pledges Stronger Public-Private Effort to Curb Terrorism; Homeland Security Nominee Testifies at Confirmation Hearing,’’ January 17, 2003. 27. United States Department of State, ‘‘U.S., U.K. to Strengthen Anti-Terror Partnership; Ridge, British Home Secretary David Blunkett’s Statements,’’ April 1, 2003. 28. Tom Ridge, ‘‘Remarks at the National Press Club Luncheon,’’ FDCH Political Transcripts, April 29, 2003. 29. Chuck McCutcheon, ‘‘Department of Homeland Security: The Task of Reorganizing While Maintaining Security,’’ San Diego Union-Tribune, January 19, 2003, G6. 30. Shaun Waterman, ‘‘Sloppy Hiring Let Screener Felons Through,’’ United Press International, May 20, 2003. 31. Christopher Mihm, ‘‘Selected Agency Actions to Integrate Human Capital Approaches to Attain Mission Results,’’ Government Accounting Office Report, April 11. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2003). 32. Martin Kady II and Jeremy Torobin, ‘‘Hiring Freeze Comes After Homeland Agency Was Warned About Finances,’’ Congressional Quarterly Today (online), March 26, 2004. 33. John Mintz, ‘‘Cutbacks Threaten Work of Homeland Security Unit,’’ Washington Post, October 31, 2004, A6. 34. David Ovalle, ‘‘Funds, Red Tape Dog Homeland Security,’’ Charleston Gazette (West Virginia), March 1, 2004, 5D. 35. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, ‘‘The Worst Defense,’’ New York Times, February 20, 2003, A31.

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36. Ovalle, ‘‘Funds, Red Tape Dog Homeland Security,’’ 5D. 37. Leslie Miller, ‘‘Federal Government to Cut 6,000 Airport Screening Jobs by Sept. 30,’’ Associated Press State and Local Wire, April 30, 2003. 38. Associated Press State and Local Wire, ‘‘Sky Harbor, Other Airports Short on Screeners,’’ November 2, 2003; Ron Marisco, ‘‘Turnover Rate 17% for Airport Screeners,’’ The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), October 23, 2003, 1. 39. John Mintz, ‘‘At Homeland Security, Doubts Arise Over Intelligence; Unit Is Underpowered, Outmatched in Bureaucratic Struggles with Other Agencies, Critics Say,’’ Washington Post, July 21, 2003, A12. 40. Chris Strohm, ‘‘Homeland Security Agency Grapples with Staffing Shortage,’’ Government Executive, April 1, 2004. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0404/ 040104c1.htm (accessed October 16, 2007). 41. Shannon McCaffrey, ‘‘Homeland Security a Bumpy Road,’’ St. Paul Pioneer Press, October 24, 2004, A1. 42. Stephen E. Flynn, ‘‘The Department of Homeland Security: The Way Ahead After a Rocky Start,’’ Written Testimony before a hearing of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, Council on Foreign Relations, January 26, 2005. http://www.cfr.org/publication/7643/department_of_homeland _security.html (accessed October 16, 2007). 43. John Mintz, ‘‘Infighting Cited at Homeland Security; Squabbles Blamed for Reducing Effectiveness,’’ Washington Post, February 5, 2005, A1. 44. Ibid. 45. John Mintz, ‘‘Governments Hobbled Giant,’’ Washington Post, September 7, 2003, A1. 46. Julia Malone, ‘‘Homeland Security Sees Exodus of Top and Middle Managers,’’ Cox News Service, January 25, 2005. 47. Michael Hedges, ‘‘Homeland Security Resigns; Ridge Played Key Role in Huge Government Reorganization,’’ Houston Chronicle, December 1, 2004, A1. 48. Editorial, Denver Post, ‘‘Ridge: Homeland Security Pioneer,’’ December 1, 2004, B6. 49. Jane Eisner, ‘‘Uneasy Balance; Ridge Exits amid Insecurity,’’ Philadelphia Enquirer, December 3, 2004, A31. 50. Dan Morgan, ‘‘Overhaul of Congressional Panels Urged; Report Finds Responsibility, Accountability Lacking,’’ Washington Post, July 23, 2004, A21. 51. See Figure 3, Richard S. Conley, ‘‘Reform, Reorganization, and the Renaissance of the Managerial Presidency: The Impact of 9/11 on the Executive Establishment,’’ in America’s ‘‘War’’ on Terrorism and Contemporary US Foreign Policy, ed. John Owens and John Dumbrell (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007). 52. Sacramento Bee, ‘‘Tom Ridge’s Legacy Securing America Still a Work in Progress,’’ December 3, 2004, B6. 53. Charles Savage, ‘‘Ridge to Leave Post as First Director of Homeland Security,’’ Boston Globe, December 1, 2004, A2. 54. Noelle Straub, ‘‘Homeland Security Czar Out; Ridge Resigns after Forging Department,’’ Boston Herald, December 1, 2004, 8. 55. Lara Lakes Jordan, ‘‘Two Rough Years on the Job.’’


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56. Eric Lichtblau and Christopher Drew, ‘‘Under Ridge, Color Alerts and Mixed Security Reviews,’’ New York Times, December 1, 2004, A26. 57. Julia Malone, ‘‘Internal Strife, Politics Could Make Agency’s Goals Harder to Meet,’’ Austin-American Statesman, December 25, 2004, A1. 58. James Jay Carafano and David Heyman, ‘‘Rethinking the Department of Homeland Security,’’ Heritage Special Report SR-02, December 13, 2004 (Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation). 59. See Eli Lehrer, ‘‘The Homeland Security Bureaucracy,’’ The Public Interest 156 (Summer 2004): 83–85. 60. Ken Herman, ‘‘Bush Picks Judge for Homeland Security,’’ Atlanta JournalConstitution, January 12, 2005, 1A. 61. PR Newswire, ‘‘Remarks by President Bush at the Swearing-In Ceremony of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff,’’ March 3, 2005. 62. Editorial, Christian Science Monitor, ‘‘Chertoff’s Challenges,’’ January 13, 2005, 8. 63. Eric Lichtblau, ‘‘Hard Charger on Terror War’s Legal Front—Michael Chertoff,’’ New York Times, January 12, 2005, A14. 64. Julia Malone, ‘‘New Homeland Security Choice Drew Up Legal Strategy in War Against Terrorists,’’ Cox News Service, January 11, 2005. 65. Brian Bennett, ‘‘The Running Man,’’ Time, July 2, 2007, 34. 66. Editorial, The Denver Post, ‘‘Not Quite a Management Guru,’’ January 15, 2005, C15. 67. USA Today, ‘‘New Homeland Pick, New Set of Questions,’’ January 12, 2005, 10A. 68. American Civil Liberties Union, ‘‘Coalition Letter Urging the Senate to Closely Examine Nominee Michael Chertoff ’s Record,’’ February 1, 2005. http://www .aclu.org/safefree/general/18844leg20050201.html (accessed October 23, 2007). 69. John Mintz, ‘‘Chertoff’s DHS Has a Justice Dept. Feel,’’ Washington Post, May 25, 2005, A25. 70. Seth M. Stodder, ‘‘Fixing Homeland Security,’’ Washington Times, February 28, 2005, A21. 71. Mintz, ‘‘Chertoff’s DHS Has a Justice Dept. Feel,’’ A25. 72. Sylvie Lanteaume, ‘‘Washington accepte l’aide internationale, d’ou` qu’elle vient,’’ Agence France Press, September 1, 2005. 73. Eric Lipton, ‘‘Republicans’ Report on Katrina Assails Administration Response,’’ New York Times, February 13, 2006, A1. 74. Spencer S. Hsu, ‘‘After the Storm, Chertoff Vows to Reshape DHS; Secretary Pledges to Learn from Mistakes of Katrina,’’ Washington Post, November 14, 2005, A11. 75. Editorial, New York Times, ‘‘It’s Not a ‘Blame Game,’ ’’ September 7, 2005, A1. 76. Eric Lipton, ‘‘With an Ambitious Agenda, Homeland Security Chief Steers Clear of Fault-Finding,’’ New York Times, March 9, 2006, A20. 77. Tom Hays, ‘‘New York Steps Up Subway Security After Bomb Threat,’’ Chicago Sun-Times, October 7, 2005, 3. 78. Douglas Jehl and Eric Lipton, ‘‘New York and Washington Try to Explain Two Views of Threat,’’ New York Times, October 8, 2005, B4. 79. Mark Sherman, ‘‘Subway Threat Puzzle; When Local Officials, Feds Disagree,’’ Associated Press State and Local Wire, October 7, 2005.

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80. Douglas Jehl and Eric Lipton, ‘‘New York and Washington Try to Explain Two Views of Threat,’’ October 8, 2005. 81. Paul Haven, ‘‘Thwarted London Plot May Have Been the ‘Big One’ Feared since September 11,’’ Associated Press State and Local Wire, August 10, 2006. 82. Dan Eggen and Spencer S. Hsu, ‘‘U.S. Responded to Plot with Speed, Secrecy,’’ Washington Post, August 13, 2006, A1. 83. Alan Cowell, ‘‘British Official Calls Terror Threat Very Substantial,’’ New York Times, August 13, 2006. Foreign Desk, New York Times on the Web, http:// www.nytimes.com. 84. Brownen Maddox, ‘‘How the Road to Terror Leads Back to Pakistan,’’ The Times (London), August 11, 2006, 15. 85. Los Angeles Times, U.S., European Union Agree on Passenger Data,’’ October 7, 2006, C2. 86. Audrey Hudson, ‘‘U.S., EU Strike Deal on Air-Traveler Data; Records Available 72 Hours Ahead,’’ Washington Times, October 7, 2006, A1. 87. States News Service, ‘‘Secretary Chertoff’s Remarks to European Parliament,’’ May 15, 2007. 88. Tom Ridge, ‘‘Remarks By Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce Event on the Completion of the 17 Sector Specific Plans, as Part of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (As Released by the Department of Homeland Security), May 21, 2007, Federal News Service. 89. Jerry Seper, ‘‘Drop in Border Arrests Tied to Enhanced Security,’’ Washington Times, October 31, 2006, A3. 90. Mort Kondracke, ‘‘Roll Call Q&A: Mission Impossible? Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff Doesn’t Think So,’’ Roll Call, Homeland Security Briefing, September 25, 2006; Mary Beth Sheridan, ‘‘State-of-the-Art D.C. Communications Center Is Lauded,’’ Washington Post, October 8, 2006, T11. 91. Sara Kehaulani Goo, ‘‘High Turnover at Agency Raises Concern for Air Safety,’’ Washington Post, April 9, 2005, A9. 92. Spencer S. Hsu, ‘‘DHS Plagued by Turnover in Top Positions,’’ Washington Post, July 16, 2007, A8. 93. Rebecca Carr and Alison Young, ‘‘Biological Surveillance Falls Short, Report Says; Lack of Staff Cited as Deficiency in Program to Protect Nation; Critics Say Homeland Security Has No Strategy,’’ Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 10, 2007, 5A. 94. Shaun Waterman, ‘‘Analysis: Chertoff Deputy Quits DHS,’’ United Press International, September 25, 2007. 95. Stephen Barr, ‘‘Personnel Policy Challenges Await the New DHS Management Chief,’’ Washington Post, December 14, 2006, D4. 96. Editorial, Washington Post, ‘‘Careless Contracting; The Homeland Security Bureaucracy Fails at Basic Bookkeeping,’’ November 26, 2006, B6. 97. James P. Pinkerton, ‘‘Homeland Security? It’s As Lame As Its Leader,’’ Newsday, June 5, 2007, A41. 98. Stephen Barr, ‘‘Federal Diary,’’ Washington Post, January 31, 2007, D4. 99. Anthony Ramirez, ‘‘Polls Show Drop in Assurance Since the Attacks of Sept. 11,’’ New York Times, September 8, 2006, B6.


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100. Beverly Lumpkin, ‘‘Congress Gives Chertoff a Polite Pounding, and Warnings of the Future,’’ Associated Press, February 9, 2007. 101. Spencer S. Hsu, ‘‘GAO Criticizes Homeland Security’s Efforts to Fulfill Its Mission,’’ Washington Post, September 6, 2007, A10. 102. Spencer S. Hsu, ‘‘After the Storm, Chertoff Vows to Reshape DHS,’’ Washington Post, November 14, 2005, A11. 103. Ufot B. Inamete, ‘‘The Academic Discipline of Management and Homeland Security,’’ Review of Policy Research 23 (2006): 212–213. 104. Spencer S. Hsu, ‘‘Chertoff Emerges as Linchpin in Immigration Debate,’’ Washington Post, May 24, 2007, 16. 105. Michael Grossman et al., ‘‘Second Term Administrations: The Aging of Administrations,’’ in The Presidency and the Political System, edited by Michael Nelson, 5th ed. (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1997).

8 American Leadership in the International Community: The Role of the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations MEENA BOSE

This chapter examines leadership in the international community through the prism of the United States at the United Nations. The United Nations comprises 192 members in the twenty-first century, making it a natural place for states to exercise leadership and build multilateral coalitions. Given the superpower status of the United States and the fact that it contributes the largest share of annual UN dues ($362.7 million, or 22 percent of the agency’s budget in 2005), the U.S. role at the United Nations permits a significant case study in international leadership.1 The particular focus in this chapter is on the individual who represents the interests of the United States at the United Nations, namely, the U.S. Permanent Representative, popularly known as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. The role of this adviser in shaping American foreign policy merits scholarly attention but has had little sustained analysis. Scholars and policy makers typically consider key presidential foreign policy advisers to be the secretary of state, secretary of defense, and special assistant for national security affairs, or national security adviser. Indeed, the perennial debate in American foreign policy making focuses on whether the secretary of state or the national security adviser serves as the president’s primary spokesperson in international affairs.2

American Leadership in the International Community

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To exercise leadership in the international community, the United States also relies upon presidential advisers who traditionally have not been part of this inner circle. The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, for example, serves as the conduit between the president’s foreign policy team and the United Nations in mediating conflicts and implementing the president’s agenda. U.S. policy making at the United Nations merits attention because the United States works at least partly through the organization to address international threats, as the historical cases of the Korean War and the first Gulf War illustrate. To understand the importance of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in policy making, this study asks the following: How does the president convey policy priorities to the U.S. ambassador, and how closely does the ambassador follow that agenda? How does the United States, through the U.S. ambassador, exercise leadership in international security at the United Nations? The role of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in the president’s foreign policy advisory system is a topic surprisingly neglected in the scholarly literature on presidential decision making as well as on the United Nations. Studies of the former typically focus on the role of more highprofile presidential advisers in foreign policy. And studies of the United Nations tend to concentrate on the strengths and weaknesses of the organization as a whole, rather than evaluate systematically how the United States has functioned within the organization.3 UN efforts to achieve international security merit attention because they address the underlying goal of the organization, namely, to preserve the international system of states by promoting their cooperation. While the United Nations has conducted much significant work in such other areas as economic development and social welfare, it has faced perhaps the greatest challenges in collective security. U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations typically have focused foremost on exercising leadership toward this end. An examination of the 29 people who have served over the years as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations reveals some common features. Early ambassadors typically had limited foreign-policy experience and infrequent access to the president, thus becoming independent spokespersons whose views did not always reflect administration policy and who were not leaders at the United Nations. Some Cold War presidents selected ambassadors who were close personal or political associates, thus granting them at least high visibility, if not influence, at the United Nations, regardless of their foreignpolicy background. (See Table 8-1.) In more recent cases, presidents have selected career Foreign Service officers who lack Cabinet rank and report to the president through the secretary of state. When U.S. goals are communicated clearly in that chain of command,

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Table 8-1 U.S. Permanent Representatives to the United Nations, 1945–2007

Name

Subsequent Position

Dates of Service

Previous Position

Edward R. Stettinius Jr.

12/45–6/46

Secretary of State

Retirement; d. 1949

Herschel V. Johnson (Charge)

6/46–1/47

Foreign Service

D. 1966

Warren R. Austin

1/47–1/53

Senator (R-VT)

Retirement; d. 1962

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.

1/53–9/60

Senator (R-MA)

Ambassador to South Vietnam

James J. Wadsworth

12/60–1/61

Deputy Representative to United Nations

Retirement

Adlai E. Stevenson II

1/61–7/65

Democratic presidential candidate, 1952 and 1956

D. 1965

Arthur J. Goldberg

7/65–6/68

Supreme Court justice

Retirement

George W. Ball

7/68–9/68

Undersecretary of State

Private sector

James Russell Wiggins

10/68–1/69

Washington Post reporter

Washington Post reporter

Charles W. Yost

1/69–3/71

Deputy Representative

Retirement

George H. W. Bush

3/71–2/73

U.S. Representative (R-TX)

Republican National Committee Chairman

John Scali

2/73–6/75

ABC News Correspondent

ABC News Correspondent

Daniel P. Moynihan

7/75–2/76

Ambassador to India

Senator (D-NY)

William W. Scranton

3/76–1/77

Governor (R-PA); private sector

Private sector

Andrew Young

1/77–9/79

U.S. Representative (D-GA)

Mayor (D-Atlanta)


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Donald F. McHenry

9/79–1/81


Consultant; Professor

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick

1/81–4/85

Professor

Professor

Vernon A. Walters

5/85–3/89

Roving Ambassador

Ambassador to W. Germany

Thomas R. Pickering

3/89–5/92

Foreign Service

Private sector; Undersecretary of State

Edward J. Perkins

5/92–1/93

Director General, Foreign Service

Ambassador to Australia

Madeleine K. Albright

2/93–1/97

Professor; Democratic adviser

Secretary of State

Bill Richardson

2/97–9/98

U.S. Representative (D-NM)

Secretary of Energy

A. Peter Burleigh (Charge)

9/98–8/99


Retirement

Richard C. Holbrooke

8/99–1/01

Assistant secretary of state

Private sector

John D. Negroponte

9/01–6/04

Private sector (after Foreign Service career)

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq

John C. Danforth

6/04–1/05

Lawyer (also U.S. Senator [R-MO] for 18 years)

Private sector

Anne W. Patterson (Charge)

1/05–8/05


Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs

John R. Bolton

8/05–12/06

Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security

Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

4/07–

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq

Zalmay M. Khalilzad

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the United States has led effectively at the United Nations through these professional diplomats. Since the end of the Cold War, we also have seen a few examples of ambassadors with both foreign policy expertise and direct access to the president, and those advisers have served as true policy makers at the United Nations. This study finds that the influence of a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations on foreign policy making depends primarily on the president’s view of the ambassador’s role in the policy-making process and the ambassador’s own aspirations. Depending on their foreign-policy expertise and access to the president, U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations have served as independent spokespersons, personal advisers, professional diplomats, or policy makers (see Table 8-2). Most U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations can fit into one of these four categories. Some ambassadors served in more than one role, depending on the issue under discussion and their evolving relationship with the president. Some ambassadors served so briefly, for terms of six months or less, that they are not considered in this classification, as they were appointed largely as placeholders to replace a person who left the position prematurely. But for ambassadors who held the position long enough to become engaged in policy making, the classification helps to identify their role and influence. To understand the different ways in which U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations have exercised influence in American foreign policy, this essay examines four case studies, one in each classification category. It begins with a brief history of American goals in supporting the creation of the United Nations. It then looks at early U.S. leadership at the United Nations with the Korean War. Next it turns to American Cold War leadership at the United Nations during the Cuban missile crisis. The study then examines the hallmark of U.S.-led international cooperation at the United Nations in the first Gulf War. The final case study evaluates the U.S.’s mixed record in achieving such cooperation through the United Nations in several cases of intervention in the 1990s. Given the focus on international security, this essay concentrates in each case on how the United States operated through the UN Security Council, the

Table 8-2 Classification of U.S. Permanent Representatives to the United Nations Access to President Foreign-Policy Expertise Low

High

Low

Independent Spokesperson

Personal Adviser

High

Professional Diplomat

Policy Maker


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primary venue for such matters. The analysis concludes by discussing the possibilities for future U.S. leadership in the United Nations.

CREATING THE UNITED NATIONS American interest in joining an international organization to address interstate conflict dates back to the administration of Woodrow Wilson. After World War I, Wilson endorsed the creation of a League of Nations, which would seek to prevent future world wars by resolving interstate disputes through political and economic means first, using force as a last resort. Senators objected, however, to the possibility that a president would send troops to support a League action without prior congressional approval. Massachusetts Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in particular opposed ratifying the Treaty of Versailles, which would establish the League, without including 14 reservations that would ensure U.S. sovereignty in decision making. Although the treaty won a majority of votes in the Senate, it did not gain the 2/3 necessary for ratification, despite going before the Senate twice, in 1919 and again in 1920.4 In World War II, the United States began to reconsider the possibility of helping to create an international organization. (Although the League of Nations was created without U.S. participation, it did not become an effective instrument for interstate cooperation.) In the spring of 1945, the United States hosted a nine-week conference in San Francisco that drafted the U.N. charter. Upon its completion, President Harry S. Truman famously declared that ‘‘It will be just as easy for nations to get along in a republic of the world as it is for us to get along in the republic of the United States,’’ paraphrasing Lord Alfred Tennyson’s poem ‘‘Locksley Hall.’’ 5 Truman knew the words well— they meant so much to him that he had carried them in his wallet for the past 35 years. The Senate approved the UN Charter with only two dissenting votes, and the organization officially was established on October 24, 1945.6 The structure of the United Nations has presented obstacles to international cooperation from the outset. As one scholar notes, the United Nations was supposed to mark the ‘‘development of a dynamic international society,’’ and provide ‘‘an atmosphere and means for adjustment,’’ but the actual UN institutions do not always facilitate such interaction. 7 The ‘‘legislative’’ branch of the United Nations, which is the primary locus of policy making for the organization, is composed of two chambers, the General Assembly and the Security Council.8 U.S. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan once described the General Assembly as the ‘‘town meeting of the world,’’ for all member states have an equal voice and vote in debates.9 The Security Council addresses questions of peace and security, and is composed of five permanent members and ten rotating members who are

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chosen by the General Assembly for two-year terms. Each permanent member—the United States, Great Britain, France, China, and Russia (previously the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1991)—reserves veto power on any Security Council action. Former Secretary of State and first U.S. Ambassador to the UN Edward R. Stettinius Jr. once declared that the veto ‘‘simply recognize[d] the power facts of life,’’ but in so doing, it mounts a significant obstacle to international action. In the first decade of the United Nations’s existence, for example, the Soviet Union employed its veto in the Security Council more than 60 times.10 The veto power gives exceptional authority to five states, which is not always commensurate with their current role in the international system. Nevertheless, these states play a pivotal role in determining how the international community will respond to threats to peace and stability. In the past 60 years, the United States has secured Security Council support in such cases on a few key occasions; other times, the Council has provided an important forum for discussion, though action has proven elusive.

EARLY U.S. LEADERSHIP AT THE UNITED NATIONS: THE KOREAN WAR Not surprisingly, given the structure of the United Nations, the early years of the organization present a mixed record on international cooperation. The United Nations oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Iran in 1946, orchestrated the partition of Korea in 1947–1948, and created the state of Israel in 1948. But Cold War politics hindered UN action in many other areas, such as international control of atomic energy. Only with the Korean War in 1950 did the United States vigorously seek UN support. When North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, the American reaction was immediate and unequivocal. Within three days the United States had sponsored two resolutions in the UN Security Council criticizing the invasion and authorizing the use of force to restore the balance of power on the peninsula. President Truman was determined to operate through the United Nations, and his national security team supported, indeed encouraged, this approach. In so doing, the Truman administration established the precedent that the United Nations would serve as the venue for authorizing military force in the international arena to respond to the invasion of one state by another. The presidential adviser who took the lead in making this case was Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Although U.S. Ambassador to the UN Warren R. Austin represented the United States in UN discussions, he played a limited role in actual policy making. Throughout his tenure at the United


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Nations, Austin served largely as an independent spokesperson for American interests. The reasons for North Korea’s invasion are complex and beyond the scope of this analysis, but they included both Cold War politics as well as internal disputes on the Korean peninsula.11 From the U.S. perspective, the need to uphold the integrity of South Korea, as established by UN resolution after World War II, was clear. Secretary of State Acheson received a telephone call at home Saturday evening, June 24 (the invasion took place on June 25 Korean time, which was still June 24 in the United States), informing him of the invasion, and he quickly telephoned the President, who was vacationing in Independence, Missouri. Truman approved Acheson’s recommendation that the United States request an emergency session of the UN Security Council on June 25 to call for a cease-fire, and the President returned to Washington, D.C., the next day.12 By the time Truman left for Washington, the Security Council had met and unanimously approved a U.S.-sponsored resolution ‘‘condemning the North Korean attack and calling for the withdrawal of their forces from below the thirty-eighth parallel.’’ 13 Of the 11 members of the Security Council, nine approved the resolution, one—Yugoslavia—abstained, and one—the Soviet Union—was absent. The Soviet Union had boycotted the United Nations for the past six months to protest its decision not to extend membership to communist China. Had the Soviet Union participated in the debate on Korea, it certainly could have exercised its veto power to reject the resolution. But it did not, and to this day, as one diplomatic historian notes, ‘‘no one is exactly certain why [Soviet leader Josef] Stalin did not try [to] thwart the U.S. in the Security Council.’’ 14 The Soviet absence from Security Council deliberations ensured a unified response to the invasion.15 On June 27, the UN Security Council passed a second resolution authorizing the use of force to restore peace in Korea. Ambassador Austin had been vacationing in Vermont when the war began and was not present for the June 25 Security Council meeting, but he returned to New York in time to introduce the June 27 resolution. He declared that the war marked ‘‘the gravest crisis in [the UN’s] existence,’’ and that U.S. actions represented ‘‘support of the United Nations purposes and principles—in a word: ‘peace.’ ’’ 16 The second Security Council resolution passed 7–1, with Yugoslavia opposed, the Soviet Union absent, and Egypt and India abstaining. (Egypt eventually opposed the resolution, while India supported it.) Soon after, Truman authorized the use of U.S. combat forces in Korea.17 Truman’s decision to work through the United Nations to repel the North Korean invasion established the international organization’s role in mediating global conflicts. The President was well aware of the significance of working through the United Nations, telling his advisers that the organization

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‘‘was our idea, and in this first big test, we just can’t let them down.’’ 18 He later wrote in his memoirs, ‘‘There was no suggestion from anyone that either the United Nations or the United States could back away from [the invasion]. This was the test of all the talk of the last five years of collective security.’’ 19 Had Ambassador Austin played a greater role in policy making, the President could have enlisted his support in gaining congressional authorization for the war as well (something that Truman actually never pursued). A strong anti–New Deal Republican, Austin joined the Senate in 1931, and though he differed from President Franklin D. Roosevelt on domestic policy, he strongly supported the President’s actions in World War II. He joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1944 (a position he had long sought but which isolationist Republican leaders refused to give him), and there he concentrated on the role of the United States in the postwar world. A supporter of the UN Charter, Trade Agreements Act, and Bretton Woods Agreement, Austin clearly was committed to an internationalist U.S. foreign policy. Yet Austin did not have an extensive background in foreign affairs, nor did he serve in the inner circle of presidential advisers. Instead, Truman relied on Secretary of State Acheson to gain UN support for the Korean intervention, perhaps indicating that the significance of exercising U.S. leadership in the organization merited top-level participation from the president’s advisory team.20

COLD WAR LEADERSHIP AT THE UNITED NATIONS: THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS The UN resolution authorizing military action in Korea marked the exception rather than the rule for international leadership in security affairs during the Cold War years. The conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union hindered collective action, turning the United Nations—at least for matters of peace and security—more into a forum for discussion rather than a source of policy making. One example of such discussion contributing to substantive results was the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, in which U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN Adlai E. Stevenson successfully used the Security Council forum to pressure the Soviet Union to agree to remove its missiles from Cuba. The Cuban missile crisis took place two years into the Kennedy administration, but many scholars date its origins to the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, which originally was planned under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In the spring of 1960, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had begun to develop plans for a coup to depose Fidel Castro, who had seized control of Cuba in 1959. Ironically, Kennedy had pressed strongly in the 1960 presidential debates for removing Castro, forcing his opponent, Vice


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President Richard M. Nixon, to argue for a more cautious approach, even though Nixon knew that CIA plans were underway. (Nixon later wrote that Kennedy had received intelligence briefings about the proposed actions in Cuba, although Kennedy said he did not learn about those plans until after his election.)21 As president, Kennedy proposed some changes to the invasion plans to reduce apparent American involvement, with dire consequences. The invasion failed, with approximately 1,200 exiles captured by Castro’s forces, unable to escape as originally planned because their landing site had been changed at the President’s request. Furthermore, Kennedy’s decision not to authorize additional air strikes to assist the exiles may have indicated to Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev that the United States would go only so far to protect its interests in Cuba.22 Kennedy’s decision making during the Cuban missile crisis was almost diametrically opposed to the planning that took place before the Bay of Pigs invasion. The President learned in October 1962 that the Soviet Union had placed intermediate-range missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from the United States. He immediately established an Executive Committee, popularly known as the ExComm, to advise him, and the committee met several times during the 13 days of the crisis, exploring a wide range of options for resolution. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Stevenson participated in ExComm meetings, and although he was not a key decision maker, he nevertheless served as a personal adviser to the President, effectively representing Kennedy at a turning point in the crisis. Stevenson’s appointment to the United Nations marked the final stage of a political career that he had strived to have culminate in the White House. He graduated from Princeton University, where he was an active proponent of U.S. participation in the League of Nations. Stevenson attended Harvard and Northwestern Law Schools, and he joined the family newspaper business in Bloomington, Illinois, briefly before pursuing a legal career. Elected the youngest president ever of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in 1933, Stevenson clearly enjoyed politics, and he joined the Office of the Secretary of the Navy in 1941. He was part of the U.S. delegation to the San Francisco conference that drafted the UN Charter in 1945, and he represented the United States on the UN Preparatory Commission and as an alternate delegate to the UN General Assembly. He was elected governor of Illinois in 1948, and he ran unsuccessfully for president twice against Eisenhower.23 Kennedy and Stevenson did not enjoy a close personal relationship, in part because of past political competition. In 1956, Kennedy formally nominated Stevenson for president at the Democratic national convention, but Stevenson let the Democratic convention select his vice-presidential candidate, and they chose Estes Kefauver over Kennedy. In 1960, Stevenson would not nominate

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Kennedy for president at the Democratic convention, in deference to an enthusiastic but ultimately unsuccessful ‘‘Draft Adlai’’ campaign. 24 But Stevenson thought Kennedy should give him more credit for past support, writing to presidential historian and future Kennedy adviser Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. before the 1960 convention that ‘‘I have always felt in a way responsible for Jack’s recent political progress. . . . I have felt that I launched him, in a sense, on the national scene.’’ 25 Stevenson even prepared a memo for Kennedy during the campaign on how to counter the ‘‘youth and inexperience’’ issue.26 Many of Stevenson’s supporters urged his appointment as secretary of state, but Kennedy preferred to keep such a popular Democratic party leader out of the Washington spotlight. Instead, he asked Stevenson to become U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Although Kennedy did not make Stevenson part of his inner circle of advisers, he promised that Stevenson would have Cabinet rank and that he would report directly to the president, not through the secretary of state, thus recognizing Stevenson’s political expertise and stature. The two initially had a rocky relationship because Kennedy did not consult with Stevenson before the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and Stevenson reported incorrectly to the United Nations that U.S. forces were not involved. Yet when the Cuban missile crisis unfolded in October 1962, Stevenson was informed at the outset about Soviet missiles in Cuba, and he participated in the ExComm meetings at significant junctures in the crisis.27 When Kennedy first learned about the Soviet missiles in Cuba on October 16, 1962, Stevenson was visiting the White House for a scheduled event, and the President took him aside to inform him of the news. Stevenson’s initial reaction was to examine ‘‘the possibilities of a peaceful solution,’’ an approach that he would continue to take in the early days of the crisis. 28 Stevenson advised Kennedy to pursue diplomacy with Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, pointing out that a military response could provoke a nuclear war. As the ExComm continued deliberations, Stevenson continued to advocate negotiations, a position that was not completely at odds with Kennedy’s view, but lacked the muscle that the administration was determined to show in response to the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba.29 As Kennedy reached a decision to impose a ‘‘quarantine’’ on Soviet ships approaching Cuba with offensive weapons, Stevenson firmly presented the administration’s position at the UN Security Council, castigating the Soviet Union for its actions. Perhaps his most notable moment came on Thursday, October 25, 1962, when he asked the Soviet ambassador in a televised Security Council meeting to say whether or not Soviet missiles were in Cuba. When the ambassador demurred, Stevenson replied, ‘‘yes or no—don’t wait


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for the translation—yes or no. . . . I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over.’’ 30 As historian Sheldon Stern writes, ‘‘The debate represented the twice-defeated presidential candidate’s finest hour and his standing in public opinion surveys spiked to an all-time high.’’ 31 Despite Stevenson’s fine performance at the United Nations, his role in the resolution of the crisis was primarily to implement Kennedy’s decisions rather than to shape them. In particular, the President strongly disagreed with Stevenson’s recommendation that the United States agree publicly to withdraw its missiles in Turkey in exchange for the Soviet withdrawal of missiles in Cuba. Kennedy’s brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, later wrote that Stevenson ‘‘was presenting a point of view from a different perspective than the others, one which was therefore important for the President to consider.’’ 32 Privately, however, Kennedy’s close advisers were critical of what they viewed as Stevenson’s willingness to make concessions to the Soviet Union. Ultimately, Stevenson’s showdown with the Soviet ambassador at the Security Council did not resolve the Cuban missile crisis. The Soviet Union agreed to withdraw its missiles from Cuba, and Kennedy secretly said he would do the same in Turkey.33 But Stevenson’s crisp presentation decisively portrayed U.S. interests to the international community, highlighting why the Soviet missiles in Cuba posed such a threat to the United States. As for Stevenson’s role in policy making, although Kennedy did not grant him much influence in the process, the President still permitted his UN ambassador to have access to him during what later would be viewed as perhaps the most critical moment in the Cold War.34

THE ‘‘NEW WORLD ORDER’’ AT THE UNITED NATIONS: THE GULF WAR The ending of the Cold War raised new possibilities for U.S. leadership at the United Nations. The United States and the Soviet Union now had the opportunity to work together to promote international security, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the summer of 1990 presented a significant opportunity. For the first time since the Korean War, the United States would seek, and gain, Security Council authorization—this time with express Soviet support—to use military force to defend an ally’s sovereignty. U.S. success at the United Nations in 1990 resulted from a combination of presidential commitment to a multilateral effort, as well as sustained policy negotiations by the president’s advisory team at the United Nations. As a former U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations in the Nixon administration, President George H. W. Bush had a keen appreciation for international diplomacy through the organization. His foreign policy team,

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led by Secretary of State James A. Baker III, mounted a clear and systematic campaign to build Security Council support for a resolution. While President Bush had held Cabinet rank as Ambassador to the United Nations, he did not grant the same status to his Permanent Representative, Thomas R. Pickering. Pickering came to the position as a career Foreign Service officer who previously had served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, and Jordan. Given his expertise in foreign affairs and his close coordination with the State Department on U.S. policy making at the United Nations, Pickering most closely fits the category of professional diplomat.35 The United States vigorously pursued diplomacy through the United Nations when Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait and took control of the small nation on August 2, 1990. The Bush administration issued a statement calling for ‘‘the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi forces,’’ though the President told reporters the morning after the invasion that, ‘‘we’re not considering intervention.’’ 36 Given his prior work at the United Nations, Bush was sharply sensitive to how the international organization would respond to the invasion. As he recalls in his memoirs: While I was prepared to deal with this crisis unilaterally if necessary, I wanted the United Nations involved as part of our first response, starting with a strong condemnation of Iraq’s attack on a fellow member. Decisive U.N. action would be important in rallying international opposition to the invasion and reversing it.37

Upon learning that the Security Council had condemned the invasion and called for Iraq’s withdrawal in Resolution 660, Bush advised Ambassador Pickering to make sure the Council followed through with stronger action. Three days later, the President himself established the U.S. position on the invasion, famously stating to reporters, ‘‘This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.’’ 38 With strong endorsement from the United States, the Security Council subsequently voted unanimously (with two abstentions from Cuba and Yemen) in Resolution 661 to issue economic sanctions against Iraq.39 Secretary of State Baker and U.S. Ambassador Pickering worked carefully to build support among Security Council members for this resolution, thus illustrating the administration’s commitment to building multilateral support for condemning, and seeking to reverse, the Iraqi invasion. As Baker recalls in his memoirs: The resolution effectively ordered a total embargo on all commercial dealings with Saddam and his puppet government in Kuwait. It was the first step in our strategy not only to isolate Iraq diplomatically but also to apply a stranglehold to its economy.40


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In the following weeks, the United States continued to build a coalition in favor of removing Iraq from Kuwait, working through the Security Council as well as with individual allies. The President himself led the effort, personally calling more than 120 heads of state in the days after the Iraqi invasion. Because of Bush’s extensive pre-presidential foreign policy experience—U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in the Nixon administration, chief U.S. liaison to China, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Ford administration—he knew many of his counterparts well. As one White House aide says, ‘‘These were extraordinary relationships that he had carefully built and cultivated and that I think many of his foreign policy successes were based on.’’ 41 Bush himself stresses the importance of personal diplomacy, writing that ‘‘I was fortunate; I had known many of the current leaders for years, often before they took office, and that would help strengthen trust.’’ 42 By early September, the Security Council had passed several resolutions on Iraq, calling for economic sanctions, freeing of hostages, and restoration of Kuwait’s rulers, among other objectives. The United States supported all of these resolutions, but administration officials became increasingly convinced that military force would be required to force Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait. The President’s resolve to do so with international support remained steadfast. On September 11, 1990, Bush addressed a joint session of Congress to discuss the situation in Iraq. In discussing U.S. objectives in the region, he stated the following: We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective—a new world order—can emerge: a new era—freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. . . . A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.43

The ‘‘new world order’’ represented the end of the bipolar conflict of the Cold War and a commitment to an international alliance that included the Soviet Union to achieve U.S. goals for international peace and security in the post–Cold War era. As Bush later recalled, ‘‘The Gulf crisis was the first test of this new world we sought, and the stakes were high.’’ 44 In his speech, Bush also credited the United Nations for contributing to this new world order through the five resolutions it had passed opposing Iraqi aggression, saying, ‘‘We’re now in sight of a United Nations that performs as envisioned by its founders.’’ 45 Although Bush reiterated that, ‘‘we will not let this aggression stand,’’ 46 he did not focus in this speech on using military force against Iraq. By early

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October, however, several of Bush’s advisers were arguing for the need to prepare for military action, and the President himself appeared to share that view. At a private Oval Office meeting with National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, Secretary of Defense Richard B. Cheney, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, Bush questioned whether containment of Saddam Hussein through sanctions would work.47 Scowcroft recalls that, ‘‘somewhere in early to mid-October, President Bush came to the conclusion, consciously or unconsciously, that he had to do whatever was necessary to liberate Kuwait and the reality was that that meant using force.’’ 48 Bush agrees in his joint memoirs with Scowcroft that, ‘‘Brent is probably correct.’’ 49 Bush was keen to have the United Nations endorse the use of force against Iraq, despite opposition from close allies such as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was concerned that the time needed for gaining a resolution might weaken the international coalition. But Bush maintained that ‘‘it was better politically to work through the U.N. rather than to act on our own,’’ even though he believed the United States ‘‘certainly had the authority under the existing resolutions to act.’’ 50 Bush charged Secretary of State Baker with the responsibility of gaining support from Security Council members for a UN resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force, if necessary, in Iraq. Although Baker, like Powell, initially had seemed more supportive of containment than military engagement of Iraq, he moved rapidly to implement the president’s policy in the Security Council. As he writes in his memoirs, ‘‘The President agreed it [a UN resolution] was a risk worth pursuing. It was my task to sell that resolution—to the Security Council as well as to our coalition partners.’’ 51 To do so, Baker pursued ‘‘shuttle diplomacy’’ in early November, visiting 12 countries on three continents in 18 days. During this time, he met personally with each of his 14 counterparts on the Security Council, as well as with other members of the military coalition that the United States had developed over the past few months. The Bush administration faced a strict timetable, as the United States chaired the Security Council in November, but then the chairmanship (which rotated monthly among members) would pass to Yemen, a country that had long declared its support of Iraq. Thus, Baker’s diplomacy needed to achieve a tangible result by November 30, 1990.52 In the Middle East, Baker traveled to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, garnering support from each nation, including Saudi permission to deploy 200,000 additional U.S. troops in the country immediately. Among Security Council permanent members, Baker faced the most difficulty with China, which supported continuation of sanctions, but indicated that it would not veto a resolution authorizing force against Iraq. Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev also was noncommittal on the resolution, but appeared


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more supportive than the Chinese. France and Great Britain had some reservations about the necessity of the resolution, but agreed to support the United States. Other Security Council members, including Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Zaire, Romania, and Malaysia, ultimately promised their endorsement as well. 53 Baker later compared the negotiations for these votes to coalition building in Congress, illustrating the parallels between domestic and international leadership.54 On November 29, 1990, 12 of the Security Council’s 15 members voted to pass Resolution 678, which called for Iraq to withdraw its troops from Kuwait by January 15, 1991. If Iraq did not do so, then the Security Council granted member states the right to ‘‘use all necessary means . . . to endorse international peace and security in the area.’’ 55 Forty years after the Soviet Union had boycotted the Security Council, the former communist superpower voted with the United States, and only two countries, Cuba and Yemen, opposed the Iraq resolution. China abstained from the vote but did not use its veto. Bush credited Baker and Pickering for passage of the resolution, writing, ‘‘I felt a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders. [The resolution] eased some of the problems of coalition maintenance and resolved the debate about the need for provocation before we could act.’’ 56 The Bush administration’s success in gaining a Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq represented the highest achievement of Bush’s aims for a ‘‘new world order.’’ The administration had insisted that it did not require a UN resolution to take military action to repel Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Nevertheless, as Scowcroft later wrote, the resolution ‘‘provided an added cloak of political cover. . . . We sought that resolution in order to settle doubts and to keep the Soviets on board.’’ 57 The UN resolution also helped the Bush administration to win congressional support for the use of force, just days before the war began.58 Even after the Gulf War, Bush continued to recognize the legitimacy that the UN resolution had conferred. Asked in 1994 why he did not order the removal of Saddam Hussein in 1991, Bush replied, ‘‘Let me tell you, if we’d gone beyond the U.N. resolution, the coalition would have instantly fallen apart.’’ 59 With strong presidential support, the U.S. team at the United Nations, led by Secretary of State Baker, succeeded in building a majority consensus on the Security Council to force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. As in the Korean War, success at the United Nations was due to presidential leadership and intensive diplomacy by the secretary of state. UN Ambassador Pickering was actively engaged in the negotiations leading to the Security Council resolution on Iraq, in contrast to UN Ambassador Austin’s limited role in getting the Council’s resolution on Korea 40 years earlier. Nevertheless, these two cases suggest that when presidential direction and interest are clear, the secretary of state is likely to guide U.S. leadership at the United Nations.

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THE CHALLENGES OF POST–COLD WAR LEADERSHIP AT THE UNITED NATIONS While the international coalition that forced Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991 appeared to herald a new era for U.S. leadership at the United Nations, in fact this case of multilateral cooperation on international security would not soon be repeated. Ironically, the United States would face some of its greatest difficulties at the United Nations at the very time when its ambassadors to the organization had a much higher profile in policy making than their predecessors. President Bill Clinton resumed the practice of granting Cabinet rank to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and his appointees for the most part came to office with an extensive background in foreign policy. This combination of expertise and access to the President allowed them to serve as policy makers along with other senior foreign policy officials such as the secretary of state and national security adviser. Yet the United States still was unable to produce consensus on multilateral intervention, as several cases in the 1990s illustrate. Part of the difficulty with promoting leadership of the international community at the United Nations stemmed from the declining importance of foreign affairs in the United States following the Cold War. President Clinton’s selection of his national security team in his first term reflected his limited interest, at least initially, in foreign affairs. As veteran Washington journalist Elizabeth Drew writes, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake were chosen to ‘‘keep foreign policy from distracting the President from his domestic agenda.’’ 60 For U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Clinton selected Georgetown professor and Democratic foreign policy adviser Madeleine Albright. Albright recalls that when Clinton offered her the position, ‘‘he shared with me his enthusiasm for making the U.N. more effective.’’ 61 During the BushClinton transition (and before her appointment), Albright had proposed that the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations serve as a seniorlevel foreign policy adviser, and Clinton made the UN ambassador a Cabinet-level post. In his memoirs, Clinton writes that he did so because he wanted Albright to give advice on national security as well as the United Nations, describing her as ‘‘an ideal spokesperson for us at the United Nations in the post–Cold War era.’’ 62 Albright arrived at the United Nations in 1993 with academic and professional diplomatic expertise, having taught at Georgetown University for several years, served on President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Council staff, and advised many Democratic political candidates. As a member of the Cabinet, a status that few of her predecessors had received, Albright


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enjoyed the full confidence of the President in promoting U.S. interests at the United Nations. Albright soon became known for her tough, blunt rhetoric and willingness to provoke debate over controversial issues, both in the President’s decision-making circle and at the United Nations. Amidst the uncertainty of the immediate post–Cold War period, Albright presented clear convictions about the U.S. agenda in multilateral affairs, though enacting that agenda would prove far more difficult than defining it. The phrase for which Albright perhaps is most remembered, and most attacked by critics, is ‘‘assertive multilateralism.’’ 63 Albright herself later acknowledged the problems with her choice of words, writing in her memoirs that, ‘‘For anyone wanting to criticize the administration, I had provided a perfect opportunity.’’ 64 The phrase became linked with foreign policy problems in the Clinton administration, notably the disastrous October 1993 firefight in Somalia that left 18 American soldiers dead.65 In focusing on means rather than ends, assertive multilateralism left the mistaken impression that the United States would operate only in concert with other nations in pursuit of its foreign policy aims. Two of the Clinton administration’s most significant challenges in multilateral leadership resulted from humanitarian crises in Somalia and Rwanda. Upon taking office in 1993, President Clinton immediately faced the question of determining how to proceed with a military intervention already in progress in Somalia. In the final weeks of his term, President George H. W. Bush had authorized the United States to send troops to Somalia to make food and supplies available to a population suffering deeply from a devastating famine. The United States would lead Operation Restore Hope for a short period and then hand over the mission to the United Nations. But the lack of any real government in Somalia meant that warring factions exercised control, with warlords frequently obstructing humanitarian efforts.66 The Clinton administration was keen to shift responsibility from U.S. forces in Somalia to a UN peacekeeping mission, though its views on what the UN’s goals should be were less well-developed. As Albright recalls in her memoirs, ‘‘[M]y instructions were to negotiate the rapid handover of principal responsibility from the United States to the U.N. The Pentagon was eager to call its mission a success and bring our soldiers home.’’ 67 In May 1993, the United States did officially transfer the mission to UN peacekeepers, but it did not withdraw all of its troops. As the Somali factions became more aggressive, both U.S. and UN casualties mounted. The deaths of 18 American soldiers in one fierce battle in October made the confusion over mission glaringly evident. U.S. leadership in Somalia was ill-defined because it was not a high priority for the Clinton administration. The President did not meet formally with his foreign-policy team to discuss Somalia until after the October 1993 firefight, nor did the Principals Committee (composed of the President’s top

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foreign-policy advisers, including Albright) meet before October to evaluate the situation there.68 Consequently, neither the United States nor the United Nations established a clear policy for navigating the political minefields in Somalia to achieve the original humanitarian goals. Within six months of the October 1993 disaster, the United States had withdrawn its forces from Somalia. Confusion over Somalia contributed to disaster in Rwanda. In late 1993, the United Nations sent a peacekeeping force to Rwanda to maintain a cease-fire between two warring ethnic groups. But the agreement quickly unraveled, and in April 1994, the world witnessed the horrific massacre of hundreds of thousands of Rwandans. In the aftermath of Somalia, the United States was reluctant to initiate a more aggressive UN mission, and this reluctance proved devastating. As Albright later wrote: I was not among the very few who saw early that the decade’s most shocking crimes would engulf the small country of Rwanda. My deepest regret from my years in public service is the failure of the United States and the international community to act sooner to half those crimes. President Clinton later apologized for our lack of action, as did I.69

Albright expressed no such indecision with respect to military intervention in Haiti and Bosnia. In both cases, she firmly believed that the United States needed to intervene with force if necessary, to oust the military junta in Haiti and to end the civil war in Bosnia. Unlike Somalia and Rwanda, where humanitarian concerns had been the primary (and certainly sufficient) reason for action, other issues mattered in these cases. With Haiti, the United States faced the challenge of turning back thousands of refugees—a policy established by the first Bush administration after the 1991 military coup in Haiti, and continued by the Clinton administration—as long as the junta remained in power.70 With Bosnia, the United States needed to ensure that the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia did not become a larger war. The Bosnia conflict was particularly important to Albright personally, as her family had fled Czechoslovakia twice during her childhood, once because of the Nazis and once because of the Communists. As she later explained, ‘‘My mind-set is Munich; most of my generation’s is Vietnam.’’ 71 One of Albright’s major diplomatic triumphs in American foreign policy was the passage of a UN Security Council resolution in 1994 that called for the use of military force to remove the military junta in Haiti. Although the State Department had expressed reservations of going the UN route, Albright personally assured the President that she could get the votes for a resolution, and he told her to go ahead. After weeks of negotiations, Albright succeeded in shepherding the resolution through the Council with only two abstentions, from Brazil and China. In making the case for authorizing military force,


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Albright issued a famous warning to the Haitian military leader Lieutenant General Raoul Cedras: ‘‘You can depart voluntarily and soon; or you can depart involuntarily and soon.’’ 72 Ultimately, the military leadership stepped down voluntarily, and U.S. troops landed on the island as a peacekeeping, rather than an intervention, force. Albright faced more difficulties in persuading Clinton’s foreign-policy team to take on the civil war in Bosnia. In 1993, she was the only member of the Principals team who supported sending U.S. ground troops to the region.73 Journalist David Halberstam notes that, ‘‘From the time [Albright] joined the Clinton administration, she had been a hawk on the Balkans, though no one listened to her carefully.’’ 74 Critics included Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, who wrote that he ‘‘thought [he] would have an aneurysm’’ when Albright declared at one meeting, ‘‘What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?’’ 75 For her part, Albright says her view was ‘‘that the lessons of Vietnam could be learned too well.’’ 76 Albright and Powell were in agreement that the Clinton administration’s early meetings on Bosnia were unfocused: Albright described them as ‘‘rambling and inconclusive,’’ 77 while Powell said they would ‘‘meander like graduate-student bull sessions.’’ 78 Given this lack of consensus, the United States was not able to exercise leadership through the United Nations to control the rapidly disintegrating situation in the former Yugoslavia. Although Albright consistently advocated military intervention in Bosnia, the Clinton administration did not engage in sustained diplomacy to attain a peace accord, coupled with air strikes by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), until 1995.79 The Clinton administration’s mixed record in military interventions reflects its uncertainty about U.S. international leadership in the post–Cold War era. Albright represented U.S. interests effectively at the United Nations because of her high-ranking position on the president’s foreign-policy team. At the same time, those interests often were difficult to define, resulting in tragedy in Somalia, Rwanda, and Bosnia (though the Bosnia war ultimately would be resolved through U.S.-led military action and negotiations). Ironically, the Clinton years at the United Nations in many ways represent the greatest sustained effort by the United States to engage with the international organization since its creation in 1945. The United States faced a unique opportunity to move beyond Cold War rivalries and promote multilateral cooperation, and Clinton’s ambassadors actively pursued a policy agenda at the United Nations. Despite their high-profile position on the president’s foreign-policy team, however, they still required clear executive direction to exercise leadership at the United Nations.

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U.S. LEADERSHIP OF THE UNITED NATIONS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY These case studies of U.S. leadership at the United Nations in the past 60 years illustrate the opportunities for and challenges with exercising international leadership today. The United Nations was created after World War II to enable the community of nations to work together on common interests and avoid another global war. The Cold War obstructed much interstate cooperation, but as the immediate post–Cold War era reveals, the absence of superpower conflict does not make a common agenda clear. The United States exercises leadership in the United Nations most effectively when the president is committed to international diplomacy through the organization. And the president benefits most from the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations when that individual has foreign-policy expertise and a clear position on the president’s advisory team. That need not entail Cabinet rank—the case of the first Gulf War shows that with strong presidential leadership, a U.S. ambassador can represent the administration effectively without such visibility. But the combination of presidential direction and well-defined engagement by the U.S. ambassador in policy making is essential. U.S. leadership in the international community ultimately depends upon presidential leadership of the foreign-policy advisory team.

NOTES 1. For statistics on member states’ annual dues to the United Nations, see Chapter Five: ‘‘Is the United Nations Good Value for the Money?’’ under ‘‘Image and Reality: Questions and Answers About the U.N.’’ on the UN Web site (http://www.un.org). The direct link is http://www.un.org/geninfo/ir/index.asp?id=150 2. For representative scholarly articles on this debate, see Bert A. Rockman, ‘‘America’s Departments of State: Irregular and Regular Syndromes of Policy Making,’’ American Political Science Review 75 (December 1981): 911–927; and Duncan L. Clarke, ‘‘Why State Can’t Lead,’’ Foreign Policy (Spring 1987): 128–142. Journalists also focus on the importance of the secretary of state and national security adviser in examining foreign policy making, as the cover story ‘‘Where Have You Gone, Colin Powell?’’ Time (September 10, 2001), illustrates. 3. The classic scholarly analysis of presidential advising in foreign affairs by Alexander L. George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information and Advice (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1980), does not discuss the role of the U.S. mission and ambassador. Given the limited importance of the United Nations in U.S. foreign policy making during the Cold War, this lack of attention is unsurprising, but post–Cold War analyses typically do not mention the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations either. A recent study of the United Nations that illustrates the tendency in the scholarly literature to concentrate on the organization as a whole rather than on the work of individual nations such as the United States is Paul


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Kennedy, The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations (New York: Random House, 2006). 4. Louis Fisher, ‘‘The Korean War: On What Legal Basis Did Truman Act?’’ American Journal of International Law 89 (January 1995): 22–23. 5. Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977), 49–50. 6. Historical information about the United Nations is available in Department of Public Information, Basic Facts About the United Nations (New York: United Nations, 1995); Arnold Beichman, The ‘‘Other’’ State Department: The United States Mission to the United Nations—Its Role in the Making of Foreign Policy (New York: Basic Books, 1967), 37–45; and Francis W. Carpenter, Men in Glass Houses (New York: The McBride Company, 1951). 7. Clark M. Eichelberger, U.N.: The First Ten Years (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955), 8–9. 8. The other key components of the United Nations include the Secretariat, which is composed of the secretary-general and staff; the International Court of Justice; and the Economic and Social Council, which oversees many of the specialized agencies that operate under the auspices of the United Nations. See Department of Public Information, Basic Facts About the United Nations, 3–19. 9. Benjamin H. Brown and Joseph E. Johnson, The U.S. and the U.N. (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1954), 11. 10. Eichelberger, The U.N.: The First Ten Years, 14. 11. This case study does not examine the voluminous literature on the Korean War, but a representative source is Francis H. Heller, ed., The Korean War: A 25-Year Perspective (Lawrence, KS: Regents Press of Kansas, 1977). A source that takes account of Soviet and Chinese sources declassified after the Cold War is John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). For a comprehensive analysis of the reasons behind the Korean War as well as problems during the war itself, see Burton I. Kaufman, The Korean War: Challenges in Crisis, Credibility, and Command (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986). The second edition of this book is a more concise version that takes account of recent scholarship on the Korean War (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997). 12. Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), 402–404. 13. Gary R. Hess, Presidential Decisions for War: Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 8. Details on the vote for the UN resolution are from Hess, 8–9. Also see UN Security Council Official Records, 473rd meeting, June 25, 1950, Lake Success, NY, ‘‘Selected Records Relating to the Korean War,’’ Presidential Papers, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, MO. 14. Arnold A. Offner, Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945– 1953 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 372. 15. For a comprehensive summary of the UN response to the North Korean invasion, see Yearbook of the United Nations, 1950 (New York: UN Department of Public Information, 1951).

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16. George T. Mazuzan, Warren R. Austin at the U.N., 1946–1953 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1977), 147. A discussion of Austin’s lack of input into the decision making on Korea is on p. 149. 17. Hess, Presidential Decisions for War, 25–30. Also see Security Council Official Records, 474th meeting, June 27, 1950, ‘‘Selected Records Relating to the Korean War,’’ Harry S. Truman Papers, Truman Library. 18. David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 779. 19. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope, Vol. 2. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956), 334. 20. Mazuzan, Warren R. Austin at the U.N., chaps. 1–2. 21. Transcripts for the 1960 presidential debates are available from the Commission on Presidential Debates at http://www.debates.org/pages/debtrans.html. For Nixon’s views on what Kennedy knew about the Bay of Pigs invasion plans in 1960, see Richard M. Nixon, Six Crises (Doubleday & Co., 1962), 354; and Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (Grosset and Dunlap, 1978), 220. Both Nixon sources are cited in John L. Helgerson, CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates, 1952–1992 (Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA, 1996), chap. 2. Available at https://www.cia.gov 22. An excellent analysis of the Bay of Pigs invasion and its consequences for the Cuban missile crisis is Michael Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–1963 (New York: Edward Burlingame Books, 1991), 97–151. A complete historical account of the invasion is Trumbull Higgins, The Perfect Failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIA at the Bay of Pigs (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987). 23. Porter McKeever, Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1989), 43–50, 64–65, 75–76, 93–106. The Spring 2000 issue of the Princeton University Library Chronicle is based on the commemoration of what would have been Stevenson’s one-hundredth birthday, and contains many interesting insights from Stevenson scholars, friends, and family. 24. John Bartlow Martin, Adlai Stevenson and the World (New York: Doubleday, 1977), 349–351, 517–528. 25. Letter, Stevenson to Schlesinger, June 7, 1960, Box 74, Adlai E. Stevenson Papers, Public Policy Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library. 26. Memorandum, Stevenson to Kennedy, ‘‘Memo on the ‘Youth and Inexperience’ Issue,’’ undated, Box 47, Stevenson Papers, Princeton University Library. 27. For a discussion of Kennedy and Stevenson’s strained relationship, see Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 463–467. Stevenson’s exclusion from the Bay of Pigs decision and the subsequent reaction in the United Nations to his incorrect information is discussed in Martin, Adlai Stevenson and the World, 622–636. 28. See Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds., The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 77. May and Zelikow provide the first complete transcripts of tape recordings that Kennedy made during the ExComm meetings and at other times during the Cuban missile crisis. They have since published updated versions that correct earlier transcription errors; for the most current information, see http://www. whitehousetapes.org/. Historian and former Kennedy Library archivist Sheldon Stern


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also has reviewed the tapes in their entirety, and he presents a thoughtful and carefully documented analysis in Averting the ‘Final Failure’: John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003). 29. May and Zelikow, eds., The Kennedy Tapes, 118, 191. 30. Ibid., 438. 31. Stern, Averting the ‘Final Failure,’ 258. 32. Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), 28. Shortly after the crisis, an article in the Saturday Evening Post criticized Stevenson for ‘‘want[ing] a Munich,’’ raising questions again about how much Kennedy valued Stevenson’s advice. See Stewart Alsop and Charles Bartlett, ‘‘In Time of Crisis,’’ Saturday Evening Post, December 8, 1962. 33. For a carefully documented analysis of the deployment and withdrawal of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, see Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters, 1957–1963 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997). 34. Beichman discusses the difference between access and influence for the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations in The ‘‘Other’’ State Department, 115. 35. Ambassador Pickering’s full biography is available on the State Department Web site at http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/biography/pickering.html. For a discussion of Pickering’s role in the Bush administration, see Paul Lewis, ‘‘Mideast Tensions: U.S. Envoy to U.N. on Center Stage,’’ New York Times, November 10, 1990. 36. Both quotations are from Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Pocket Star Books, 1991), 203, 205. 37. George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), 303. 38. Woodward, The Commanders, 206, 242. 39. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 336. 40. James A. Baker III, with Thomas M. DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989–1992 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), 283. 41. Bobbie Greene Kilberg, quoted in Meena Bose and Rosanna Perotti, eds., From Cold War to New World Order: The Foreign Policy of George H. W. Bush (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), 157. 42. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 61. 43. George H. W. Bush, ‘‘Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the Persian Gulf and the Federal Budget Deficit,’’ September 11, 1990, in Public Papers of the Presidents: George H. W. Bush, 1990. Available at http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu 44. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 370. 45. Bush, ‘‘Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the Persian Gulf and the Federal Budget Deficit.’’ 46. Ibid. 47. Woodward, The Commanders, 8. 48. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 382. 49. Ibid. 50. Both quotations are in Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 385. 51. Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy, 304.

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52. Ibid., 304–305. 53. Ibid., 305–320. 54. Interview by Thomas M. DeFrank with James A. Baker, January 26, 1994, Folder 7, Box 172, The Politics of Diplomacy files, 1989–1995, Papers of James A. Baker III, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library. 55. Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy, 327. 56. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 415. 57. Ibid., 416. 58. Former Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Janet Mullins discusses the need for a UN resolution to win congressional support for using military force against Iraq in 1991 in an interview with Thomas M. DeFrank for Baker’s memoirs, The Politics of Diplomacy. See Janet Mullins interview, September 28, 1993, Folder 6, Box 173, Papers of James A. Baker III, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library. 59. Victor Gold, ‘‘George Bush Speaks Out,’’ The Washingtonian, February 1994, 40. 60. Elizabeth Drew, On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 28. 61. Madeleine Albright, Madame Secretary: A Memoir (New York: Miramax Books, 2003), 131. 62. Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 455. 63. Albright writes in her memoirs that she used the phrase in testimony before the Senate in 1995 (Madam Secretary, 176), but several newspaper articles connect the phrase with her as early as 1993. See, for example, ‘‘Somalia’s Lessons for UN,’’ Christian Science Monitor, July 29, 1993; and Thomas Omestad, ‘‘Clinton Learns to Be Prudent on Peril,’’ Chicago Tribune, October 8, 1993. Despite repeated searching through newspaper and magazine databases, as well as congressional hearings, I have been unable to locate the date on when the term was first used. 64. Albright, Madame Secretary, 176. 65. For a perceptive, moment-by-moment analysis of the events that took place in Somalia on October 3, 1993, see Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999). 66. For a summary of the U.S. intervention in Somalia, see Richard Haass, Intervention: The Use of American Military Force in the Post–Cold War World, rev. ed. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), 43–46. Lester H. Brune presents a comparative analysis of U.S. military interventions in the 1990s in The United States and Post–Cold War Interventions: Bush and Clinton in Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia, 1992–1998 (Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 1998). 67. Albright, Madame Secretary, 142. 68. Interview by author with W. Anthony Lake, national security adviser, 1993– 1997, Washington, DC, July 1, 1997; Nancy Soderberg, The Superpower Myth: The Use and Misuse of American Might (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2005), 38. 69. Albright, Madam Secretary, 147–148. Also see Soderberg, The Superpower Myth, 276–289.


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70. During the 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton had said he would reverse the Bush administration’s policy of refusing U.S. entry to Haitian refugees. But he decided to continue with the policy even before his inauguration. See Drew, On the Edge, 139. 71. Michael Dobbs, Madeleine Albright: A Twentieth-Century Odyssey (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999), 34. 72. Albright, Madam Secretary, 159. Also see Thomas W. Lippmann, Madeleine Albright and the New American Diplomacy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000), 14; and Thomas Blood, Madam Secretary: A Biography of Madeleine Albright (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 96–99. 73. Soderberg, The Superpower Myth, 30. 74. David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals (New York: Scribner, 2001), 386. 75. Colin Powell, with Joseph E. Persico, My American Journey (New York: Random House, 1995), 576. 76. Albright, Madam Secretary, 182. 77. Albright, Madam Secretary, 180. 78. Powell, My American Journey, 576. 79. For a thorough study of the Clinton administration’s decision making on Bosnia, see Ivo H. Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000). Richard Holbrooke, who served as Assistant Secretary of State in Clinton’s first term and was the architect of the 1995 Dayton Accords that established peace among the warring parties in Bosnia, traces the negotiations in To End a War (New York: Random House, 1998).


PART III

PUBLIC LEADERSHIP


9 Public Leadership in the Political Arena LORI COX HAN

At the end of October 2007, the raging wildfires throughout several counties in Southern California dominated national news coverage. On local television stations in the greater Los Angeles and San Diego areas, early-morning to late-night news coverage provided viewers with heart-wrenching images of thousands of people evacuating their homes, and the even more devastating images of some residents watching their homes burn to the ground. While most of the news coverage in all media outlets for several days focused mostly on the cause (drought conditions, Santa Ana winds, and arson investigations) and effect (number of homes lost and acreage burned) of the wildfires as well as the efforts to contain and extinguish the blazes (including laudatory coverage of the efforts of fire fighters and other volunteers from across the country), a fascinating subplot developed in the news coverage that focused on how California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger responded to and handled the natural disaster that had hit his state. Public officials are often judged, rightly or wrongly, on how they handle crisis situations, and this was one of those occasions for a celebrity-turned-politician who has long been accustomed to the public spotlight. During the first few days of the devastating wildfires, Californians witnessed a take-charge and proactive governor intent on both managing and resolving the crisis. For those closely following the story, Schwarzenegger was everywhere—in Malibu where the first of the fires started, then east to Lake Arrowhead to another major fire spot, then south to Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego where evacuees found temporary shelter, then back north to

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another major fire area near Santa Clarita. He held numerous press conferences throughout the various fire-ravaged counties and also hosted several big-name politicians—including President George W. Bush, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, among others—as tour guide to the devastated areas that needed both the attention and resources that only the federal government could provide. As the Los Angeles Times reported, Schwarzenegger ‘‘crisscross[ed] the region on foot and by air to handle the most overwhelming challenge of his administration’’ and served as ‘‘the optimistic and omnipresent face of the wildfire response: consoler to the evacuees, debriefer to the media, cheerleader to the firefighters and personal liaison to the federal government.’’ 1 From the fire victims to the casual observers, the public message was clear—Schwarzenegger was in charge. Schwarzenegger ’s response and its portrayal in the press in the face of natural disaster showed a dramatic contrast to how his gubernatorial colleague in Louisiana, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, had been portrayed as responding to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While Blanco was not the only politician who received public criticism for how she handled the disaster and responded to the needs of citizens (President Bush and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin also received plenty of blame), Schwarzenegger ’s response seemed to indicate that he clearly understood his public leadership role as a governor faced with a crisis. The Washington Post observed in an editorial that Californians had in their governor ‘‘something that Louisianans, in particular those in New Orleans, didn’t have when they needed it most: leadership.’’ 2 And as if to highlight that point, and to show that he himself had learned an important lesson from Hurricane Katrina, President Bush praised Schwarzenegger at a press conference with the governor by telling reporters, ‘‘It makes a significant difference when you have somebody in the Statehouse willing to take the lead.’’ As this example illustrates, public leadership is an essential responsibility for public officials, whether they are elected or appointed to office. Emergency or disaster situations often provide the best opportunity under the worst of circumstances for public officials to demonstrate their leadership abilities, but even in nondisaster mode, public leadership—those actions by officials that citizens either see and hear or read about—is now a permanent day-to-day fixture in the job responsibilities of presidents, cabinet secretaries, governors, mayors, congressional leaders, and any number of other public officials. Obviously, presidents command more attention than any other public official and a select few have served as standard bearers for successful public leadership. Among the more prominent examples are Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘‘Fireside Chats’’ over the radio airwaves to discuss the Great Depression with American citizens; John F. Kennedy’s televised address to the

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nation in October 1962 regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis; Bill Clinton’s words of comfort and sympathy at a memorial service for the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995; and George W. Bush’s remarks at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., three days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Presidents are often credited with finding their public voice in response to these types of events. However, it is that consistent delivery of successful public leadership that can often make or break a politician’s career; those who can regularly connect with citizens to deliver a message of strong and effective leadership often succeed where others fail in the public arena. In this chapter, I address the concept of public leadership and the important role that it now plays in the governing process at all levels and in various branches of government. First, I offer a definition of public leadership and the various political components that encompass this aspect of governing. The vast scholarly literature that has developed in recent decades on the topic of presidential communications offers an excellent assessment of the contemporary importance of public leadership. Next, I provide a brief overview of public leadership strategies and how they have evolved over time (particularly in concurrence with technological advances in mass media), as well as relevant examples that help us to understand the significance of public leadership. Finally, I conclude with an assessment of how public leadership specifically has shaped the overall definition of political leadership and how that contributes to the dynamic of the current political environment within American government.

DEFINING PUBLIC LEADERSHIP The concept of leadership is a much-debated topic within several academic disciplines, including political science, psychology, philosophy, and sociology, just to name a few. No clear definition has yet to emerge, though many scholars have provided useful insights as to what makes a leader successful, as well as which leaders have failed and why. Understanding one particular aspect of leadership—the art and skill of communication, or what some refer to as public leadership—and how it fits within our general understanding of political leadership can provide a useful insight to one of the most important elements of the political and governing process in the United States. Specifically, and in its political context, public leadership can be defined simply as the ability of a public official to use the public component of a political office (whether elected or appointed) to accomplish a specific task, goal, or agenda item. As such, the end result of public leadership can be something as specific and tangible as the passage of a new law or the start of a government initiative, or something as broad based and intangible as rhetoric that motivates,

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inspires, or comforts the masses. However, at either extreme, public leadership skills matter and play a large role in allowing a public official to accomplish his or her political goals. When thinking of great leaders in American history, many prominent politicians, particularly presidents, come to mind. Political luminaries such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan are given high marks in regards to ‘‘presidential greatness.’’ 3 In their roles as steward of the people, the commander in chief, and the embodiment of American strength and national unity, Americans expect their presidents to be the epitome of political leadership. Strong communication skills also go a long way in terms of how Americans rate their presidents, both while in office and while assessing their legacies as former presidents. The same can be said of other political leaders, whether state governors, prominent members of Congress, mayors, or even cabinet members or leaders within national party organizations. While the offices and jobs themselves may vary greatly, every public official faces the public’s expectations regarding their job performance. In terms of public leadership, the symbolism that a particular public office represents helps to determine the expectation that those constituents have of the individual office holder. As a result, executive leadership positions such as president, governor, or mayor, often have higher public expectations than those in a legislative or bureaucratic leadership position. Those in executive positions are expected to show leadership traits as being strong, tough, and decisive, as well as being in control, while those in legislative positions or cabinet members working within the bureaucracy are expected to be more cooperative and willing to compromise to achieve results. To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of obscenity, Americans know good leadership when they see it, and the act of ‘‘seeing’’ great leadership almost always comes through public appearances and statements (and most often as portrayed through news media coverage). However, defining an ever-changing and malleable term like ‘‘leadership,’’ particularly within its political context, has proven to be a difficult task for those who study the topic. Various theories about leadership and how to define it have emerged that focus on specific traits, skills, styles, or personality characteristics that leaders possess, or certain situations that emerge to allow leaders to then act accordingly.4 One of the most widely recognized and quoted theories of leadership comes from the work of James MacGregor Burns, who first introduced the concept of ‘‘transformational leadership’’ in the late 1970s.5 According to Burns’s definition, leadership is more than just the act of wielding power, as it involves the relationship between leaders and followers. Transactional leadership, according to Burns, refers to what most leaders are able to accomplish in their day-to-day routines. This


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involves the necessary work that comes with the position and is nothing exceptional. For example, the Senate majority leader may promise that his or her party will pursue health care reform, and once the congressional session begins, the majority leader then helps to bring health care legislation to the Senate floor for debate and a vote. Transformational leadership, on the other hand, provides more than just a simple policy change or a transaction between political actors pursuing the objectives of their elected or appointed position. Instead, a transformational leader provides broader changes to the entire political system that raises the level of motivation and morality in both the leader and the follower. Quoting Burns, ‘‘Transforming leaders define public values that embrace the supreme and enduring principles of a people.’’ 6 Similarly, political scientist Bruce Miroff argues that true political leadership must come from an honest dialogue between citizens and their leader, and the public cannot continue to be viewed through a cynical lens as ‘‘an ignorant, emotional force to be managed and manipulated.’’ 7 As such, not all forms of public leadership, no matter how successful, serve the best interests of the public. Miroff’s study analyzes nine specific leaders that he considers to be ‘‘icons of democracy.’’ Democratic leaders respect their followers, are committed to the notion of self-government, and nurture the possibilities of civic engagement through a public dialogue. However, while various political leaders throughout American history have fostered the American democratic ideal, others have undermined it. According to Miroff’s analysis, Alexander Hamilton, Theodore Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy represent a type of heroic leadership based on imagery where each pursued a kind of selfaggrandizement that jeopardized democratic public life. On the other hand, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt, as well as dissenting leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eugene V. Debs, and Martin Luther King Jr., sought to educate the American public and challenged ‘‘the American democracy to fulfill its deeper promise.’’ 8 As Miroff states, ‘‘In an era when American leadership seems sunk in petty power struggles and shallow media spectacles, some of our icons have much to teach us about the forms of leadership that can still speak to the democratic possibilities of the American people.’’ 9 Obviously, communication skills can and do play an important role in leadership as communication is one of the most important features of distinguishing a good leader from a great one. This is a particularly salient point given the dominance of the mass media within the American political environment, a trend that only increases as newer technologies continue to emerge year after year. However, it takes more than just good communication skills, or charisma, to be a great leader. Getting back to Burns’s notion of transformational leadership, charisma can be confusing, undemocratic, and, at its worst,

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a type of tyranny. On the positive side, however, charismatic leaders can empower their followers by providing them a clear vision, and by energizing and enabling them to achieve a greater public good. For the past three decades, a tremendous amount of research has emerged that looks at the way leaders communicate; scholars interested in this issue have considered what leaders say and to whom, how the news media cover those public events and shape the public perception of political leaders, the reactions that come from public leadership from both citizens (public opinion) and other political actors (in accomplishing policy objectives), and the communication strategies that leaders develop. While a good part of this research has been dedicated to presidents, this area of scholarship is also quite instructive to understanding how all political actors must contend with the expectation for public leadership. Presidential scholars first began to take notice of a president’s public leadership activities during the 1950s, as television began to come of age in how it both informed and entertained the American public. Since that time, several scholarly classics have emerged that continue to animate the debate on why and how presidential leadership, including the public aspects of leadership, is such an important element of governance. Any discussion on the topic of presidential leadership must begin with the work of Richard Neustadt. For presidents in the modern era (a time frame that most scholars consider to have begun with the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933), communicating with both the public and other political participants, especially Congress, has become a key component of both effective leadership and successful policy making. Most often, the mass media provide the primary means of presidential communication. In Neustadt’s classic study of the presidency, real presidential power is defined as the power to persuade, with successful presidents relying on a leadership style based on bargaining with other political actors.10 Many scholars have since further examined and some have redefined how presidential communication and public opinion can affect policy making by the president and his attempts to control the political agenda. Elmer Cornwell became one of the first scholars to discuss exerting presidential power through the use of expanding media technologies to influence public opinion. By the mid-1960s, the president had become a central focus of news from Washington, and hence began to have more power over shaping the national agenda by rapidly reaching, through both television and print, his national audience. The ability to help shape public opinion, through televised and/ or highly covered speeches and press conferences, allows the president a chance to ‘‘win and channel public support’’ during the legislative process.11 Political scientist Theodore Lowi described the modern presidency as ‘‘plebiscitary’’; the president is viewed as the property of the citizenry in which the


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voters invested the authority and power to govern. Presidents work hard to keep the initiative and/or control over the policy agenda coming out of the White House by personalizing the presidency. The president wants his proposals to dominate congressional debate and shape legislation; this is achieved through press conferences, speeches, appearances, and communications with Congress and other officials, all recorded by the press.12 According to presidency scholar Samuel Kernell, presidents of the modern era have utilized public support by ‘‘going public,’’ a style of presidential leadership where the president sells his programs directly to the American people. Going public is contradictory to some views of democratic theory, but is now practiced by presidents as a result of a weakened party system, splitticket voting, divided government, increased power of interest groups, and the growth of mass communication systems.13 Whether democratic or not, there is no denying the importance of skilled communication for effective public leadership for all contemporary politicians, in particular presidents. As I have argued in other writings, developing a White House communication strategy has become an important and permanent part of the everyday operation of the White House. An effective presidential communication strategy can be a critical factor, at least for presidents since the emergence of the television age, in developing and implementing the administration’s policy goals. ‘‘To understand how a president communicates is to understand an important base of power for the modern presidency.’’ 14 Mary Stuckey has also aptly labeled the president an ‘‘interpreter-in-chief’’ and the ‘‘nation’s chief storyteller.’’ Presidential rhetoric has changed over time as media technologies have continued to expand, providing citizens with more in-depth coverage of the president. Especially because of television coverage, presidential advisers now develop communication strategies that seek more support for the president as a person or leader and less support for specific policy proposals. This has led to an emphasis on symbolic and ceremonial, rather than deliberative, speech.15 These types of communication strategies have also trickled down in recent years to other political offices; the position of press secretary and/or public information officer is now essential in the offices of members of Congress, governors, and cabinet secretaries. While much has been written about presidential communication and public leadership strategies, recent studies have suggested that perhaps even politicians who are skilled communicators do not have an easy time of influencing the public through their rhetoric or the symbolism of their offices. Several impediments exist that make the task of leading the public difficult. The growing number of media technologies, outlets, and channels make it difficult for even the president to have his voice heard among the cacophony of news anchors, political pundits, and other entertainment options. In

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addition, the current divide among the electorate in which the voters are firmly grounded in their beliefs and cannot be persuaded otherwise can make attempts at presidential rhetoric futile. As presidency scholar George Edwards points out, even those presidents (and by extension other prominent politicians) who are charismatic face many obstacles and are frustrated in their attempts to lead the public, even though the ‘‘American political system provides presidents with strong incentives to increase their persuasive resources by seeking public support.’’ Edwards’s research suggests that rarely are presidents capable of changing public opinion on an issue and their attempts to lead the public fall on ‘‘deaf ears.’’ However, they persist in pursuing public strategies due to the routines of politics (going public is a presidential act; therefore presidents continue with the tradition); the need to preach to the converted (maintaining preexisting support in the face of opposition to policy changes); and influencing elites (while voters themselves may not change their attitudes through presidential rhetoric, the elite debate among journalists and other policy makers may be influenced).16 Other recent studies have also begun to question the going public model in terms of its effectiveness and usefulness for governance. Political scientist Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha argues that it is Congress and the bureaucracy, not the public, to which presidents direct their public speeches in an attempt to influence legislation and implement public policy. In addition to going public, presidents also ‘‘signal’’ members of Congress and the bureaucracy to gain support for their policy initiatives. While signaling is ‘‘a mixed source of power for modern presidents because signals are not always effective, nor do they guarantee presidential influence,’’ it can nonetheless be effective in certain policy areas, and signaling effects ‘‘are direct and do not require public involvement.’’ 17 Presidents have also received much criticism of late for their willingness to ‘‘pander’’ to public opinion in terms of choosing which public policies to support and for adopting a model of governing that resembles a ‘‘permanent campaign.’’18 Political scientist Brandice CanesWrone argues that while presidents do appear to sometimes pander to public opinion, they do so to maximize their influence over Congress and the public (who can be motivated to influence Congress to support the president) to push through legislation that is already generally supported by the public: ‘‘When Congress is likely to reject a popular executive proposal, a president may appeal to the public about his position and thereby pressure members to enact it. Moreover, mass opinion can affect a president’s likelihood of supporting an initiative.’’ 19 Presidency scholar Colleen Shogan also argues that ‘‘rhetorical leadership in the presidency is not limited to moving public opinion polls,’’ as it can also have an important moral message and ‘‘send signals to Congress, contribute vital public support to a burgeoning social movement, make important connections between policy decisions and ethical


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concerns, enhance their constitutional role, oppose political adversaries, or engage in party leadership.’’ 20 These studies, of course, shift the debate of Kernell’s going public model. The technological developments of the mass media in recent years have allowed presidents to go public more often, and with much greater ease. Yet, going public does not necessarily translate into greater success with efforts at public leadership. Strategy matters in this regard, and only in some cases can a president (or other politicians as well) have success at gaining the support of both the public and other relevant actors in the policy-making process to enact some sort of tangible change. Those who hold public office do not have the luxury of acting unilaterally in accomplishing their goals, and depending on the circumstances and the mood of the public, must appeal to other politicians, the public, the news media, or any combination of those three to succeed in their efforts of public leadership. Edwards suggests that one strategic option for presidents may be to ‘‘stay private’’ as opposed to ‘‘go public,’’ since political leaders often frustrate the necessary process of building coalitions to accomplish a policy objective by taking their cases directly to the public: Such [public] positions are difficult to compromise, and there is less emphasis on providing benefits for both sides, allowing many to share in a coalition’s success and to declare victory. . . . Staying private is likely to contribute to reducing gridlock, incivility, and, thus, public cynicism and deserves a more prominent role in the president’s strategic arsenal.21

However, given the tendency for recent presidents and other political actors to go public, whether or not they happen to be good at it, it is not now likely for a president to back away from that strategy given the institutional and political expectations for it to occur.

PUBLIC LEADERSHIP STRATEGIES Public leadership and the development of necessary strategies in this regard have had important historical developments, particularly during the twentieth century. The proliferation of daily newspapers at the turn of the twentieth century, followed by the advent of radio, then television, and then the expansion of newer technologies like the Internet and satellite transmissions, have created myriad opportunities for politicians at all levels of government to communicate. Particularly for presidents, along with the opportunities to communicate came the expectation that the president would be an effective communicator, using the bully pulpit to rally for public policies and to share his vision for America with his fellow citizens. The start of the rhetorical presidency and the president’s use of the bully pulpit are

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credited to Theodore Roosevelt because he advanced the president’s role as the national leader of public opinion and used his rhetorical skills to increase the power of the presidency through popular support. However, since that time, several presidents have received less than stellar marks for their public speaking skills and their ability to lead and inspire the public as the ultimate symbol of American political power. During his time in the White House (1901–1909), Roosevelt was able to recast the public role of the presidency and add to the aura if not power of the office. Roosevelt believed that the president was the steward of the people and that weak presidential leadership during the nineteenth century had left the American system of government open to the harmful influence of special interests. As a result, he expanded presidential power to the furthest limits of the Constitution by drawing on broad discretionary powers, and he utilized the public component of the office to gain support of his legislative agenda in an attempt to place public pressure on Congress. Roosevelt’s ‘‘Stewardship Doctrine’’ demanded presidential reliance on popular support of the people, and also increased the public’s expectation of the man and the office. Roosevelt’s use of the presidency as a bully pulpit changed America’s view of the office and helped to shift power from the legislative to the executive branch during the twentieth century.22 Later presidents, though not all, would follow Roosevelt’s strategy of relying on the bully pulpit to elevate the power of the office by serving as the spokesperson for the American public. Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921) also relied on the bully pulpit and broke with a 113-year tradition by becoming the first president since John Adams to deliver his State of the Union address in person before the Congress in 1913. Through his rhetorical skills, especially during World War I, Wilson established the presidency as a strong position of leadership at both the national and international levels. Franklin D. Roosevelt relied heavily on the bully pulpit, particularly his use of radio, to gradually persuade the American public to support his New Deal policies during the 1930s and America’s involvement in World War II during the 1940s. With the start of the television age in the 1950s, the use of the presidential bully pulpit became even more important as a president’s overall success or failure as a leader could more easily be judged based on his rhetorical skills and public influence. Since the 1950s, three presidents stand out as successful in their use of the bully pulpit—John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. As we will discuss below, all were known for their frequent use of inspiring and eloquent speeches about public policy and their visions for the country. Other presidents during the twentieth century either abdicated the bully pulpit or used it ineffectively, which diminished their leadership potential by allowing other political actors to shape the public debate.


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As it has evolved during the past century, a president’s skillful use of the bully pulpit is necessary to promote his philosophy for governing as well as the overall moral and political vision of the administration. It can also determine the effectiveness of presidential governance and whether or not a president can accomplish his policy and broader ideological objectives through rhetorical skills. However, some view this as an institutional dilemma for the modern presidency. Since the current political culture now demands the president to be a popular leader by fulfilling popular functions and serving the nation through mass appeal, this suggests that the presidency has greatly deviated from the original constitutional intentions of the founders. Some scholars have argued that the rhetorical presidency is a danger to the American constitutional democracy. According to political scientist Jeffrey Tulis, the Framers were quite suspicious of a popular leader and/or demagogue in the office of the presidency, since such a person might rely on tyrannical means of governing.23 By fulfilling popular functions and serving the nation through mass appeal, the presidency has now greatly deviated from the original constitutional intentions for the office, removing the buffer between citizens and their representatives that the Framers established. The current political culture now demands the president to be a popular leader, with ‘‘a duty constantly to defend themselves publicly, to promote policy initiatives nationwide, and to inspirit the population.’’ 24 Communications expert Roderick Hart also believes that the rhetorical presidency is a twentieth century creation and a constitutional aberration as the president now uses rhetoric as a ‘‘tool of barter rather than a means of informing or challenging a citizenry.’’ 25 In addition, this gives presidents extraconstitutional powers: All speech is not created equal. The speech of presidents is more powerful than most. This power derives in part from the office of the presidency, but it also derives from the attitudes presidents have toward the speech act itself. Most presidents, certainly most modern presidents, use speech aggressively. The position they hold and the information at their command give them the tremendous advantages of saying a thing first and saying it best.26

In contrast, other scholars view presidential rhetoric as a positive institutional and constitutional feature, as well as one imagined by the Framers as a necessary element of a properly functioning republic that allows presidents to speak directly to the public.27 In addition to the institutional and constitutional implications for public leadership, presidents and other political actors must also contend with their public image and how it is portrayed through the news media. From the founding era when newspaper publishers helped to disseminate the Federalist Papers as the 13 colonies debated ratification of the U.S. Constitution, to the present day with the Internet providing millions of

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American citizens an opportunity to participate in political discussions in various blogs and other chat rooms, the mass media—and in particular the news media—have always been an important source of information for American citizens about both politicians and the political process. Today, the political environment in the United States is dominated by the mass media, not only in the role it plays in how citizens stay informed of the government’s actions but also in how officials govern and politicians campaign for office. The image and communication skills of candidates matter now more than ever before due to the intense public scrutiny during a campaign from the news media, and high-profile government officials like the president, congressional leaders, state governors, and others must do their job knowing that the ever-watchful eye of the news media is ready to report on every step, or misstep, that they make. Technological advances throughout the years have played an important role in the evolving relationship between media and politics in the United States, and it greatly impacts public leadership strategies. Newer and better means of communicating give politicians more opportunities for public leadership in how they report on the activities of politicians. By all accounts, the United States is a deliberative democracy. The Framers of the U.S. Constitution set up a governing system that encouraged a spirited public debate, and those citizens participating in the debate have increased since the founding era through the enfranchisement of nearly all citizens. The First Amendment seems to guarantee freedom of the press, yet no absolute right exists for the news media to do or say whatever they wish. Nevertheless, the mass media is a dominant and permanent presence within American culture, and the same can be said of the news media within the American political environment. Reporting on the actions of politicians is a mainstay of daily news coverage in the United States. Americans must rely on the news media to tell them what has happened at the White House, on Capitol Hill, at the U.S. Supreme Court, or in state capitols on any given day. As a result, a unique relationship exists between the members of the government and the press, and the two often have competing interests. And, while tremendous similarities exist in the overall public leadership strategies that all politicians must develop, different office holders must also develop unique strategies that are tailored to their specific office. The president makes news by virtue of being the ideological symbol of American democracy and leadership to both journalists and the public. As a result, the news media has always been among the most influential political actors with which presidents must contend. The relationship is often an adversarial one since the president and news media need each other yet have different goals—the president wants positive coverage about the actions and policies of his administration, but ‘‘big’’ stories for the news media (which


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in turn mean higher ratings and circulations) usually come from negative and scandal-oriented stories about the president and/or his administration. Rarely has a president during the modern era not complained about the news media, the White House press corps, and the daily coverage of his administration. The White House press corps first received working space within the White House in 1904 during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, who actively cultivated a positive relationship with Washington reporters in an attempt to gain favorable coverage for his administration and legislative agenda. The White House Correspondents’ Association was formed in 1914, which contributed to the trend of professionalization of reporters within the newspaper industry during the early part of the twentieth century. The White House press corps experienced tremendous growth during the 1930s and 1940s, particularly during the years of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency (1933–1945), as presidential influence over national politics increased under the New Deal programs.28 Today, more than approximately 1,700 people hold White House press credentials, and while all are not considered ‘‘regulars’’ on the White House beat, the sheer size of the press corps has necessitated a more formalized daily press briefing than in years past. The emergence of the television age during the 1950s, and its expansive growth during the 1960s and 1970s, greatly contributed to the growth in the size of the White House press corps. Other factors contributing to the increase in number of reporters on the White House beat include the increased importance and size of the federal government and the role it plays in the lives of individuals, which requires reporters from non-Washington media outlets to cover policy making at the national level. Also, the number of foreign correspondents covering the White House has increased in recent decades as other countries have a greater need to understand the impact of American policies in their own countries.29 The prominence of the White House beat has also increased within the journalism industry, and is now viewed as one of the premier assignments in most news organizations. In recent years, the reporters who regularly cover the White House include representatives from a variety of media outlets, including the top daily newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today); the big three weekly news magazines (Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report); the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, MSNBC); and the major wire services (Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters). The growth in the size of the White House press corps has also contributed to the expansion of both the White House Press Office and Office of Communications, which must handle the increased demands of Washington reporters. Throughout the twentieth century, prominent reporters who covered the White House beat often played an important role in shaping the image of

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presidents in their respective media outlets as well as in the eyes of the American public. Therefore, presidents and their advisors during the modern era have actively developed strategies in an attempt to manage and control the news of their administrations in the national media. A White House communication strategy consists of various components, including the leadership style of the president, presidential rhetoric and speechwriting, presidential public activities, the presidential policy agenda, and the presidential/press relationship. Communication strategies have become an important and permanent part of the everyday operation of the White House. An effective presidential communication strategy can be a critical factor, at least for presidents since the emergence of the television age, in developing and implementing the administration’s policy goals.30 The president relies on two groups of advisors within the White House in an attempt to control his own public image and that of his administration— the press office and the Office of Communications. The press secretary heads the press office and is responsible for preparing press releases, coordinating news and holding daily press briefings for the White House press corps, and facilitating the needs of reporters who cover the president. The press secretary also serves as an important public spokesperson for the president and as a liaison between reporters and the White House. The Office of Communications develops a long-term public relations strategy, and also coordinates presidential coverage in regional and local media outlets. Advisers usually spread the ‘‘line-of-the-day’’ throughout the administration, which then takes it to the press; the office also takes the White House message directly to the people when necessary. The ultimate goal is to set the public agenda through the use of focus groups, polls, sound bites, and public appearances by the president. The current political environment with the news media, and in particular television, that presidents must face, which has steadily evolved since Vietnam and Watergate, is one that breeds mistrust, cynicism, and fierce competition among members of the White House press corps and their respective publications and news shows. The president is under constant scrutiny by the press, but must be careful in his criticisms of reporters, who can not only give voice to his opponents but can present the news as unflattering to the president’s public image. The president continues to be the most prominent political figure in news coverage, and his actions can dominate day-to-day news coverage. In the post-Watergate years, press coverage of the president and the White House has become more personal, intrusive, and obsessed with scandal. Television coverage of politics, and in particular the presidency, has not only personalized and politicized the functioning of the national government, but the immediacy of television coverage has also accelerated the decision-making process for presidents. The up-close-and-personal look


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at our presidents that television now provides through the plethora of public venues has also altered the political environment in which the president must lead. Americans have come to expect that the personal lives of presidents will make news, which has also desensitized the public to the tabloid-style reporting about personal indiscretions. Presidents must now pay close attention to their image as it is portrayed on television, but determining what is good for the president in terms of control over the message may not be the same as substantive information about the political process for the American electorate.31 Many scholars argue that the news media in general, and television in particular, has expanded presidential power, which in turn has limited congressional power and altered the system of checks and balances laid out within the framework of the Constitution. The president, as one person, has a much easier time getting the attention of the American public through the news media than a member of Congress, who is just one person out of 535. Not only have studies shown that the president receives much more coverage than Congress or the Supreme Court, but stories about the president will more than likely top the news. The president makes a better media target as a single-headed institution, readily personified, giving the audience a familiar and easily dramatized focal point. Congressional stories, on the other hand, are hard to make personal or dramatic. Most stories focus on individual members, especially if that member is contemplating a run for higher office, or on a specific piece of legislation. Rarely do stories ever focus on Congress as an institution, because with its complex system of committees and subcommittees, it is a difficult story to tell.32 Unlike the president, even the most prominent members of Congress are not guaranteed coverage just for what they say or do, unless, of course, a scandal is involved. For example, Representative Mark Foley (R-FL) gained weeks of national notoriety in the news media when he resigned his House seat in September 2006 after he was accused of sending inappropriate e-mail messages to former male congressional pages. Prior to the scandal, Foley’s name was not easily recognizable to the American public as a member of Congress; after the scandal, and for all the wrong reasons, he had become a household name. Not surprisingly, senators in general receive more coverage than members of the House, since many represent larger constituencies (from a large state like California or Texas, for example). Also, the nuts-and-bolts policy-making process within Congress is viewed by many viewers and readers as boring. Often, coverage comes when a policy initiative is first introduced (although sometimes this announcement comes from the president), and then again when the process has concluded. Often, the only coverage that occurs during the policy-making process is focused on intra- or interparty fighting over specifics of a bill. In terms of media coverage of policy issues,

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the president often fares better than his legislative colleagues on Capitol Hill —he tends to get a lot of attention for introducing his policy ideas, then the issue moves to Congress, where much of the process is ignored by the press, with the exception of political fighting over an issue. Then, when a bill is approved, cameras are almost always on hand to provide coverage of the president signing the bill into law.33 While the president is most concerned with coverage in national news outlets, members of Congress usually receive the majority of their individual coverage in their local newspapers or on local radio or television stations. According to congressional scholars Roger H. Davidson and Walter J. Oleszek, ‘‘Relations with the press receive careful attention from members,’’ with each member employing anywhere from one to three press aides whose job it is to generate positive news coverage about all that the member has accomplished. Many members also prepare columns to be printed in local newspapers, and both the House of Representatives and the Senate have television studios and satellite links that provide actualities (prepared statements by members) to local news outlets.34 Just as presidents want citizens to view them as active, productive, and successful leaders, so too do members of Congress, even if on a local as opposed to a national level. Virtually every issue of significance in American society eventually gets discussed by the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet, despite the Court’s role in national policy making, which at times has been extensive, it remains the most secretive and tradition-bound institution in American government.35 Its members and their decision-making process are guarded from both the press and the public. Not surprisingly, this contributes to the inadequate news coverage of the Court as the institutional nature of both the media and the Court often prevents effective reporting. The increasing speed by which journalists must prepare and present the news does not fit well with the traditions of the Court, which has been slow to enter the media age of sound bites and news briefs. The small amount of coverage on the Court, in part, is due to the lack of open participation in the political process by justices, and the difficulty faced by reporters in covering the Court. While the Court has expanded its Public Information Office, provides a small press room, and eventually abandoned ‘‘Decision Monday’’ to spread out the announcements throughout the week, reporters are still bombarded with many key decisions during the last few weeks of the term. Most reporters do not have legal training and find it difficult to thoroughly analyze the decisions within their deadlines.36 Judges, and in particular Supreme Court justices, seem to need the mass media the least of any political actors. As a result, they seem to exemplify public leadership in reverse—the lack of communication strategies and resulting news coverage seems to contribute to the public respect for the


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judicial branch in general and the Supreme Court in particular. With the exception of a nomination to the Court that stirs up some controversy (such as that of Clarence Thomas in 1991), justices as individuals rarely make news. One of the main reasons for this is the fact that cameras are never allowed in the Supreme Court, and without pictures the Court is less likely to receive coverage in today’s image-driven news environment. In addition, the justices do not need the news media to govern from center stage like the president or party leaders within Congress. Justices rarely give interviews, and because they are appointed to the bench for life, they need not worry about their public image for reelection. The Supreme Court, then, is the only federal branch that seems almost entirely immune from the pressures of the television age of politics. Many news organizations, including the New York Times, have argued in recent years that cameras should be allowed in the Court, so citizens can view this important part of the governmental process. Suggestions include a C-SPAN-type system of covering proceedings without commentary, but no progress has been made on this issue to date.37 However, some fear that providing cameras in the Supreme Court will encourage justices to develop a communication strategy, which could in turn tarnish the image of the Court as being above politics. Cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking executive branch officials must compete with the president and high-profile members of Congress to have a public voice in important policy debates, and news media coverage helps this to occur. Each executive branch department or agency has its own public information office and/or a public affairs/press secretary. As individuals, cabinet secretaries or department heads may have much less of a need for a public leadership strategy than their boss, the president, but some may have higher political aspirations (a run for public office or a more prestigious political appointment) that necessitate effective communication skills when necessary. According to media scholar David L. Paletz, bureaucrats cannot deny their need for news media, since favorable coverage allows them to ‘‘acquire, sustain, or reinforce the legitimacy of their department or agency with the other institutions of government and the public; achieve adequate, even increased, funding for their activities; facilitate their policy goals; and encourage acquiescence to their decisions.’’ 38 On the state and local levels, governors, state legislators, mayors, and even city councils must contend with how they are portrayed in local press outlets. Governors often develop similar public leadership strategies to that of the president, only on a state as opposed to a national level, with the capitol press corps as opposed to the White House press corps following their every move. Governors in large states (like California, New York, Texas, or Florida) and mayors of large cities (such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, or Houston, just to name a few) often have more of a need for press aides and a

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communication strategy due to the simple fact that they must govern in the nation’s major media markets where there are more media outlets. Elected or appointed officials at the state and local levels seek positive media coverage for the same reasons as their counterparts at the national level—support and resources for their policies and potential candidacies for higher office. According to media scholar Doris Graber, ‘‘[State and local] news sets the agenda for public policies. It helps or hinders politicians in achieving their goals. It influences the election and appointment of public officials. It informs the public and officialdom about political affairs and politicians’ wrongdoing.’’ 39 In sum, no politician at any level of government seems immune from worrying about his or her public image or how he or she may be judged in terms of his or her public leadership effectiveness.

MEMORABLE EXAMPLES OF PUBLIC LEADERSHIP Numerous examples exist of American politicians demonstrating effective public leadership. Some, however, seem to stand out more than others and have created a lasting image in the minds of American citizens. While few politicians are ever labeled as great communicators or effective public leaders, those who have earned that distinction set a high standard for their successors, as the following examples illustrate. President Franklin Roosevelt was known as a skilled communicator and his Fireside Chats set a new standard for presidents to effectively communicate and to establish a direct link with American citizens on important national and international issues. Roosevelt delivered the first of his 30 Fireside Chats at the end of his first week in the Oval Office in March 1933, and the speech allowed Roosevelt to reassure the American public that he would guide the economy from a depression into a recovery. He began the first radio address by saying, ‘‘I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking,’’ and continued for 20 minutes explaining in layman’s terms what Americans could do to assist in the recovery. This began an effective trend that the President would rely on throughout his tenure in office— the use of radio to enter the living rooms of Americans to talk, in simple terms that were easily understood, about the problems and challenges facing the country.40 While Roosevelt was also successful in his mastery of the press, skillfully managing news out of the White House through his frequent press conferences in the Oval Office, radio was his ‘‘most important link with the people.’’ Roosevelt’s warm voice and public speaking skills provided a natural format for the President, and he enjoyed these opportunities to chat with Americans. Roosevelt connected with the American public through radio: ‘‘Read in cold newspaper print the next day, these talks seemed somewhat stilted and banal. Heard in the parlor, they were fresh, intimate, direct,


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moving. The radio chats were effective largely because Roosevelt threw himself into the role of a father talking with his great family.’’ 41 While president for only three years (1961–1963), John F. Kennedy’s brief tenure in the White House would focus on imagery, rhetoric, and utilizing the emerging power of television to capture and deliver the youthful energy of the President and his administration to the American public. Through his public addresses, Kennedy talked of a ‘‘New Frontier’’ and motivated many Americans to become active in public service. One of, if not the, most memorable addresses that Kennedy ever delivered came on October 22, 1962, to discuss the Cuban Missile Crisis with American citizens. This historic 17-minute address, aired live on both television and radio, warned Americans of the possibility of nuclear war, and detailed both the plan to quarantine Soviet ships traveling into Cuba and his ultimatum to Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev to remove Soviet nuclear missiles stationed in Cuba. Prior to this international crisis, Kennedy had often been accused of being ‘‘soft’’ on communism, but this address left little doubt that he and his administration would respond swiftly and harshly if the nation’s security or that of any of its allies was threatened. Considered by many political observers to be young and inexperienced when he first took office, this particular moment of public leadership displayed Kennedy’s growing self-confidence as president, particularly in dealing with foreign affairs, and left a lasting impression to American citizens and other leaders around the globe of a confident and capable president in the face of a crisis.42 In the era of modern presidents, Ronald Reagan was perhaps the most successful at controlling his image through the mass media, earning himself the nickname the ‘‘Great Communicator,’’ and his administration the ‘‘Teflon’’ presidency. Reagan saw the bully pulpit as one of the president’s most important tools, and relying on his skills as an actor provided a strong image of moral leadership that restored Americans’ faith in government institutions. Imagery and symbolism also played a vital role in the communication strategy during the Reagan years. In addition to the major networks, radio, and the traditional print press, Reagan would find even more media outlets, aided by expanding technology such as cable television, with which to speak to the American public. However, the communication style of the Reagan presidency was tightly scripted and controlled. Nonetheless, Reagan often enjoyed favorable press coverage, and left office with high approval ratings despite the Iran-Contra scandal during his second term. 43 While Reagan enjoyed many public successes, particularly in his public addresses, perhaps the most quoted public statement that Reagan ever uttered came on June 12, 1987, in an address at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Germany, next to the Berlin Wall, when he offered a challenge to his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, to ‘‘tear down this wall.’’ From the start of his presidency,

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Reagan had relied on tough rhetoric towards the Soviet Union (which he called ‘‘the evil empire’’) to push for an end to the Cold War. The 1987 address, given on the west side of the Berlin Wall while citizens of communist–East Germany listened on the other side of the wall, solidified Reagan’s desired image of a statesman who devoted much of his presidency to ending communism. While these three presidents certainly set the standard for public leadership and effective use of the bully pulpit, relying on soaring rhetoric and their ability to connect with the American public, other notable examples of public leadership come from much different circumstances. Bill Clinton, for example, is often credited with excellent political instincts and communication skills, on which he often relied for political survival. Throughout his twoterm presidency, instead of using his strong communication skills to educate and lead the public on issues that mattered, Clinton was most often forced to defend himself against not only a Republican agenda but also against political attacks for his personal misdeeds. Clinton’s skills as an orator, and his ability to speak in an extemporaneous and empathetic manner, aided his leadership on some, if not all, of his legislative priorities, like affirmative action and education, yet the early assessment of his legacy suggests that Clinton missed many opportunities while in office to enact major policy changes (what Burns would call his opportunities for transformational leadership).44 Presidents are not the only politicians capable of demonstrating effective public leadership. In 1994, the Republican Party set out to win a majority in both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954. Led by Newt Gingrich, a representative from Georgia, Republicans developed an effective public relations strategy to attract voter support—tie congressional Democrats to the sinking approval ratings of their president, Bill Clinton, and present voters with a better option and a clear plan for change. That plan was known as the Contract with America, and it helped secure the Republican victory to take control of Congress. The Contract was a plan of action relying in part on passages from Ronald Reagan’s 1985 State of the Union Address in which the President talked of an ‘‘American Revolution’’ that could be achieved through government reform. Seen as a revolutionary political idea by many, the Contract presented the strength of the newly emerging conservative Republican majority in Congress. As a political strategy, it was also the first time that a congressional election had been run on mostly a national level, as opposed to individual districts. Gingrich became one of the most prominent Republican voices in 1994, and once the Republican majority was secured in Congress, he rode the political victory to become Speaker of the House of Representatives. While viewed as an enormous public relations success that portrayed Gingrich as an innovative leader, Republicans were only


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partially successful in enacting the provisions of the Contract over the next several years. A final example comes from outside the Washington Beltway, as national tragedy catapulted a big city mayor into the national political spotlight as a rising star within his political party. While many images of heroism and leadership still resonate from the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the days that followed, no one perhaps shaped his public image more than New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. At the end of his second term as mayor of the largest city in America, the moderate-to-liberal Republican who had been elected in a city dominated by Democratic voters earned high marks for his leadership skills, public and otherwise, as he responded to the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in the heart of his city. Giuliani showed proactive and determined leadership as the nation watched the recovery process within New York City; his actions received accolades from many places, including the Ronald Reagan Presidential Freedom Award (presented to him by former first lady Nancy Reagan), being knighted by the Queen of England, and named Person of the Year by Time magazine at the end of 2001. He then wrote a number one best seller in 2002, simply titled Leadership, and relying on that public success and name recognition, declared his candidacy for the presidency in 2007 by touting his executive and leadership experience as mayor.45 While his critics point out that he both overstated and overplayed his leadership experience as mayor, Giuliani nonetheless provides the penultimate example of how a public image as a successful leader can translate into greater political opportunities.

CONCLUSION As this chapter illustrates, public leadership is a permanent part of governing for public officials at all levels of government. However, a command of public leadership is tenuous at best; even great public speakers can have public relations disasters, but their strong communication skills and ability to connect with citizens often makes political survival easier to navigate. Key public moments invariably present themselves for presidents as well as other politicians, and how each individual responds and performs in public situations often defines much about someone’s true political leadership ability. Unfortunately, for many political leaders, the dominance of mass media in the current political environment has lent itself to a trend in the past two decades to more often highlight negatives or shortcomings about leaders as opposed to their positive attributes or success in office. In addition, the increasing public demands of political offices from the presidency on down, is often at odds with a deliberative democracy and can keep office holders from playing a key role in leading the public to be more informed about

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important policy issues. Even at the state and local levels, style often seems to matter more than substance in how public officials communicate with their respective constituents. The current media environment also encourages negative news about politicians and the governing process, which alienates many citizens from wanting to take part in the deliberations. As political scientist Thomas Patterson has pointed out, the shift of a descriptive reporting style in recent decades to one that is more interpretive (which gives journalists, and not the political actors being covered, more control over the content of news) has contributed to the public’s dissatisfaction with our leaders and institutions, thereby making effective governance more difficult to achieve.46 In the final analysis, why is public leadership important? By all accounts, at least theoretically, we do live in a deliberative democracy. The Framers certainly set up a constitutional system at the federal level that encouraged a spirited public debate, and that standard exists at the state and local levels as well. Presidents carry the largest political burden in this regard. Through the unique access that a president has to the bully pulpit, as well as the status as the only elected government official (along with the vice president) who represents all of the people, he has a special responsibility to lead a good portion of the public debate. What a president says publicly is so important in determining how the press will portray a president’s actions and policy directives that presidential rhetoric tends to define much of our political reality.47 There is hardly a moment when a president is not commanding attention on the national or international stage, and with so much attention paid to a president’s public leadership style, the president has virtually no room for rhetorical error and he poses a strategic risk for himself each time he appears in public. Yet, there seems to be no hope of reversing the increased expectation for presidents to continue to govern through a strategy that includes public leadership as a major component. The irony for today’s politicians can be found in the fact that while the role of television and the 24-hour news cycle has certainly altered our view of political leadership in that we tend to expect more in terms of performance and entertainment, Americans seem to be losing their patience year after year to listen to a substantive message that informs and educates them about important policy issues. The oversaturation of the mass media within our culture has shortened the American attention span, which is not good news for the political process or for the notion of a deliberative democracy. Returning to the example in the opening of the chapter regarding Arnold Schwarzenegger, it is the more dramatic coverage of a natural disaster that earned him perhaps his best reviews ever as governor, yet the most important feature of his job—the day-to-day policy making in Sacramento—does not draw nearly the attention of the press or California residents. Public leadership may determine a disproportionate amount of what is then translated into successful


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political leadership, but right or wrong, there seems to be no end in sight for the dominance of public criteria in assessing our political leaders.

NOTES 1. Michael Rothfeld, ‘‘Southland Blazes: Fire Crisis Plays to Governor’s Strengths,’’ Los Angeles Times, October 25, 2007, B1. 2. ‘‘Not Another Katrina: Wildfire Response Shows Why California Is the Gold Standard,’’ Washington Post, October 25, 2007, A24. 3. For example, see Thomas E. Cronin and Michael A. Genovese, The Paradoxes of the American Presidency, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 62–63. See also Robert K. Murray and Tim H. Blessing, Greatness in the White House: Rating the Presidents from George Washington Through Ronald Reagan, 2nd ed. (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., ‘‘The Ultimate Approval Rating,’’ New York Times Magazine, December 15, 1996: 46–51. 4. See Peter G. Northouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice, 3rd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2004). 5. See James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper & Row, 1978). 6. James MacGregor Burns, Transforming Leadership (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003), 29. 7. Bruce Miroff, Icons of Democracy: American Leaders as Heroes, Aristocrats, Dissenters, & Democrats (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 358. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., 9. 10. See Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership From Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: Macmillan, 1990). 11. Elmer E. Cornwell Jr., Presidential Leadership of Public Opinion (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1965), 3–7. 12. Theodore J. Lowi, The Personal President: Power Invested, Promise Unfulfilled (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), 138–139. 13. Samuel Kernell, Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2007), 10–11. 14. Lori Cox Han, Governing from Center Stage: White House Communication Strategies During the Television Age of Politics (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2001), 2. 15. Mary E. Stuckey, The President as Interpreter-in-Chief (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1991), 1–3. 16. George C. Edwards III, On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 241–246. 17. Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, The President’s Speeches: Beyond ‘‘Going Public’’ (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006), 157–164. 18. See Diane J. Heith, Polling to Govern: Public Opinion and Presidential Leadership (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), and Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro, Politicians Don’t Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).

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19. Brandice Canes-Wrone, Who Leads Whom? Presidents, Policy, and the Public (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 192. 20. Colleen J. Shogan, The Moral Rhetoric of American Presidents (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2006), 175. 21. Edwards, On Deaf Ears, 253–254. 22. See Carol Gelderman, All the President’s Words: The Bully Pulpit and the Creation of the Virtual Presidency (New York: Walker and Company, 1997); and Sidney M. Milkis and Michael Nelson, The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 5th ed. (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2008). 23. Jeffrey K. Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 28. 24. Ibid., 4–23. 25. Roderick P. Hart, The Sound of Leadership: Presidential Communication in the Modern Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 212. 26. Ibid., 110. 27. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Deeds Done in Words: Presidential Rhetoric and the Genres of Governance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 1, 213–219. 28. See Michael Emery and Edwin Emery, The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media, 8th ed. (Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1996), and Kernell, Going Public, 73–81. 29. See John H. Kessel, Presidents, the Presidency, and the Political Environment (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2001), 58–62. 30. Han, Governing from Center Stage, 2. 31. See Matthew Robert Kerbel, Remote & Controlled: Media Politics in a Cynical Age, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999); Kernell, Going Public; Kessel, Presidents, the Presidency, and the Political Environment; and Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, 7th ed. (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2006). 32. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, 271–274. 33. See Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, 271–281; and David L. Paletz, The Media in American Politics: Contents and Consequences, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 2002), 243–249. 34. Roger H. Davidson and Walter J. Oleszek, Congress and Its Members, 10th ed. (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2006), 144. 35. Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979), 1. 36. See David M. O’Brien, Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics, 6th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 316–322; Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, 287–289, and Paletz, The Media in American Politics, 313–324. 37. See O’Brien, Storm Center; Graber, Mass Media and American Politics; and Paletz, The Media in American Politics. 38. Paletz, The Media in American Politics, 289–291. 39. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, 299–301. 40. James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1956), 167–168.


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41. Ibid., 204–205. 42. For a discussion of Kennedy’s communication strategy, see Han, Governing From Center Stage, chap. 2. 43. Ibid., chap. 6. 44. See Lori Cox Han, ‘‘The President Over the Public: The Plebiscitary Presidency at Center Stage,’’ in The Presidency and the Challenge of Democracy, ed. Michael A. Genovese and Lori Cox Han (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006). 45. The Official Web site of the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee, http:// www.joinrudy2008.com/ (accessed December 19, 2007). 46. Thomas E. Patterson, ‘‘Bad News, Bad Governance,’’ Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 546, The Media and Politics (July 1996): 97–108. 47. David Zarefsky, ‘‘Presidential Rhetoric and the Power of Definition,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 34 (September 3, 2004): 607–619.

10 When the People Lead: Public Opinion and the Direction of Democratic Government MATTHEW J. STREB AND BRIAN FREDERICK

At the heart of a sound democratic government is an active citizenry whose opinions are voiced and usually translated into policy. As prominent political scientist V. O. Key Jr. once wrote, ‘‘Unless mass views have some place in the shaping of policy, all the talk about democracy is nonsense.’’ 1 Indeed, the word ‘‘democracy’’ stems from the Greek demos (people) and kratos (to rule). Although American democracy is generally representative in nature rather than direct, it is still based on the principle of popular sovereignty—the belief that citizens are the ultimate source of political power. That being the case, most Americans believe that on issues in which they have strong opinions, elected officials should listen to those opinions and enact them into law. While representatives should act as trustees on issues in which the public does not have enough information to form a judgment, voting based on what they believe is best for the district, state, or country, on the issues in which we do have opinions, we expect our representatives to act as delegates; in other words, to act as the voice of the people. If citizens want tax cuts or universal health care under a delegate view of representation, then politicians better give citizens tax cuts or universal health care; otherwise they will be looking for new jobs after the next election. When public policy mirrors public opinion, we refer to this as policy congruence. However, not everyone paints such a rosy picture of American democracy. A long line of scholars have argued that the American public is incapable of leading when it comes to policy. Americans, these scholars argue, are ill

When the People Lead

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informed about basic aspects of government, are incapable of thinking ideologically, and do not have stable opinions on issues if they have any opinions at all. From their perspective, the American political system functions as an elite democracy in which political decisions are made by leaders in big business, the media, and the military, not rank-and-file citizens through elected officials.2 If true, then as Key noted, ‘‘democratic government only amounts to a hoax, a ritual whose performance serves only to delude the people and thereby convert them into willing subjects of the powers that be.’’ 3 In this chapter, we examine the role that public opinion plays in the policy process. Simply put, can the people lead? Although it would be wrong to argue that public opinion always influences public policy, on the whole studies find that there is a prominent place for the public in the policy-making process. We discuss the influence that public opinion has on all three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial). Given the intent of the founders, it is not surprising that public opinion does not influence all three branches equally. Even in the case of the judiciary, however, the branch that many of the Founding Fathers, most notably Hamilton, believed should be insulated from public opinion, studies find this not to be the case. However, before we turn to the influence that public opinion has on the three branches of government, it is important to address how scholars have perceived the American public’s capabilities to influence policy over time.

CAN THE PEOPLE LEAD? Being an active, informed citizen takes a lot of work. One must be informed on myriad issues, many of which are technical rather than symbolic. It is probably not too difficult for people to decide how they feel about abortion, but where they stand on energy policy, the alternative minimum tax, or foreign aid to Djibouti might be a different story. Founding Fathers, including Madison and Hamilton, certainly questioned the capabilities of the average citizen, as did philosophers like Tocqueville. Madison, for instance, defended the creation of a senate ‘‘as a defence [sic] to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions.’’ 4 One of the first true scholars of public opinion, journalist Walter Lippmann, sympathized with the daunting task the American public faced. In his book, The Phantom Public, Lippmann wrote: My sympathies are with [the private citizen], for I believe that he has been saddled with an impossible task and that he is asked to practice an unattainable ideal. I find it so myself for, although public business is my main interest and I give most of my time to watching it, I cannot find time to do what is expected of me in the theory of democracy; that is, to know what is going on and to have an opinion worth expressing on every question which confronts a self-governing

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community. And I have not happened to meet anybody, from a President of the United States to a professor of political science, who came anywhere near to embodying the accepted ideal of the sovereign and omnicompetent citizen.5

In Lippmann’s mind it was not that Americans were incompetent, it was that they were overwhelmed. Because of the difficulty of being informed, Lippmann saw little role for the American public in decisions about policy. Lippmann’s view of the American public was not nearly as bleak as some of the later studies of public opinion that came along, perhaps most notably those from scholars at the University of Michigan. In a seminal work on the American voter, creatively titled The American Voter, and subsequent works, Philip Converse and his colleagues painted a dreary picture of the American public.6 According to the Michigan school scholars, the American public was ill-informed about basic aspects of government, generally disinterested in politics, and incapable of thinking ideologically. Instead, Converse argued that most Americans had ‘‘nonattitudes’’ when it came to where they stood on most issues. According to the theory of nonattitudes, so as not to appear ill-informed respondents essentially lie when answering survey questions. They give answers as though they have true opinions when, in reality, they do not. If it is true that nonattitudes exist in most Americans, then public opinion polls are essentially measuring nothing but noise. More recent work depicts the average American in only slightly more positive terms. Although disagreeing with Converse that responses to survey questions were random, political scientists John Zaller and Stanley Feldman argue that most people do not have fully formed opinions on issues.7 Instead, they carry around a mix of only partially consistent information and then provide top-of-the head responses. As a result, their responses are not true opinions, but just the most accessible information available at the time the questions are asked. It is certainly tough to deny that Americans are ill-informed about basic government facts. Table 10-1 presents a wide array of factual questions regarding government; the responses are underwhelming to say the least, and this is only a small sample of such questions.8 But the situation may not be as dire as it appears. Indeed, although the Michigan scholars questioned the capabilities of the average citizen, other scholars around the same time saw the American public in a more positive light. ‘‘Voters are not fools,’’ wrote Key. ‘‘The electorate behaves about as rationally and responsibly as we should expect, given the clarity of the alternatives presented to it and the character of the information available to it.’’ 9 Other studies of public opinion data portray a different view of Americans as well. The authors of the most comprehensive book on American political attitudes, political scientists Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro argue that the American public is a ‘‘rational public.’’ 10 The authors demonstrate


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that when studied individually there appears to be significant fluctuation in opinions, but when studied collectively public opinion is quite stable. It is more malleable on some issues (foreign policy) than others (economic issues), but a core group of Americans have definite preferences on issues and those who do not cancel each other out. This is not to imply that public opinion on issues does not change. Indeed, on issues such as segregation Americans’ opinions have changed markedly; however, this change was not abrupt. And, in the rare instances where abrupt change occurred (usually foreign policy), there is often a reasonable explanation for the shift. For example, support for the Vietnam War dropped substantially after the Tet Offensive—a surprise attack by the North Vietnamese on the lunar New Year. Until that point, President Lyndon Johnson had argued that the communist forces were ready to break and that the end of the war was in sight. The Tet Offensive, viewed by millions in their homes on television, indicated otherwise. Although the United States won the battle, in the eyes of most Americans the end of the war remained in the distant future. As a result, support for the Vietnam War plummeted. Page and Shapiro are not the only scholars to come to the rescue of the American public. Even Michael X. Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, the authors of What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters, the book that produced some of the embarrassing results in Table 10-1, do not completely discount the cognitive abilities of the American public. Studying more than Table 10-1 Americans’ Knowledge of Politics Question

Percent Correct

What does the Constitution say about religion?

77

Is the United States a member of NATO?

61

How many Senators are from each state?

55

What is one branch of government?

44

What is the electoral college?

35

What is the substance of Roe v. Wade?

30

What is the length of a House term?

30

What is the length of a Senate term?

25

Who are both Senators from your state?

20

What was the New Deal?

15

Who is the Supreme Court Chief Justice?

8

What are two Fifth Amendment rights?

2

Source: Adapted from Michael X. Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996).

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Figure 10-1 Opinions on Selected Issues, by Ideology

3,700 factual questions from 1940 to 1994, the authors conclude that, ‘‘Taken as a whole, these figures suggest that the American public, while not as politically informed as one might hope, is also not as uninformed as some characterizations have suggested.’’ 11 Finally, public opinion surveys regularly illustrate the trends that one would expect regarding positions on issues; liberals, not surprisingly, take the more liberal position on issues than conservatives, and vice versa. Figure 10-1 presents survey results on six issues broken down by ideology. In the first five questions, respondents were asked if they thought the government was spending too much money, too little money, or about the right amount of money on Social Security; improving and protecting the nation’s health; welfare; protecting the environment; and public schools.12 For the sixth question, respondents were asked whether government should guarantee jobs and a good standard of living. The results in Figure 10-1 are coded as the percentage giving the liberal response. Although not perfect evidence of ideological congruency (e.g., a significant percentage of conservatives took the ‘‘liberal’’ position on health care spending), in each case, liberals were more likely to take the liberal position than conservatives. These


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responses provide compelling evidence that American public opinion is not a meaningless charade devoid of a rational ideological component.

POLICY CONGRUENCE IN THE FEDERAL AND STATE LEGISLATURES If we accept as fact that Americans, while certainly not as knowledgeable about issues as democratic theorists would want, are capable of holding relatively stable opinions on issues, then the question becomes: do elected officials and other members of government listen to and enact policy or make rulings consistent with those opinions? In this section we answer the question as it relates to federal and state legislatures; in the next two sections we examine the issue as it relates to the president and the courts. The answer is, not surprisingly, that the opinions of the American public matter more on some issues than others and matter more to some government actors than others, but, as a whole, there is considerable evidence of policy congruence; public policy generally tracks public opinion. Scholars can analyze policy congruence one of two ways: dyadically or collectively. Dyadic representation refers to an individual’s one-on-one relationship with her elected official. On the other hand, collective representation relates to whether citizens’ views are adopted by the legislative body as a whole. For example, if public opinion polls indicate that the people want tax cuts, then does the legislature enact tax cuts? Under collective representation, policy congruence can exist even if an individual’s representative casts a vote contrary to the constituent’s policy position. This distinction between dyadic representation and collective representation is important. It is impossible, even in increasingly homogenous districts, for representatives to represent all of their constituents on every policy issue. Still, to use a term from Edmund Burke, those constituents who are not represented through policy by their elected officials may be ‘‘virtually represented’’ by other members of the legislature. As political scientist Robert Weissberg writes, ‘‘Within this tradition the central question would be whether Congress as an institution represented the American people, not whether each member of Congress represented his or her particular district.’’ 13 Weissberg finds that collectively citizens’ policy concerns are well represented in Congress.14 When examining policy congruence, scholars must also be aware of the different constituencies that legislators are trying to please. In his seminal book on representation in Congress, Richard Fenno argues that members of Congress have four constituencies: (1) geographical constituency—all of the people who live in the district; (2) reelection constituency —those people who have voted for the representative in the past;

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(3) primary constituency—distinguishes between those people who have been temporary supporters and those people who have been consistent supporters of the representative; (4) personal constituency—made up of family and closest friends.15 As we noted, it is impossible for representatives to represent their entire geographical constituency through policy, so perhaps the better question is, does policy responsiveness exist between representatives and their reelection constituencies?16 Indeed, scholars who do find evidence of policy congruence in legislatures caution that some members of the public matter more than others.17 The work of John Griffin and Brian Newman establishes that voters have systemically different policy preferences than nonvoters. Further, as they document through an analysis of the voting records of members of the U.S. Senate, although senators do respond to the ideological preferences of voters in their states, there is no corresponding relationship for the views of nonvoters. So any conclusions regarding the influence of constituency preferences should emphasize that politicians primarily care about what active participants in the voting process think because they are the people who will ultimately decide their fate, not every single member of the adult population.18 Moreover, one must consider how policy congruence is measured. Some studies look at only one or two issues and then, essentially, see if a correlation exists between constituent opinion and the representative’s votes on those issues. Obviously, these studies are limited in what they can say about the depth of policy congruence. While policy congruence might exist on the one or two issues analyzed, it is not clear that policy congruence exists across a wide range of issues. As a result, other studies create ideological indexes of public opinion on multiple issues—what one scholar has deemed ‘‘policy mood’’ 19—and then compare that to the overall ideological leanings of the state or district. These studies do not allow for conclusions about responsiveness on specific issues, but can discern whether the most liberal areas have the most liberal policy mood and vice versa.20 Finally, even scholars who support the idea that public opinion influences policy have to agree that other factors may be the driving force behind representatives’ votes. Certainly district opinion may be one influence, but interest groups and political parties may convince representatives to act against the wishes of their constituents. On some issues, the president’s position may push a politician to vote a certain way, especially if the person is a member of the president’s party. And, occasionally, members of Congress may choose to act as trustees instead of delegates based on their own positions on issues. Because of these other influences, we should not expect public opinion to always drive public policy. A better benchmark is how often this is the case. As a whole, the literature on policy congruence and legislatures supports the idea of, what one group of scholars has termed, ‘‘dynamic


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representation’’;21 public policy generally tracks public opinion. One of the earliest works to study policy representation, written by two of the authors of The American Voter and which examined policy congruence dyadically, found that on some issues policy tracked closely with public opinion (e.g., racial issues), while on others public opinion had little influence (e.g., foreign policy).22 The findings of the study were taken with caution, however, given the small and unrepresentative nature of the samples in the selected congressional districts. Still, the study sparked a long line of research dedicated to the question of policy congruence in legislatures. Another leading article on policy congruence, written by Page and Shapiro, uncovered even stronger evidence of policy congruence.23 Although they were cautious in their conclusions, the authors examined a few hundred issues from 1935 to 1979 and found that when public opinion changed public policy changed with it as well 66 percent of the time. Not surprisingly, policy congruence was greater the more salient the issue. Moreover, the authors concluded that public opinion is more likely to affect policy than policy is likely to affect public opinion.24 Since these groundbreaking studies, numerous others have documented policy congruence in Congress as well. The following are merely a sampling. Suzanna De Boef and James Stimson find that, in the aggregate, House elections are responsive to changes in public opinion.25 Additionally, members of Congress are also influenced by so-called mandate elections, such as 1980 or 1994, when massive election victories signal profound shifts in the ideological mood of the public causing national legislators to alter their voting records to reflect these major political swings.26 Studying the U.S. Senate, Gerald Wright and Michael Berkman discover that policy issues systematically influence voters’ decisions, which, in turn, promote policy congruence. 27 Wright and Robert Erikson find that the most liberal districts (as measured by district presidential vote) elect the most liberal members and vice versa for conservative districts and conservative representatives.28 The same results hold for the Senate. Kim Quaile Hill and his colleagues find that as more low-income people are mobilized to vote, welfare benefits provided by the state are more generous.29 John Jackson and David King report that constituent preferences were a significant influence on representatives’ vote decisions regarding the 1978 Tax Reform Act.30 Several studies find a significant relationship between the public’s attitudes on defense spending and budget roll calls on the issue.31 Two of the most impressive studies of policy congruence in Congress and the state legislatures have been conducted by Robert Erikson and his colleagues. Both studies examine policy congruence collectively and use a composite measure of policy liberalism as the dependent variable. In the article ‘‘Dynamic Representation,’’ James Stimson, Michael MacKuen, and

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Erikson find that policy congruence occurs in one of two ways.32 First, elections allow for policy congruence because they give the public a chance to remove from office politicians who no longer reflect the public will. According to the authors, elections cause dynamic representation in the Senate. Second, the rational anticipation of elections allows policy congruence to happen. Under this view, elected officials respond to changes in public opinion by modifying their positions on issues keeping policy congruence intact; in other words, policy reflects changes in public opinion without turnover in elected officials. The House of Representatives provides evidence of the rational anticipation of elections. Similar findings exist in analyses of policy congruence at the state legislative level. In his groundbreaking work on representation in state governments, Erikson and his colleagues Gerald Wright and John McIver argue that public opinion is a major importance in the determination of state public policy.33 According to these authors, state political structures listen to public opinion, passing more liberal policies in liberal states and more conservative policies in conservative states. Political parties, then, are electorally rewarded or punished based on how well their incumbents represent state opinion. Another more recent study bolsters the claim that constituency preferences influence the behavior of state legislators.34 Examining the voting records of California Assembly members before and after the recall process that led to the election of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the authors of this study demonstrate that Democratic legislators in districts carried by the new governor shifted their voting records to the right in response to changes in the policy mood of their constituents. This ideological movement was especially pronounced for legislators in more competitive districts. In another analysis, Paul Burstein tries to tie together the results of 30 studies of policy congruence at various levels of government. Although the methods Burstein uses are beyond the scope of this chapter, he finds ‘‘(1) Public opinion affects policy three-quarters of the times its impact is gauged; its effect is of substantial policy importance at least a third of the time, and probably a fair amount more. (2) Salience does affect the impact of public opinion on policy.’’ 35 Finally, one of the most interesting recent studies on the subject of policy congruence in Congress, conducted by political scientist Joshua Clinton, comes to a qualified conclusion regarding policy congruence in the House of Representatives.36 Using an unprecedented data set of more than 100,000 respondents, Clinton is able to measure constituency and subconstituency— those who self-identify with the incumbent’s party—preferences in congressional districts and compare them to roll call voting in the 106th House. Clinton finds that Republican incumbents are more responsive to subconstituency preferences than Democratic incumbents, but also party leaders,


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interest groups, campaign contributors, and the president may influence the passing of public policy. Although the preceding studies provide strong evidence of policy congruence, not everyone is convinced that the public is ‘‘leading’’ when it comes to policy decisions. Early studies of interest groups, for example, argued that interest groups are not reflective of public opinion but have a sizeable influence over public policy. In other words, interest groups thwart public opinion’s influence over public policy. 37 For instance, big business, whose interests and concerns may run counter to public opinion as a whole, make up a high proportion of interest groups.38 The same could be said regarding political parties whose members may be more liberal or conservative than the public as a whole. However, recent scholarship has undermined those claims. Gray and her colleagues challenge the view that interest groups undermine policy congruence.39 Using an index of policy liberalism as the dependent variable, the authors find that ‘‘the influence of organized interests on public policy is, at least in the aggregate, quite small.’’ 40 They go on to write, ‘‘The main contours of public policy—at least in terms of the kinds of policies that sharply distinguish the major political parties—are set by public opinion.’’ 41 Regarding parties, Brandice Canes-Wrone and her colleagues analyze House elections from 1956 to 1996 and report that elections hold members of Congress accountable for their legislative voting. The more a representative votes with the extremes of his or her party, the more they are punished at the polls.42 Burstein’s results also allow us to cautiously reject the view that interest group and political party involvement eliminates the effect of public opinion on public policy.43 Another reason why some scholars question evidence of policy congruence is because they do not accept the assumption that the public holds preferences on many issues. R. Douglas Arnold asserts that most of us are, what he terms, ‘‘inattentive publics’’ on most issues. In other words, citizens do not have more than rudimentary knowledge on most of the bills that Congress debates, and they often are not interested in the issues that Congress is tackling. According to Arnold, the bills proposed in Congress are complex, so much so that average citizens cannot determine whether their interests are being served.44 Furthermore, some groups of legislators may feel they have more leeway to ignore the wishes of their constituents than do others. For instance, studies looking at the voting behavior of members of the Congressional Black Caucus indicate they often compile voting records demonstrably to the left of their constituents. This phenomenon is linked to the tendency of African American voters not to hold African American representatives accountable for their policy records to the same extent as do other groups of voters.45

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Others claim that studies of policy congruence are flawed because they are incorrectly measuring the causal mechanism of policy change. Instead of public opinion change followed by policy change, scholars believe that elite opinion drives changes in public opinion.46 Elected officials manipulate public opinion on an issue and then enact legislation consistent with public opinion. The key here is that, under this view of policy congruence, it is political elites that take the lead regarding public opinion and not the public as a whole. Again, studies have challenged the finding of elite manipulation of public opinion. In their study of defense spending, Hartley and Russett uncover no evidence that government systematically influences public opinion.47 Hill and Hinton-Andersson argue that, while elite opinion can influence mass preferences, the opposite is true as well.48 Burstein also challenges the elite manipulation hypothesis.49 As the authors of one of the leading texts on U.S. public opinion point out, the pathway of influence operates in both directions. They argue that, ‘‘To contend that public opinion influences policy does not require the driving force of politics must be some sort of populist will of the masses that arises independent of elite influence. When public opinion changes, it usually follows the elite discourse . . . . But there can also be no doubt that public opinion sets limits on how far policy will go’’ in respect to elite sentiment on a given issue.50 In other words, elites may frame policy choices for the people, but if the people fundamentally object to the direction politicians want to lead them then the power of elite influence is ultimately constrained.

POLICY CONGRUENCE AND THE PRESIDENT Although members of Congress generally want to listen to their constituents’ opinions in order to be reelected, it is less clear that presidents are guided by public opinion, especially when they are lame ducks. President George W. Bush has made his thoughts on the role of public opinion polls in a democracy quite clear. In April 2007, in response to a query about the unpopularity of his Iraq policy, President Bush proclaimed that, ‘‘If you make decisions based upon the latest opinion poll, you won’t be thinking long-term strategy on behalf of the American people.’’ 51 Based on some of his recent actions, the President is practicing what he preaches. Despite strong opposition to his Iraq policy as shown by the results of the 2006 midterm elections, rather than moving his policy closer toward the voters, Bush decided to introduce a surge of additional troops that was largely opposed by most Americans. Even on the domestic front, the president vetoed a highly popular expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Plan, despite its passage by bipartisan majorities in Congress.52 Instead of pursuing a moderate course aimed at placating the median voter, George W. Bush has been a polarizing


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force in American politics consistently pushing for policies that reflect his core conservative convictions.53 Do the actions of President Bush typify the behavior of most occupants of the White House? Does U.S. public opinion have an influence on the policy direction of most U.S. presidents? This section answers these questions by reviewing the available evidence from studies looking at the connection between public opinion and the policy decisions of U.S. presidents. Prior to the advent of modern survey research, deciphering the state of public opinion was an uncertain proposition for U.S. presidents. Since the mid-twentieth century, public opinion polls have become a pervasive feature of the American political landscape and presidents now have a better sense of what the people want from their elected leaders. In the minds of some scholars, the result has been a trend toward greater responsiveness by presidents in the modern era.54 The most persuasive evidence that public opinion influences U.S. presidents’ positions on issues comes from the two groundbreaking studies conducted by Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson mentioned earlier tracking presidential policy activity for over four decades from the beginning of the 1950s until the mid-1990s.55 In order to investigate this question, the authors utilize announced presidential positions on legislation before Congress, the ideological composition of the president’s core supporters in Congress, and the position of the administration in briefs filed by the solicitor general in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court as their measures of policy activity. The authors discover that public opinion influences presidential policy in the similar ways as it does congressional policy. In one path, it is influenced through the electoral process. When the public grows more liberal, it is more likely that a Democratic president will be elected. Conversely, as public opinion moves to the right, a Republican presidential victory becomes more likely. When the public elects a president of a different party, there is a profound shift in the policy positions of the incoming presidential administration. However, once in office, movements in public opinion also cause change in presidential policies. Presidents augment their policy stances to more closely reflect the sentiment of the voters. As Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson point out, these shifts are ‘‘typically contrary to the ideological persuasion of a president; that is liberals and Democrats produce opinion movements toward conservatism, and conservatives and Republicans do the reverse. Thus, the flavor of public opinion influence on presidencies is to induce moderation as the term wears on.’’ 56 This assessment is contrary to the vision advanced by George W. Bush and paints a picture of presidents as generally responsive to the American people. If the majority of the public wants policy to move in a certain way, then elections can be a catalyst for change, but so can presidential reactions to mass opinion while in office.57

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This more optimistic outlook on presidential responsiveness to public sentiment is called into question by other scholars. One view, offered by political scientist Jeffrey Cohen, holds that presidents are responsive to public opinion only in symbolic terms rather than on a substantive level. Presidents may want to appear as if they are concerned with the opinions of average Americans, but they also fear that complying with public opinion can cause them to implement policies that would have negative long-term consequences eventually inflicting damage on their political position in the future. 58 Employing a time series design with features similar, but not identical, to the work of Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson, Cohen insists the evidentiary record corroborates his theory. Although he does find that presidential policy pronouncements in State of the Union speeches are directly influenced by public opinion, when scrutinizing the data by individual policy area the significance of this relationship vanishes. He also tests for substantive responsiveness in the positions taken by presidents on major legislation before Congress and fails to come up with any direct connection between the policy mood of the public and presidential policy positioning. Another perspective on this relationship centers on the political context facing the president. Some scholars contend that presidential standing as measured by overall job approval ratings will dictate presidents’ willingness to lean toward what the public wants (the same could be said for legislators). One view is that as presidents become more popular they are less willing to conform to the wishes of the people.59 Another theory posits that the relationship between presidential popularity and responsiveness is not a linear one.60 According to this conceptualization, presidents at the highest level of popularity are less likely to be responsive as are presidents who have the lowest approval ratings. Presidents with ratings closer to the mean value are the most likely to be influenced by public opinion. More popular presidents can afford to suffer some loss in popularity if they do not yield to public opinion and still win reelection, while the only way an unpopular president can win reelection is to put in place a policy that will eventually be viewed as successful, even if it is initially unpopular. For presidents closer to the average rating, the minor boost in popularity that stems from responding to what the voters want will be most likely to help presidents in this position win reelection. Another contextual claim advanced in this theory is that presidential policy positions will be more in line with the public as the date of the next election grows closer, in a fashion similar to U.S. Senators who are more responsive to voters in the final two years of their six-year term.61 Tests of this theory have been undertaken by compiling the budgetary proposals offered by presidents from Richard Nixon through Bill Clinton and comparing them to the spending preferences of Americans in various issue domains.62 The results offer support for the theory of conditional responsiveness. As the date of


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election becomes more imminent, presidential congruence with public opinion tends to increase. Additionally, these analyses validate the hypothesis that the most popular and least popular presidents are least likely to follow public opinion. The authors of these studies also find that responsiveness varies depending on the issue area, with presidential budget requests more likely to correspond with the position of the public in policy domains of greatest concern to the public such as crime, education, and health care. In contrast, congruence is less frequent on more complex, low profile issues like the space program and foreign affairs. Perhaps the most prominent criticism of the responsive view of the presidency proposed by Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson comes from researchers who conduct in-depth case studies of the two most recent presidents. According to Lawrence Jacobs and Robert Shapiro, responsiveness fluctuates over time and it is currently in a cycle of decline.63 In more recent years the political system has created incentives for presidents to move away from the ideological center. Because of changes in the presidential nomination system and other structural forces in American politics, presidents are now less willing to comply with what the public wants on various policy questions. These scholars contend that, rather than respond to public opinion, presidents now try to manipulate it with increasing frequency. To support their argument, Jacobs and Shapiro conducted an in-depth case study of the Clinton administration’s efforts to reform the health care system during his first two years in office. Relying on a vast array of poll data, interviews with actors involved with the formation of the policy, and documents on administration policy, Jacobs and Shapiro conclude that President Clinton expressed little desire to propose a plan that was in harmony with what a majority of Americans thought was advisable. Instead, he was primarily concerned with formulating a plan that reflected his own policy predilections and the views of other elite actors in the process. Rather than moving closer to the public, Clinton launched a drive to convince the American people to get behind his preferred alternative. Clinton’s actions exemplify the approach of modern politicians who try to manufacture public opinion rather than respond to it. The portrait painted by Jacobs and Shapiro’s work is sharply contested by Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson. The latter point out that Clinton was severely punished by the voters for his defiance of public opinion when the voters handed control of Congress to the Republicans for the first time in 40 years following the 1994 midterm elections.64 Recognizing he had positioned himself too far to the left, Clinton moved back toward the political center and handily won reelection in 1996. Another pair of scholars, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, refuses to accept the notion that more recent presidents are as responsive as was once the case.65 They employ a similar methodology as Jacobs and Shapiro, but focus

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on the presidency of George W. Bush. Hacker and Pierson echo many of Jacobs and Shapiro’s arguments about presidential attempts to manipulate public opinion. However, they claim that the Bush administration and its Republican supporters have gone even farther by designing policies in such a fashion that their true cost and impact cannot be readily discerned by the public. Most of their concentration on Bush administration policy is in the domestic realm with an emphasis on the efforts to enact sweeping tax cuts supported by the President in 2001 and 2003. Hacker and Pierson charge that members of the Bush administration were well aware that the tax reductions largely favoring upper income Americans did not enjoy popular support if they were placed in the context of other policy trade-offs, such as increases in education and health care spending, deficit reduction, and many others. Facing this reality, the Bush administration engaged in an orchestrated campaign to convince the public that the tax cuts did not disproportionately favor the rich, and designed the legislation in such a way that the true costs of the bills were underestimated because of the sunsetting of popular provisions sure to be renewed and through other mechanisms that exploded the cost of the tax cuts in later years. The result was that the final policy outcome actually deviated from true preferences of the American public. Nevertheless, Bush and his supporters were shielded from the political consequences due to the misleading way the proposals were framed for the public and because the political system no longer punishes candidates who eschew the ideological center as it once did. So, the argument goes, Bush loyalists in Congress were free too support his policies regardless of what the public wanted since gerrymandering in the latest round of redistricting ensured they would be reelected with relative ease no matter how extreme their voting records happened to be. Hacker and Pierson’s account has not been fully embraced by some observers who contend both rounds of the Bush tax cuts garnered majority support according to public opinion polls.66 The scholars argue that when the people were asked up or down whether they supported tax cuts, most of them responded that they did. Hence, Bush was not ignoring public opinion in his efforts to reduce the federal tax burden. In response, Hacker and Pierson argue that when trade-offs were presented to use the money for the other purposes, support for the tax cuts dropped dramatically. However, as Bartels notes, these other alternatives were not put before the public by the President. Bartels asserts that ‘‘In the case of the tax cuts, President Bush posed the question and the people’s response, insofar as they responded at all, was a vigorous ‘Yes.’ ’’ 67 Thus, President Bush’s major domestic initiative was not out of step with the prevailing view in the country. Leaving this issue aside, as was referenced previously, in other areas President Bush has openly defied the views expressed by a majority of the public in favor of his own ideological


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position. His actions on Iraq and health care tend to lend some support for Hacker and Pierson’s general claim of declining presidential responsiveness. If there is not a clear scholarly consensus on the extent to which public opinion plays a role in shaping the policy actions of presidents, then does the totality of the research lean in one direction or the other? Overall, it appears the weight of the evidentiary scale tips in favor of the perspective offered by Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson. There are instances where presidents are willing to buck public opinion and pursue an unpopular course of action as the examples of Clinton and Bush illustrate. Nevertheless, what is also clear is that the most rigorous, systematic analyses indicate that, generally, changes in public sentiment do cause presidents to shift their policy course. It may be conditioned on the political context at a given time, but public opinion does indeed matter. Furthermore, presidents who drift too far away from the public’s ideal point will eventually face electoral sanction. If the public wants policy to advance in a more liberal direction, then it can elect a Democratic president and vice versa. As rational political actors, presidents are acutely aware of this reality and they behave accordingly.68 Yes, President Bush may be more concerned with a long-term view of history and less worried about shifts in contemporary public opinion. He can afford to because he no longer has to face the voters. Members of his party did confront the voters in 2006 and were given a harsh rebuke. The President has lost his governing majority in Congress and now confronts an environment of having to accept or reject more liberal policies passed by a Democratic Congress. In addition, the odds for a Republican presidential victory in 2008 have only been damaged by President Bush’s refusal to change his Iraq policy in response to widespread public opposition to the status quo. The American public may not be getting the results they want at the moment, but in 2008 they are likely to get a president who will at the very least dramatically scale back the U.S. presence in Iraq. Ultimately, however, it will require further scholarly inquiry to make a determination about whether George W. Bush’s record is an aberration or represents an emerging trend in presidential leadership. Until then, it seems premature to declare that the era of presidential responsiveness is over.

POLICY CONGRUENCE AND THE JUDICIARY Of the three branches of government that constitute the U.S. government, the most removed from direct political influence is the federal judiciary. The Framers of the U.S. Constitution designed a system that would insulate federal judges from the opinions of the masses. Federal judges are appointed rather than elected and enjoy lifetime tenure on the bench to protect judicial independence. Despite this distance from the electoral process, many scholars

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have been skeptical that the U.S. Supreme Court has been a countermajoritarian force in American politics. Political scientist Robert Dahl advanced this view in a 1957 article examining decisions of the Supreme Court through the course of its history.69 According to Dahl, the Court rarely challenged the popular will through its power of judicial review. His research showed that statutes passed by the governing majority were seldom invalidated by the Court over the arch of his study. Dahl reasoned that because the justices were selected and confirmed by politicians subjected to election by the people and since turnover on the Court was so frequent, its decisions would never veer too far away from what the dominant political regime endorsed. Hence, he concluded the Supreme Court conferred legitimacy on the policies embraced by the national consensus through its tendency to uphold rather than overturn laws. The view emanating from his study was that the Supreme Court was an institution generally operating in accord with the wishes of the public. One limitation of Dahl’s study was that he had no direct measure of what the public actually wanted. Writing in an era when scientific survey research was still in its formative years, he could only infer that the Supreme Court was pursuing a policy course that corresponded with what the American people desired. Dahl’s estimate of public opinion was the policy outputs of public officials elected by the voters, not the opinions of the actual voters themselves. Therefore, his contention that the Court was not a countermajoritarian force in American politics only applied to the majority position of elected officials, not necessarily the U.S. population. Dahl’s findings were subsequently challenged by scholars who suggested the Court was more active in striking down laws enacted by the elected branches than portrayed in his previous research.70 However, it took several decades before rigorous quantitative tests were undertaken on the question of whether popular opinion influences Supreme Court decision making. Studies published during the 1980s found that most Court decisions were generally congruent with public opinion.71 The most extensive direct test of this question was undertaken by political scientists William Mishler and Reginald Sheehan.72 These scholars posited that the Supreme Court was both directly and indirectly influenced by public opinion. The indirect effects operated through the changing composition of the Court generated by the appointment process. They also claimed that current members of the Court would be influenced by shifts in public opinion and adjust their decisions accordingly. This movement would occur in part to preserve the legitimacy of the Court’s decisions in the eyes of the American people by demonstrating that it was not too far out of line with shifting public attitudes. To test their hypotheses, Mishler and Sheehan estimated models predicting how frequently the Court ruled in the liberal and conservative direction from 1956 to 1989 using measures of the ideological composition of the Court itself


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and Stimson’s aggregate measure of public mood73 to determine whether popular sentiment had any influence on Court outcomes. The results confirmed their hypotheses. When the Court was composed of more liberal members, decisions shifted accordingly. When public opinion moved in a liberal direction, then the decisions of the Court also veered toward the left. Movement in the opposite direction occurred as the public sentiment trended more conservative. Nevertheless, Mishler and Sheehan had to offer some caveats concerning their results. Although they did find that public opinion had a direct impact, it did so only at a lag of five years, not contemporaneously. Additionally, they found this direct relationship did not hold during the decade of the 1980s as the public mood appeared to be moving left while the Court drifted to the right with the appointments made by the Reagan administration. Despite these qualifications, Mishler and Sheehan ultimately concluded, ‘‘the evidence suggests that public opinion exercises important influence of the decisions of the Court even in the absence of changes in the composition of the Court or the partisan and ideological make up of the presidency.’’ 74 This view of the Court runs counter to the attitudinal model of judicial behavior advanced by political scientists Jeffrey Segal and Harold Spaeth.75 According to their model, public opinion has no direct influence on the rulings of the Court. They contend the ideology of the justices is the principal determinant of how the justices vote on the cases that come before them. Because they have lifetime tenure, their decisions cannot be appealed to a higher Court and are rarely overturned by the legislative branch; therefore, the justices are free to vote their ideological preferences no matter what the public thinks about how cases should be decided. Segal and Spaeth do concede that public opinion has indirect effects on the Court through the appointment process. The decisions of the Court may trend in the direction of public opinion only through a change in the composition of the Court with the replacement of retiring justices by appointments to the Court initiated by the popularly elected branches. Not surprisingly, advocates of the attitudinal model have cast serious doubts on the power of public opinion to shape the decisions of the Supreme Court. In a reexamination of Mishler and Sheehan’s study, defenders of the attitudinal model of judicial behavior conducted an alternative analysis that uncovered no direct linkage between public opinion and the policy direction of the Court.76 These findings suggested that the Court was not responsive to public sentiment in the manner described by Mishler and Sheehan.77 Other research covering roughly the same period in the Court’s history produced inconsistent findings on this question. A similar study published in 1995 reported inconclusive results concerning the relationship between these

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variables,78 while another work exploring the public mood’s influence across issue areas did support the direct linkage hypothesis.79 Despite these conflicting findings, in subsequent years the evidence has mostly pointed to the existence of a direct causal connection between popular opinion and the Court’s policy record. A more extended time series analysis of Supreme Court decisions stretching into the mid-1990s did find that the public mood had a significant influence at a lag of only one year.80 Additionally, studies looking at the impact of public opinion on the voting records of individual judges reached a similar conclusion. Although one study revealed this relationship mostly applied to moderate justices,81 another found that even the more extreme justices were influenced by changes in the ideological mood of the public.82 One of the most recent studies of this issue contends that a direct linkage can be found only when looking at the Court’s decisions to overturn lower court rulings rather than affirm them. 83 Across issue domains the influence of public opinion is quite robust when the Court reverses a lower court decision, but is virtually nonexistent when it comes to the affirmation of a lower court ruling. Although Supreme Court justices have some latitude to cast aside the views of the people, there are reasons for justices to take account of public sentiment in how they rule in certain cases. While justices are foremost concerned with achieving their policy goals, they also care about protecting the reputation of the Court.84 Deviating too far from the political mainstream may tarnish the image of the institution and cause judges to reconsider how their rulings might undermine the legitimacy of the Court. Indeed, research has established that as the Court’s decisions diverge from the ideological direction of public mood, Americans’ support for the Court declines.85 Therefore, it follows logically that public opinion probably matters to the justices, at least on the margins. One danger in arriving at a scholarly consensus about the role public opinion plays in the Court’s rulings is that the most recent time series in this line of research stops in the mid-1990s. If public opinion was once a significant variable in this equation, then has this relationship persisted in subsequent years? With the elevation of Bush appointees John Roberts and Samuel Alito, the Court has begun to assume a decidedly conservative posture. Meanwhile, the most current estimate of public mood indicates the public is moving demonstrably to the left. Will the conservative bent of the Court be tempered by this leftward swing? Future research will have to closely monitor these developments to evaluate whether direct Court responsiveness to public opinion will follow the same pattern as these previous studies have documented. Two major points are clear concerning the role public opinion plays on the Supreme Court’s decision-making process. Although direct effects may carry


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some weight in predicting Court outcomes, the ideological composition of the Court is a more powerful determinant. If the ideological composition of the justices was to move dramatically to the right, then there would be a more fundamental shift in the Court’s decisions than if there was an equally dramatic rightward shift in public opinion. Second, Supreme Court justices have greater leeway to ignore public opinion than politicians who must face the voters to retain their positions in office. Hence, public opinion has a greater influence on members of the U.S. Congress and the president.86 To bolster this claim, one needs to look only at the behavior of judges in the U.S. states. Unlike their counterparts at the federal level, most state judges face some type of election in order to retain their position. At the state level, research has shown the prospect of confronting the electorate causes judges to alter their behavior as a consequence. When judges face voters, they are held accountable for their policy performance on salient issues. For instance, supreme court judges running in states with higher murder rates fare worse at the polls, as do judges who are more ideologically distant from their states’ electorate.87 Therefore, it is not surprising that judges in states that use some form of electoral mechanism behave differently than do judges in states with a selection system resembling the federal model. For example, studies of judicial behavior on state supreme courts reveal that judges who are retained by popular election are less likely to vote to invalidate abortion laws than are judges who are exempt from facing the voters in some fashion.88 Another recent study on the decisions of state supreme courts has shed further light on the context of public opinion’s role in determining judicial behavior. Political scientists Paul Brace and Brent Boyea’s investigation of state supreme court judges’ votes to uphold or overturn death sentences found that public opinion was highly influential in these cases.89 Judges in states where the death penalty was more popular had a higher propensity to affirm death sentences. In addition, judges subject to election were more likely to uphold a death sentence than judges in strictly appointive states. This difference eroded when they compared retiring judges in states with elections to those judges in states strictly using an appointive selection method, a result suggesting that once the electoral connection was severed judges had more freedom to vote their true ideological preferences. Furthermore, Brace and Boyea discovered that judicial behavior on this question was altered by the date of an impending election. In the year of the election, judges’ willingness to overturn death sentences dipped rather noticeably. Taken collectively, the authors surmised that judicial elections ‘‘function in a manner commonly valued in some democratic theories, producing elite responsiveness to mass opinion.’’ 90 If the results of this study are any indication, were federal judges required to run in elections to remain on the bench it is likely that the direct link

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between public opinion and Supreme Court decision making would be more robust than what the research currently available has documented. Whether judges should be elected is a normative question not addressed here. What this research supports is that responsiveness to popular opinion among members of the judiciary is highly contingent upon the ability of voters to have a direct say about who serves on the bench. Unquestionably, this relationship carries significant implications for the character of judicial independence in the U.S. political system.

A PUBLIC WITH A VOICE What conclusions can be drawn from the preceding discussion about public leadership on public policy? Perhaps Carroll Glynn and her colleagues sum it up best. On balance, though it is hardly a social scientific law that government policies consistently (policy by policy) reflect public opinion, government policymaking in the United States has reflected ideological shirts in public opinion and also, noticeably, ‘‘what the people want in those instances where the public cares enough about an issue to make its wishes known.’’91

It would be wrong to conclude that the public has no voice in the policy process; public opinion is capable of leading public policy. It would be equally wrong, however, to conclude that politicians always heed the public’s wishes. Most evaluations of the contemporary political atmosphere in the United States conclude that elites are unquestionably more polarized than the masses.92 If there was perfect policy congruence in the United States, then there would not be such a gap between the people and their elected representatives. Additionally, changes in policy better reflect the views of the most affluent members of society than the less affluent, a development that would not materialize under conditions of perfect congruence.93 Furthermore, sometimes questions of policy need not always dictate how the public evaluates the performance of politicians. If a politician is corrupt or incompetent while still reflecting the views of her/his constituents, then voters may rationally decide to replace that representative with another politician who may be more ideologically distant but scores higher on questions of honesty and competency. Policy responsiveness is only one component of the representational relationship between the public and elected officials.94 In addition, sometimes the public respects a politician who remains faithful to her/his convictions even if those convictions sometimes are at odds with the prevailing policy mood. Such a decision is consistent with a healthy democratic system. Moreover, it is not clear to us that the public’s voice should always dictate public policy. In a representative democracy, Americans elect people


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to go to the state capitals or Washington, D.C., to implement policy. In theory, these representatives should be more informed about the consequences of many policies than the American public as a whole. However, this task can be complicated when the public demands policy outputs that are diametrically opposed to one another, such as lower taxes and increased government spending. Sometimes responsiveness to the public will may not be a responsible policy course for politicians to pursue. Also, there are, no doubt, times when the American public could quite simply be wrong on an issue, such as public support for segregated facilities in the early 1900s. Certainly this is why it is important that the judiciary can serve as a countermajoritarian voice. At times, government must protect the rights of numerical minorities even if this means going against the opinions of the majority. All in all, however, American representative democracy seems to work well. The public has a voice, although not too loud of a voice, and elected officials have some freedom, although not too much freedom, in the policy-making process.

NOTES 1. V. O. Key Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961), 7. 2. See, for example, Joseph A. Shumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 3rd ed. (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1950); and E. E. Schattschneider, SemiSovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960). 3. Key, Public Opinion and American Democracy, 7. 4. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, The Federalist, ed. George W. Carey and James McClellan (New York: Bantam, 1982), 327. 5. Walter Lippmann, The Phantom Public (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1925), 20–21. 6. Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960); Philip E. Converse, ‘‘The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics,’’ in Ideology and Discontent, ed. David E. Apter (New York: Free Press, 1964); Philip E. Converse, ‘‘Attitudes and Nonattitudes: Continuation of a Dialogue,’’ in The Quantitative Analysis of Social Problems, ed. Edward Tufte (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1970). 7. John Zaller and Stanley Feldman, ‘‘A Simple Theory of the Survey Response: Answering Questions versus Revealing Preferences,’’ American Journal of Political Science 36 (1992): 579–616. 8. See Michael X. Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996). 9. V. O. Key Jr., The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presidential Voting, 1936–1960 (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), 7–8.

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10. Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 11. Delli Carpini and Keeter, What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters, 69. 12. Regarding federal spending on public schools, respondents were actually asked if spending should be increased, decreased, or kept the same. 13. Robert Weissberg, ‘‘Collective vs. Dyadic Representation in Congress,’’ American Political Science Review 72 (1978): 535–547, 535. 14. Ibid. 15. Richard F. Fenno, Jr., Home Style: House Members in Their Districts (New York: Longman, 1978). 16. However, it may be possible for representatives to represent the entire district by performing casework or bringing home pork barrel projects. See, for example, Heinz Eulau and Paul D. Karps, ‘‘The Puzzle of Representation: Specifying Components of Responsiveness,’’ Legislative Studies Quarterly 2 (1977): 233–254. 17. John D. Griffin and Brian Newman, ‘‘Are Voters Better Represented?’’ Journal of Politics 67 (2005): 1206–1227. 18. Although, as Arnold notes, inattentive citizens can quickly become attentive citizens. R. Douglas Arnold, The Logic of Congressional Action (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990). 19. James A. Stimson, Public Opinion in America: Moods, Cycles, and Swings, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1999). 20. An exception to the one issue or policy mood study of policy congruence is Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, ‘‘Effects of Public Opinion on Policy,’’ American Political Science Review 77 (1983): 175–190. This article will be discussed further below. Also, see Alan D. Monroe, ‘‘Public Opinion and Public Policy, 1980–1993,’’ Public Opinion Quarterly 62 (1998): 6–28. 21. James A. Stimson, Michael B. MacKuen, and Robert S. Erikson, ‘‘Dynamic Representation,’’ American Political Science Review 89 (1995): 543–565. 22. Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes, ‘‘Constituency Influence in Congress,’’ American Political Science Review 57 (1963): 45–56. 23. Page and Shapiro, ‘‘Effects of Public Opinion on Policy.’’ 24. Monroe comes to a similar conclusion as Page and Shapiro. Analyzing more than 500 issues from 1980 to 1993, Monroe finds that policy outcomes were consistent with public preferences 55 percent of the time. However, this percentage declined from 63 percent between 1960 and 1979. Monroe, ‘‘Public Opinion and Public Policy, 1980–1993.’’ 25. Suzanna De Boef and James A. Stimson, ‘‘The Dynamic Structure of Congressional Elections,’’ Journal of Politics 57 (1995): 630–648. 26. David A. M. Peterson, Lawrence Grossback, James A. Stimson, and Amy Gangl, ‘‘Congressional Response to Mandate Elections,’’ American Journal of Political Science 47 (2003): 411–426; David A. M. Peterson, Lawrence Grossback, and James A. Stimson, Mandate Politics (Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 27. Gerald C. Wright Jr. and Michael B. Berkman, ‘‘Candidates and Policy in United States Senate Elections,’’ American Political Science Review 80 (1986): 567–588.


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28. Robert S. Erikson and Gerald C. Wright, ‘‘Voters, Candidates, and Issues in Congressional Elections,’’ in Congress Reconsidered, 8th ed., ed. Lawrence C. Dodd and Bruce I. Oppenheimer (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2005). 29. Kim Quaile Hill, Jan E. Leighley, and Angela Hinton-Andersson, ‘‘Lower-Class Mobilization and Policy Linkage in the U.S. States,’’ American Journal of Political Science 39 (1995): 924–935. 30. John E. Jackson and David C. King, ‘‘Public Goods, Private Interests, and Representation,’’ American Political Science Review 83 (1989): 1143–1164. 31. Larry M. Bartels, ‘‘Constituency Opinion and Congressional Policy Making: The Reagan Defense Buildup,’’ American Political Science Review 85 (1991): 457–474; Thomas Hartley and Bruce Russett, ‘‘Public Opinion and the Common Defense,’’ American Political Science Review 86 (1992): 905–915; Christopher Wlezien, ‘‘Dynamics of Representation: The Case of US Spending on Defence,’’ British Journal of Political Science 26 (1996): 81–103. 32. Stimson, MacKuen, and Erikson, ‘‘Dynamic Representation.’’ See also Robert S. Erikson, Michael B. MacKuen, and James A. Stimson, The Macro Polity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 33. Robert S. Erikson, Gerald C. Wright Jr., and John P. McIver, Statehouse Democracy: Public Opinion and Public Policy in the American States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993). See also Robert S. Erikson ‘‘The Relationship between Public Opinion and State Policy: A New Look Based on Some Forgotten Data,’’ American Journal of Political Science 20 (1976): 25–36. 34. Thad Kousser, Jeffrey B. Lewis, and Seth Masket, ‘‘Ideological Adaptation? The Survival Instinct of Threatened Legislators,’’ Journal of Politics 69 (2007): 828–843. 35. Paul Burstein, ‘‘The Impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy: A Review and an Agenda,’’ Political Research Quarterly 56 (2003): 29–40, 36. 36. Joshua D. Clinton, ‘‘Representation in Congress: Constituents and Roll Calls in the 106th House,’’ Journal of Politics 68 (2006): 397–406. 37. David Truman, The Governmental Process (New York: Knopf, 1951); Schattschneider, Semi-Sovereign People. 38. Kay Lehman Schlozman and John T. Tierney, Organized Interests and American Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1986). 39. Virginia Gray, David Lowery, Matthew Fellowes, and Andrea McAtee, ‘‘Public Opinion, Public Policy, and Organized Interests in the American States,’’ Political Research Quarterly 57 (2004): 411–420. 40. Ibid., 419. 41. Ibid. 42. Brandice Canes-Wrone, David W. Brady, and John F. Cogan, ‘‘Out of Step, Out of Office: Electoral Accountability and House Members’ Voting,’’ American Political Science Review 96 (2002): 127–140. See also Stephen Ansolabehere, James M. Snyder Jr., and Charles Stewart III, ‘‘Candidate Positioning in U.S. House Elections,’’ American Journal of Political Science 45 (2001): 136–159; Robert S. Erikson and Gerald C. Wright, ‘‘Representation of Constituency Ideology in Congress,’’ in Change and Continuity in House Elections, ed. David W. Brody, John F. Cogan, and John F. Ferejohn (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000).

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43. Burstein, ‘‘The Impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy.’’ 44. Arnold, The Logic of Congressional Action. See also Bryan D. Jones, Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994). 45. Katherine Tate, Black Faces in the Mirror: African Americans and Their Representatives in the U.S. Congress (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003); John D. Griffin and Patrick Flavin, ‘‘Racial Differences in Information, Expectations and Accountability,’’ Journal of Politics 69 (2007): 220–236. 46. Page and Shapiro, The Rational Public; Michael Margolis and Gary A. Mauser, Manipulating Public Opinion (Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1989). 47. Hartley and Russett, ‘‘Public Opinion and the Common Defense.’’ 48. Kim Quaile Hill and Angela Hinton-Andersson, ‘‘Pathways of Representation: A Causal Analysis of Public Opinion-Policy Linkages,’’ American Journal of Political Science 39 (1995): 924–935. 49. Burstein, ‘‘The Impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy.’’ 50. Robert S. Erikson and Kent L. Tedin, American Public Opinion: Its Origins, Content and Impact, 7th Ed. (New York: Pearson Longman, 2007). 51. Jennifer Loven, ‘‘Analysis: The Bush Take on Public Opinion,’’ Associated Press, May 28, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com 52. Jon Cohen and Dan Balz, ‘‘Most in Poll Want War Funding Cut,’’ Washington Post, October 2, 2007, A01. Congress was unable to override the president’s veto. 53. Gary C. Jacobson, A Divider Not a Uniter: George W. Bush and the American People (New York: Pearson Longman, 2006). 54. John G. Geer, From Tea Leaves to Public Opinion Polls (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). 55. Stimson, Erikson, and MacKuen, ‘‘Dynamic Representation’’; Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson, The Macro Polity. 56. Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson, The Macro Polity, 311. 57. For more evidence of direct presidential responsiveness to public opinion see Wlezien, ‘‘Dynamics of Representation.’’ 58. Jeffrey E. Cohen, Presidential Responsiveness and Public Policy-Making (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1997). 59. Jeff Manza and Fay Lomax Cook, ‘‘The Impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy: The State of the Debate,’’ in Navigating Public Opinion: Polls, Policy and the Future of American Democracy, ed. Jeff Manza, Fay Lomax Cook, and Benjamin I. Page (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002): 17–32. 60. Brandice Canes-Wrone, Michael C. Herron, and Kenneth W. Shotts, ‘‘Leadership and Pandering: A Theory of Executive Policy Making,’’ American Journal of Political Science 45 (2002): 532–550. 61. James Kuklinski, ‘‘Representatives and Elections: A Policy Analysis,’’ American Political Science Review 72 (1978): 165–177; Richard Elling, ‘‘Ideological Change in the United States Senate: Time and Electoral Responsiveness,’’ Legislative Studies Quarterly 7 (1982): 75–92; Martin Thomas, ‘‘Electoral Proximity and Senatorial Roll-Call Voting,’’ American Journal of Political Science 29 (1985): 96–111.


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62. Brandice Canes-Wrone and Kenneth W. Shotts, ‘‘The Conditional Nature of Presidential Responsiveness to Public Opinion,’’ American Journal of Political Science 48 (2004): 690–706; Brandice Canes-Wrone, Who Leads Whom? Presidents, Policy and the Public (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2006). 63. Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro, Politicians Don’t Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2000); Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro, ‘‘Politics and Policymaking in the Real World: Crafted Talk and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness,’’ in Navigating Public Opinion: Polls, Policy and the Future of American Democracy, ed. Jeff Manza, Fay Lomax Cook, and Benjamin I. Page (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 64. Robert S. Erikson, Michael B. MacKuen, and James A. Stimson, ‘‘Public Opinion and Policy: Causal Flow in a Macro System Model,’’ in Navigating Public Opinion: Polls, Policy and the Future of American Democracy, ed. Jeff Manza, Fay Lomax Cook, and Benjamin I. Page (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 33–53; Robert S. Erikson, Michael B. MacKuen, and James A. Stimson, ‘‘Panderers or Shirkers? Politicians and Public Opinion,’’ in Navigating Public Opinion: Polls, Policy and the Future of American Democracy, ed. Jeff Manza, Fay Lomax Cook, and Benjamin I. Page (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 76–85. 65. Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005); Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, ‘‘Abandoning the Middle: The Bush Tax Cuts and the Limits of Democratic Control,’’ Perspectives on Politics 3 (2005): 33–54. 66. Larry M. Bartels, ‘‘Homer Gets a Tax Cut: Inequality and Public Policy in the American Mind,’’ Perspectives on Politics 3 (2005): 15–32. 67. Ibid., 21. 68. Stimson, Erikson, and MacKuen, ‘‘Dynamic Representation’’; Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson, The Macro Polity. 69. Robert A. Dahl, ‘‘Decision-Making in Democracy: The Supreme Court as National Policy Maker,’’ Journal of Public Law 6 (1957): 279–295. 70. Jonathan D. Casper, ‘‘The Supreme Court and National Policymaking,’’ American Political Science Review 70 (1976): 50–66. 71. Page and Shapiro, ‘‘The Effects of Public Opinion on Policy’’; Thomas Marshall, Public Opinion and the Supreme Court (New York: Longman, 1989). 72. William Mishler and Reginald S. Sheehan, ‘‘The Supreme Court as a Countermajoritarian Institution? The Impact of Public Opinion on Supreme Court Decisions,’’ American Political Science Review 87 (1993): 87–101. 73. Stimson, Public Opinion in America: Mood Cycles and Swings. 74. Mishler and Sheehan, ‘‘The Supreme Court as a Countermajoritarian Institution,’’ 96. 75. Jeffrey A. Segal and Harold J. Spaeth, The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Jeffrey A. Segal and Harold J. Spaeth, The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 76. Helmut Norpoth and Jeffrey A. Segal, ‘‘Comment: Popular Influence on Supreme Court Decisions,’’ American Political Science Review 88 (1994): 711–716.

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77. For a response to this criticism, see William Mishler and Reginald Sheehan, ‘‘Response: Popular Influence on Supreme Court Decisions,’’ American Political Science Review 88 (1994): 716–724. 78. Stimson, Erikson, and MacKuen, ‘‘Dynamic Representation.’’ 79. Michael W. Link, ‘‘Tracking Public Mood in the Supreme Court: Cross-Time Analyses of Criminal Procedure and Civil Rights Cases,’’ Political Research Quarterly 48 (1995): 61–78. 80. Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson, The Macro Polity. 81. William Mishler and Reginald S. Sheehan, ‘‘Public Opinion, the Attitudinal Model, and Supreme Court Decision Making: A Micro-Analytic Perspective,’’ Journal of Politics 58 (1996): 169–200. 82. Roy B. Flemming and B. Dan Wood, ‘‘The Public and the Supreme Court: Individual Justice Responsiveness to American Policy Moods,’’ American Journal of Political Science 41 (1997): 468–498. 83. Kevin T. McGuire and James A. Stimson, ‘‘The Least Dangerous Branch: New Evidence on Supreme Court Responsiveness to Public Preferences,’’ Journal of Politics 66 (2004): 1018–1035. 84. Walter F. Murphy, Elements of Judicial Strategy (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1964). 85. Robert H. Durr, Andrew D. Martin, and Christina Wolbrecht, ‘‘Ideological Divergence and Public Support for the Supreme Court,’’ American Journal of Political Science 44 (2000): 768–776. 86. Stimson, Erikson, and MacKuen, ‘‘Dynamic Representation.’’ 87. Melinda Gann Hall, ‘‘State Supreme Courts in American Democracy: Probing the Myths of Judicial Reform,’’ American Political Science Review 95 (2001): 315–330. 88. Paul Brace, Melinda Gann Hall, and Laura Langer, ‘‘Judicial Choice and the Politics of Abortion: Institutions, Context and the Autonomy of Courts,’’ Albany Law Review 62 (1999): 1265–1302; Paul Brace, Melinda Gann Hall, and Laura Langer, ‘‘Placing State Supreme Courts in State Politics,’’ State Politics and Policy Quarterly 1 (2001): 81–108. 89. Paul Brace and Brent D. Boyea, ‘‘Judicial Selection Methods and Capital Punishment in the American States,’’ in Running for Judge: The Rising Political, Financial, and Legal Stakes of Judicial Elections, ed. Matthew J. Streb (New York: New York University Press, 2007). 90. Ibid., 199. 91. Carroll J. Glynn, Susan Herbst, Garrett J. O’Keefe, and Robert Y. Shapiro, Public Opinion (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), 321. 92. Morris Fiorina, Samuel Abrams, and Jeremy C. Pope, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America (New York: Longman, 2004). 93. Martin Gilens, ‘‘Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness,’’ Public Opinion Quarterly 69 (2005): 778–796. 94. Eulau and Karps, ‘‘The Puzzle of Representation.’’

11 Leading Elite Opinion: Law Reviews and the Distortion of Scholarship ROBERT J. SPITZER

Most scholars yearn to paint on a large canvas—to have their scholarly work cited on CNN, quoted with sober approval on the front page of the New York Times, reviewed with due gravitas in The New Yorker, or quoted with approval by a member of Congress. Such recognition comes rarely, of course, and most scholars in disciplines from anthropology to zoology will find their research activities to be little noticed beyond the narrow confines of their fields of speciality. Of all the disciplines, it may well be that the law and legal writing command the greatest attention outside of their field. This is not surprising, considering the centrality of law to so many aspects of contemporary American life and the process of governance. Whether as television commentators, editorial op-ed authors, advisors to legislators, clerks to judges, or counselors to presidents, lawyers play a uniquely central role in American politics and policy. And arguably, that is as it should be in a nation where the rule of law is the touchstone of American politics. Yet the field of law, springing as it does from the ivy-covered halls of America’s law schools, is a discipline that is different, in certain key respects, from every other academic discipline. These differences are central to the argument that animates this chapter. My central argument is that legal training (and the principles attached to it) and academic legal publications are well suited to the training of lawyers for the purpose of practicing law. But when legal training and academic writing in law journals extend beyond the bounds of the practice of law—to

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theorizing concerning constitutional law and then to national politics and policy—they too easily yield wayward theorizing, wrong-headed policy, and shockingly defective intellectual analysis. In other writing, I detail three instances where erroneous legal theorizing has legitimized wayward constitutional theories—pertaining to the president’s veto power, the president’s commander-in-chief power, and the interpretation of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.1 The purpose of this chapter is to examine the manner in which the unique traits of the legal profession—specifically, legal training, and the functioning of law reviews—provide an all too fertile breeding ground for the cultivation of wayward constitutional theories. The result has been a profession that, as an academic enterprise, and as one that importantly shapes public policy, has misled American elite opinion on important constitutional and legal matters.

THINKING LIKE A LAWYER The discipline of law, as it is taught in American law schools, emanates from the nature of the legal profession. According to a widely used law text, the teaching of ‘‘legal reasoning’’ lies at the heart of a law school education. It is a kind of reasoning which is adapted to the reaching of decisions for action. . . . it is like the kind of reasoning characteristic of . . . any other applied, or practical, art or science. It is a quite different kind of reasoning from that which is adapted solely to the establishment of general principles. . . . The pure scientist seeks— primarily—truth; the applied scientist seeks—primarily—right action.2

Stated more bluntly, ‘‘the objective of law school education is to indoctrinate students into the legal profession.’’ 3 Another law professor puts it this way: ‘‘in teaching law we also teach lawyering. . . .’’ 4 And yet another: ‘‘Law schools exist to prepare students to be attorneys.’’ 5 Thus, by its nature, law school education is designed to train future lawyers to qualify for a specific vocation. This training process is summarized by law text author John Bonsignore as one of transforming law students from laypeople into novice lawyers. Law school provides them with some competence in legal rules and problem solving. It develops in them a nascent concept of themselves as professionals, a commitment to the values of the calling, and a claim to that elusive and esoteric style of reasoning called ‘‘thinking like a lawyer.’’6

This training or ‘‘indoctrination’’ encompasses both a standard curriculum and a disciplinary-based set of values.

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THE ADVERSARY SYSTEM, ADVOCACY, AND TRUTH The purpose of legal education is, of course, to produce lawyers, that is, ‘‘to prepare and to socialize students for entry into a very narrow range of career lines.’’ 7 The job of the lawyer is to function successfully within the framework of the American legal system. And that system—indeed, the ‘‘central tenet’’ 8 of American justice—rests on the adversary system. The adversary system is predicated on the belief that the best way to determine the truth (or at least arrive at a relatively just outcome) in a legal dispute is for opposing sides to present their strongest possible arguments to an impartial and passive arbiter, whether a judge or jury. Truth to tell, the adversary system in operation tends to serve ‘‘the objective of resolving disputes rather than searching for material truth.’’ 9 As a standard law school text notes, ‘‘Taking sides is the root notion of the Adversary System (the clash of mad dogs) as opposed to the Inquisitorial System (one very nice dog, sniffing). The idea is that truth is more likely to emerge from conflicting positions than from the most well-meaning of neutral investigations.’’ 10 The adversary system is thus composed of three key elements: a neutral and passive decision maker (judge or jury), partisan advocates representing the opposing sides (i.e., lawyers), and a highly structured set of rules that govern the activities of the advocates (rules of procedure or conduct, evidence, and ethics). These guidelines are essential because long experience with the adversary system has demonstrated ‘‘the natural tendency of advocates to win by any means available. . . .’’ 11 The nature of the adversary system means that a lawyer’s foremost obligation is to the lawyer’s particular position or client.12 Even though lawyers function as officers of the court, they ‘‘have no obligation to parties or interests other than their own clients. . . . Consequently, justice, or the right result, is not the responsibility of either lawyer.’’ 13 In fact, while lawyers are ethically barred from lying, or knowingly allowing their clients to lie, lawyers may encourage a fact finder to reach a wrong conclusion by, for example, knowingly presenting perjured testimony, or cross-examining truthful witnesses in a manner that undercuts their credibility, if such an end promotes the goal of effectively defending the client.14 These tenets of the adversary process are not limited to the criminal and civil realms, but also emerge, for example, during contract negotiations.15 The larger lesson concerning advocacy is precisely that it is based on the lawyer’s foremost forensic responsibility to the client or employer. As the leading legal theorist Lon Fuller noted, the lawyer’s job is ‘‘not to decide but to persuade. He is not expected to present the case in a colorless and detached manner, but in such a way that it will appear in that aspect most favorable to his client.’’ 16 The legal arena is a ‘‘grimly combative’’ business where lawyers

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must be ‘‘aggressive, combative, cunning, ingenious, required or permitted to employ drama for effect, and, above all, committed to prevail for their clients and causes.’’ 17 The inherently competitive nature of the adversary process places great emphasis on winning. As law professor Geoffrey Hazard concludes, the inexorable tendency of a lawyer’s work ‘‘leads him to hold, with Vince Lombardi, that winning is not the most important thing but the only thing.’’ 18 Little wonder that litigation is often compared to a game, a ritual, or a sporting event19 that often has the effect of driving opposing sides even further apart,20 or that the American competitive spirit holds sway in a system where ‘‘the fact of guilt or innocence is irrelevant to the role that has been assigned to the advocate.’’ 21 Indeed, the comparison of lawyering to a sporting event dates back a century.22 As federal judge Marvin F. Frankel wrote, ‘‘the gladiator using the weapons in the courtroon is not primarily crusading after truth, but seeking to win.’’ 23 Advocacy in the adversarial system consists of two elements: zeal and loyalty to the client, with both traits cemented by the pledge of lawyer-client confidentiality. Closely connected to the adversary principle and the elevation of client defense is the conscious separation of law from morality. In his classic essay, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in 1897 of the ‘‘importance of the distinction between morality and law . . . with reference to a single end, that of learning and understanding the law.’’ Holmes was not arguing that the law was itself immoral or amoral, for ‘‘[t]he law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life.’’ Rather, he believed that the separation of law and morals was ‘‘of the first importance for . . . a right study and mastery of the law as a business. . . .’’ 24 While Holmes’s views have long been the subject of debate,25 they nevertheless represent an important and enduring school of legal thought. Modern legal education places considerable emphasis on ethics; nevertheless, the Holmesian approach ‘‘is shared by many legal educators today.’’ 26 Federal judge Harry T. Edwards stated flatly that ‘‘a ‘strong foundation in ethics’ is not being built in legal education.’’ 27 To some readers, this account of the adversary process and other aspects of legal education might seem draconian or even immoral. As Landsman observes, ‘‘it is not hard to understand why onlookers might consider him [the lawyer] to be the enemy of truth.’’ 28 In David Luban’s view, the adversary system is arguably nothing less than ‘‘an institutional excuse for moral ruthlessness’’ 29 on the part of lawyers. Indeed, the two most common criticisms of the adversary process are that it slows the wheels of justice and that it places too little value on discovering material or actual truth.30 Both criticisms are valid, yet the latter is well parried by the counterargument that the judicial system functions as a whole in a manner that is likely to produce a just outcome—or certainly no less likely than any competing system of justice. In fact, I side with defenders of the American system of justice. But I


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also believe that its traits have other, adverse consequences when removed from the practice of law.

LAWYERING IS NOT SCHOLARSHIP There is good reason not only to accept but also to embrace the assertion that ‘‘the adversary system is one of the most efficient and fair methods designed for determining [the truth].’’ 31 Yet its consequences for academic inquiry are not only very different from, but squarely at odds with, the goals of that pursuit. Marvin Frankel makes this point expressly when he observes this about the consequences of legal education and its practice: We become skeptical about, if not indifferent to, the notion of objective truth. Who can know the truth, after all? . . . We are not historians, commissioned to recapture events as they actually happened. Our job is to learn what witnesses will or may say, what evidence exists, who will or won’t discover the evidence, who will tell what ‘‘story,’’ how much must become known, what may not be discoverable, what ‘‘the record’’ will finally look like. . . . we learn a kind of modulated ignorance, stopping short of final answers, relying enthusiastically on the division of labor that separates lawyers from judging.32

In no other academic field of inquiry, whether the natural sciences, the social sciences, or the humanities, is the value of truth seeking subordinated to the kind of values that are the foundation of legal training: to win an argument, to put the interests of the client/employer above those of the truth, or to maintain confidentiality regardless of its consequences. Law professor Anthony T. Kronman put it succinctly: ‘‘Scholarship . . . aims at the truth. Advocacy, by contrast, is concerned merely with persuasion.’’ 33 As lawyer Tracey George notes, while other academic fields increasingly adopted the scientific method during the twentieth century, law did not. . . . research in the physical and social sciences focused on formulating hypotheses and testing them against relevant data. . . . Most academic law writings, by contrast, concentrated on legal issues and evaluated them in the same way as judges writing opinions.34

Writing in 1969, law professor Arthur Selwyn Miller was even more frank in his verdict about the consequences of the adversary system on scholarship: lawyers, simply because they are trained to be advocates—to take sides—face a particularly difficult task when called upon to shed the habits of their training (and practice) when . . . writing for learned journals. . . . In no other profession or discipline, except theology, can it be said that the very system itself is a hampering effect on the search for truth.35

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Miller argues that two key facets of the adversary system explain this: the overarching emphasis the adversary system places on the (partisan) pursuit of the client’s interests, and the adversary system’s reasoning process, which works backward (from conclusion to premise) rather than the reverse.36 Legal historian Alfred H. Kelly similarly noted ‘‘the radical difference in theory and process between the traditional Anglo-American system of advocacy and equally time-honored techniques of the scholar-historian.’’ 37 Luban makes a similar point in his comparison of the scientific method employed by other disciplines with the tenets of the adversary system. Some defend the adversary system, according to Luban, by saying that science seeks truth through ‘‘a wholehearted dialectic of assertion and refutation’’ 38 whereby researchers labor to prove their arguments and hypotheses, and others attempt to refute these proofs—a description that seems to parallel the adversary process. Yet Luban rejects the comparison, saying that scientific investigators, unlike clashing lawyers, do not advance arguments they know to be false, or use rules to exclude truthful or factual information, or rely on ‘‘privilege’’ to conceal truth. Nor do scientific investigators present information in a way favorable to their clients39 or attack the personal credibility of researchers who might produce different or competing theories. One comparison of traditional research methodology and legal work argues that the latter works in a manner opposite that of the former: whereas researchers examine a problem by collecting information to then draw conclusions, ‘‘Lawyers work in reverse. They know their desired outcome at the outset, so they gather arguments to support it.’’ The omission of contrary evidence is ‘‘unethical’’ in conventional research, but ‘‘lawyers are under no compunction to introduce evidence that hurts their cases; that’s the other side’s job.’’ 40 This does not mean that those trained in the law are incapable of producing sound scholarly analysis, any more than it means that scholars in other disciplines are somehow immunized from defective scholarship by virtue of their graduate school and disciplinary training. Yet the difference in values, principles, and training between law and other disciplines is as stark as it is undeniable. As one critical analysis of legal writing shrewdly noted, ‘‘An attorney who treats a client like a hypothesis would be disbarred; a Ph.D. who advocates a hypothesis like a client would be ignored.’’ 41 By way of comparison, the principles of intellectual inquiry in the arts and sciences are organized around ‘‘the desire for explanations which are at once systematic and controllable by factual evidence that generates science. . . . More specifically, the sciences seek to discover and to formulate the general terms the conditions under which events of various sorts occur. . . .’’ 42 While one might think that the principles of scientific inquiry extend only to the ‘‘hard’’ or ‘‘natural’’ sciences—biology, chemistry, physics, geology,


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etc.—and not to the ‘‘soft’’ or social sciences—sociology, psychology, history, economics, geography, political science—the fundamental rules of inquiry are the same (as are the pitfalls associated with scientific inquiry).43 Carl Hempel wrote that scientific theory is composed of general assumptions, connections between theory-based assertions and observable phenomena, and the testing of these phenomena as measured against the theory.44 As philosopher of science Abraham Kaplan noted, ‘‘What is distinctive of behavioral science . . . is basically its subject-matter. . . . the behavioral scientist seeks to understand behavior in just the same sense that the physicist, say, seeks to understand nuclear processes.’’ 45 The scientific method, generally understood as ‘‘a body of logic and methods,’’ 46 consists of ‘‘the primary building blocks of science—concept, law, theory, explanation, and prediction. . . .’’ 47 These tenets apply as well to the social sciences. The social sciences continue to debate the extent to which they can or cannot live up to the tenets of scientific inquiry, especially in comparison with the natural sciences. There are indeed clear differences between research in the social sciences compared with the natural sciences. Notably, difference arises from the fact that social sciences study ‘‘human agents’’ that are ‘‘reflective,’’ meaning that ‘‘they contemplate, anticipate, and can work to change their social and material environments and they have long-term intentions as well as immediate desires or wants.’’ 48 As a consequence, social sciences generate fewer law-like propositions; generalizations are more likely to be narrow, qualified, conditioned, and time-bound. Theories in the natural sciences offer explanation and prediction as to both process and outcome, whereas social science theorizing can often explain, but rarely predict.49 And there is a long-standing debate in political science over the question of whether the overarching principles of qualitative and quantitative research are essentially the same, although the proponents of a more unified approach to theorizing and research—whether qualitative or quantitative—have gained the upper hand.50 Still, the qualitative principles of inquiry, including objectivity, skepticism, curiosity, the gathering and analysis of evidence, and the rules of inference, are deeply embedded in the intellectual and professional training of social scientists, and certainly in my discipline of political science. The same can be said even of heavily normative fields of inquiry including political theory, philosophy, and ethics.51 Philosopher of science Richard S. Rudner argued decades ago that the social or behavioral sciences are, in fact, methodologically indistinct from the natural sciences.52 Yet one need not accept Rudner’s argument to note that the social and natural sciences share principles of training and instruction on the modes of inquiry that do not extend to, and that are very different from, law school training.

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One may be tempted to argue that the study of law is qualitatively different from all other fields because of the normative or values questions with which it grapples, and which, one might argue, do not lend themselves to the methodologies of other disciplines. But all disciplines struggle with matters of morals and values, and certainly the social sciences do. The rules of inquiry apply no less to such areas of study. In fact, when values are most at stake, the rules of inquiry are most important. The disjunction between law review writing and scholarship in other academic disciplines has begun to receive notice in disciplines including history (where some treatments of history by legal writers have earned the derisive moniker ‘‘law office history’’)53 and political science. Jousting between historians and lawyers dates back several decades. In fact, the phrase ‘‘law office history’’ dates to an article published in 1965 by historian Alfred H. Kelly, who defined the term as ‘‘the selection of data favorable to the position being advanced without regard to or concern for contradictory data or proper evaluation of the relevance of data proffered.’’ 54 According to legal writer John Phillip Reid, ‘‘law office history is almost completely irresolvable . . . into anything resembling historical truth, in large part because the premises that guided its preparation were radically different from those that should guide a professional historian.’’ 55 In a recent essay on the relationship between law, legal analysis, and the study of presidential power, political scientist Kenneth Mayer observed that ‘‘the legal literature . . . often incorporates simplistic or highly stylized conceptions of politics and government, and legal analyses often do not meet the standards of good social science research. . . .’’ 56 Mayer’s verdict has found empirical confirmation in the work of political scientists Lee Epstein and Gary King, who authored a landmark article (published in a prominent law journal) in which they examine the methodological soundness of empirically based law review articles. Their study included a reading of every article published in law journals from 1990 to 2000 in which the word ‘‘empirical’’ appeared in the title—231 articles in all. They found that, without exception, every article they examined violated at least one principle of sound empirical research, leading them to conclude that ‘‘serious problems of inference and methodology abound everywhere we find empirical research in the law reviews and in articles written by members of the legal community.’’ 57 Epstein and King argue, too, that at least part of the problem arises from the nature of legal education and training. They note ‘‘the markedly different goals’’ of lawyers as compared with academics of other disciplines. While a Ph.D. is taught to subject his or her favored hypothesis to every conceivable test and data source, seeking out all possible evidence against his or her theory, an attorney is taught to amass all the evidence for his or her hypothesis


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and distract attention from anything that might be seen as contradictory information.58

They further note that ‘‘lawyers and judges, and hence law professors, specialize in persuasion. Lawyers need to persuade judges and juries to favor their clients, and the rules of persuasion in the adversary system are different from the rules of empirical inquiry.’’ 59 Two critics contested elements of Epstein and King’s argument, proposing instead the ‘‘possibility’’ that lawyerly advocacy in scholarship might be a virtue instead of a vice: ‘‘the contest of ‘particular versions’ of truth ventilated by legal articles that are tendentious when taken separately may, at the systemic level, produce increasingly accurate approximations of truth, as scholar-advocates criticize the work of opposing camps.’’ 60 In other words, the ability of the adversary system in court to produce a roughly just outcome might also produce ‘‘truth’’ when transposed to the scholarly world in the form of ‘‘advocacy scholarship.’’ Epstein and King’s response to this notion is to concede that while this might be a ‘‘possibility,’’ ‘‘we have no examples of academic disciplines making sustained progress in learning about the world with such an approach.’’ 61 Epstein and King’s critics might seize on their small concession that ‘‘advocacy scholarship’’ might, conceivably, provide an alternate way to advance knowledge. But this is a slim reed indeed; it is also ‘‘possible’’ that space aliens built the Egyptian Pyramids. The mere existence of a possibility, by itself, without supporting evidence or arguments is an enticing rhetorical ploy, but not much more, especially when compared with the decades-long track record of the principles of inquiry embraced by every other academic discipline. What matters is what a hypothesis plausibly suggests, what a fair and full assessment of the available evidence shows, and what then can be logically inferred. Critics of ‘‘advocacy scholarship’’ are found within the legal community as well. Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon condemned the very idea, and its increasingly wide acceptance, because it ‘‘openly or covertly abandons the traditional obligation to deal with significant contrary evidence or arguments. In fact,’’ she concluded over a decade ago, ‘‘advocacy scholarship is not scholarship at all, for its research is not conducted with an open mind and its results are not presented with a view toward advancing knowledge about the subject treated.’’ 62 In a criminal courtroom, on the other hand, to create a ‘‘possibility’’ that the prosecution’s argument might be flawed may also create ‘‘reasonable doubt,’’ which in turn may be all that is required to win the case for the defense. But the scholarly enterprise is not, and should not be, about presenting onesided or deceptive evidence or, through grand rhetorical flourishes, appealing to a jury’s emotions in order to ‘‘win’’ a case. Glendon intimates this very

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problem when she criticizes ‘‘advocacy scholarship’’ because ‘‘it imports the most debased adversarial litigation tactics into the realm of scholarship. Rambo scholars, like Rambo litigators, engage in no-holds-barred attacks on their opponents’ positions, and sometimes on the opponents themselves.’’ 63

WHY LAW REVIEWS ARE DIFFERENT To the contemporary academic world, the decision to allow students to create and run an academic publication, especially at a flagship university, might seem puzzling, even inexplicable. But the explanation for student control of the nation’s law reviews arises from the evolving nature of legal education and occupational training in the late nineteenth century. In 1890, 50 law schools attached to universities operated in America.64 Those institutions produced a minority of the nation’s practicing lawyers, however, as the vast majority still received their training by apprenticing themselves to practicing lawyers and law firms.65 Apropos of this occupational pattern, most law school professors were practicing attorneys who found their time and talents outside the classroom better spent in profitable legal practice rather than pursuing what would today be considered the more appropriate academic pursuits of research and writing. According to a law student at the University of Pennsylvania from 1887, ‘‘The race of full-time professors of law was in its infancy. In almost all cases the lecturers in the schools were active practitioners who had a flair for teaching.’’ 66 Most law school faculty were not, therefore, academics of the sort found in most other academic disciplines even by late nineteenth-century university standards, and the editorial and writing responsibilities assumed by student editors were considered more clerical than scholarly. At Harvard, one of the faculty’s most enthusiastic proponents of the new publication was James Barr Ames, whose initial appointment to the law school in 1873 was considered ‘‘a milestone’’ because he was the first faculty member appointed for his scholarship and teaching, as opposed to practical skill and potential. Ames’s lack of legal experience was no drawback given the new Langdellian view (named after Harvard Law School Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell, who revolutionized legal education in the late 1800s) that law was a ‘‘science’’ better learned in the library than in the courtroom.67 Langdell notwithstanding, the legal profession at this time was viewed as more a ‘‘mechanical trade’’ than a ‘‘liberal science,’’ 68 an attitude that likely fortified faculty members’ disinclination to involve themselves directly in law reviews, and to justify student control based on its educational value for students. Further, law faculty were reportedly reluctant to assume leadership positions with the new, university-based journals because they would be competing with alreadyestablished commercial legal journals.69


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Indeed, the overriding reason given for establishing law reviews at law schools was the belief that students’ legal education would be importantly advanced through such work. In his survey of founding rationales for the establishment of law reviews, Harvard law faculty member John Jay McKelvey concluded in 1937 that ‘‘no law school review has been free from the idea of service to the student body as a medium of extracurricular training.’’ 70 In a report prepared for the Survey of the Legal Profession in 1953, Albert J. Harno noted approvingly that ‘‘the common vehicle of legal scholarship in America is the law review.’’ Its two purposes, according to Harno, were ‘‘education for the students’’ and providing a means ‘‘through which legal scholars can make the results of their research available to the public.’’ 71 The typical content of early law review writing also helps clarify an understanding of the law review past and the pivotal role of students. At its founding, the Harvard Law Review student editors stated two primary (and very practical) purposes for the publication: to spread news and information about their institution, and to provide assistance to practicing lawyers.72 The format of this and other reviews consisted of lead articles usually written by faculty or other legal professionals (subject to editing by student editors), and student-authored case notes. Over time, various types of essays, comments, and book reviews became staples as well.73 Further, the tradition in legal writing throughout the nineteenth century consisted of two types of writing: doctrinal and case. Doctrinal writing involved extended exposition on some theory, body, or principle of law (i.e., doctrine); case writing included summaries of court decisions and opinions, with accompanying commentary. Both types of writing were of great use to practicing lawyers.74 Top law students, chosen to serve as law review editors because of their academic excellence and trained from the outset of a law school education to explicate such doctrine, were logical choices to assume responsibility for such writing, which became for them the singular honor of ‘‘making law review.’’ In the words of federal judge and law professor Richard A. Posner, the main purpose of legal writing in the nineteenth century was to serve judges and practicing lawyers, rather than other professors, by offering careful doctrinal analysis . . . activities organized around legal doctrine to which the students had been introduced on their first day in law school and in which the best of them had become fairly expert by the end of their first year of study.

Such writing was thus ‘‘primarily a professional rather than an academic product.’’ 75 In the twentieth century, law schools, legal writing, and the law itself changed dramatically. Entry to the legal profession increasingly came through the law schools rather than apprenticeship, partly in an effort ‘‘to

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upgrade the intellectual quality of law and lawyers and thus enhance their professional status.’’ 76 Law school training shifted from an undergraduate to a graduate education, as it also integrated itself more fully into the maturing American university system. Intellectual perspectives from other disciplines, especially including the social sciences, began to infuse approaches to the law.77 Law school faculty increasingly consisted of teaching professionals instead of practitioners, many of whom had served as law review editors as students, and institutional pressures on faculty to publish accelerated by the 1950s, in part because of the growing appetites of an everexpanding number of law journals. Yet even at this point, most law review writing still focused on relatively orthodox doctrinal and case writing.78 As for the law reviews, they continued to proliferate, such that no selfrespecting law school could now afford to be without one, or even several. This single fact explains the explosion in numbers of these publications. No other academic discipline hosts an academic journal at each and every one of its graduate institutions, and multiple publications have, in fact, become the norm at most larger law schools. In 2006, for example, Harvard Law School published 13 journals; Yale published 12; Cornell, 8; Stanford, 7; and Michigan and Chicago, 6 each. Law reviews continued to publish doctrinal analysis, but increasingly an eclectic, even dizzying array of articles on every imaginable subject, drawing on a variety of disciplinary perspectives (sometimes called ‘‘law and . . .’’ writing),79 began to fill legal publications, encompassing such areas as history,80 economics, critical theory, feminism, philosophy, postmodernism and deconstructionism, gay and lesbian studies, game theory, literature, critical race theory, anthropology, sociology, and many others.81 Both feeding and responding to this trend toward publishing what law historian Lawrence Friedman dubbed ‘‘a bewildering kaleidoscope of every form and mutation of scholarship’’ 82 was the growth of specialty journals and symposium journal publications devoted to specific topics. Among mainstream journals, the decline of doctrinal analysis was matched by an increase in constitutional law analysis, and an ever-greater focus on the very small number of Supreme Court rulings handed down annually. The ‘‘vast expansion in constitutional law’’ 83 in law reviews occurred for at least two related reasons. First, from the New Deal period on, the courts injected themselves evermore into political controversies, from the constitutionality of New Deal programs to civil rights, reapportionment, abortion, affirmative action, and a host of other issues, both hot-button and mundane. This ever-growing corpus of court decisions helped move America’s courts more centrally into the American polity, a trend that, by its nature, invited greater examination in the pages of law reviews. Second, constitutional law ‘‘mesmerized students’’ 84 who controlled the gateways to law reviews—hardly a surprising development given


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the compelling import, not to mention drama, of court (and especially Supreme Court) rulings. And the subject undoubtedly had a similar effect on law faculty who increasingly won tenure and professional advancement through law journal publications addressing these matters.

HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS The mechanics of the law review system may vary from one law school to another, but in general, students selected to serve as members of a law review are chosen by the current editors on a merit-based system at the end of their first year of study (out of a three-year course of study). The merit criterion is usually based on grades, submission of a writing sample, or some combination of the two. The senior editorial positions are generally held by thirdyear students. Students may earn academic credit, and sometimes a stipend, for editorial service, as well as the prestige of having ‘‘made’’ law review. While students may consult faculty members (those consulted are usually limited to faculty affiliated with the law review’s law school), the student editorial board controls the publication process. Articles that are accepted for publication are carefully edited for content and style. Citations are checked for accuracy, and authors may be asked to revise their work or to submit additional information.85 Article authors typically submit their manuscripts to multiple reviews simultaneously, a practice discouraged in other disciplines. Multiple submissions mean that student editors, especially at higherprestige journals, must wade through a great many manuscripts, and do so quickly. According to a study of law review practices, high status (called ‘‘highimpact’’) journals received 600–1,200 manuscripts per year, medium impact journals about 300–750 per year, and low impact journals 50–300 per year. The volume and competitiveness factors resulted in rapid reported turnaround times of one to two weeks for low impact journals, two to four weeks for medium impact journals, and two to six weeks for high impact journals. Once accepted, an article may appear within a few months of acceptance.86 Much has been written about the criteria students employ in selecting articles for publication. An intensive study of student-edited law journal publication decisions involved interviews with student law journal editors at 43 law schools. This study found that student editors’ adoption decisions were influenced not only by editors’ judgments of quality but also by whether the submissions dealt with a new topic, as opposed to a subject about which much had already been written. In addition, submissions from well-known— i.e., famous or prestigious—authors (as well as the prestige of those thanked by the author in the ‘‘Acknowledgments’’ footnote), who had established publishing records, and who came from more elite institutions, were also

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favored, as were authors on the faculty of the editors’ institution. Student editors admitted feeling pressure to accept such home-team submissions.87 As the authors of the study noted, most student editors interviewed ‘‘simply conceded that famous authors are granted a presumption of excellence,’’ although editors also said that even these submissions would be rejected if their manuscripts were considered ‘‘inferior.’’ 88 Others who have written on this subject also agree that student editors favor articles that adhere to the seemingly contrary trends of being safely orthodox, on the one hand, or faddish, on the other.89 As to subject matter, student editors are especially drawn to submissions pertaining to constitutional law and corporate law, subjects of great interest to student editors. Further, longer and more heavily footnoted articles generally find greater favor, especially at more prestigious journals.90

CRITICISMS The student-run law review system has indisputably flourished in the past century. Even from their initial founding, however, law reviews have had their critics, who focused specifically, although not exclusively,91 on the fact that they were run by students. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes referred to such publications dismissively as the ‘‘work of boys.’’ 92 Writing in the 1920s, one law professor argued that law review publications should be edited by faculty, not students, as the latter ‘‘will scarcely be sufficiently well prepared’’ to make editorial decisions.93 In a legendarily scathing, sarcastic, and caustic essay, Yale law professor Fred Rodell published an article in 1936 titled ‘‘Goodbye to Law Reviews.’’ In it, he launched into his explanation of ‘‘why I do not care to contribute further to the qualitatively moribund while quantitatively mushroom-like literature of the law.’’ His reason was this: ‘‘There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content.’’ 94 Rodell proceeded to unload, excoriating law reviews’ dull sameness, poor and obtuse writing, humorlessness, excessive footnoting, and unimportant content. The motives of faculty and student writers he attributed to, respectively, the desire for pay raises and the hunt for good jobs. While not laying the blame exclusively, or even primarily, at the feet of the student editors, Rodell noted that student writers were ‘‘just as superficial’’ as faculty authors, but were ‘‘even more assiduously stilted.’’ 95 His essay’s conclusion was suitably pessimistic: law reviews would continue to print articles ‘‘not fit to read, on subjects that are not worth the bother of writing about them.’’ 96 Rodell’s complaints would resonate throughout the profession from that time to the present, and the intensity of the debate has not diminished in recent years.97 Contemporary criticisms of the law review system include complaints that the publishing realm is too vast, resulting in much that is of poor quality or


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that is never read;98 that articles are too long—and pointlessly so—often running over 100 pages per article;99 that there are far too many footnotes (a 1989 article reported that the record for the law review article with the most footnotes was 4,824100—a record likely surpassed since that time);101 that law review writing is increasingly divorced from the interests, needs, and concerns of the legal profession;102 that the writing is poorly edited by student editors;103 and that students are not competent to judge the content of articles submitted to them, with the result that they often publish articles that are unworthy of publication, and that either repeat the prevailing orthodoxy or, contrarily, that embrace the latest fads, including approaches distinctive primarily for their novelty.104 On this latter point, law professor James Lindgren minces no words: ‘‘Our scholarly journals are in the hands of incompetents.’’ 105 What defense is mounted against this withering attack of the law review system? A spirited one, to be sure. Defenders of the current system argue that the fault for poor quality articles lies with the faculty authors, since student editorial boards can publish only what is submitted;106 that students are, in fact, capable judges who can improve faculty submissions because students are unencumbered by the academic baggage of faculty, and can therefore reduce conceptual or linguistic obtuseness, and that many excellent and important articles are published, especially in the most prestigious journals;107 that faculty are hypocrites for criticizing a system from which they benefit, and continue to buttress;108 that the system allows for short turnaround time between submission and publication, allowing for quick response on developing issues;109 and that review editorship is an important and valuable learning experience that provides benefits for top students both in law school and after graduation (this latter proposition is one that even law review critics generally agree on).110 Interesting as this debate is, my purpose is to focus on those characteristics of law reviews that explain how law reviews, as a body of academic literature, differ from the academic literature of every other field of academic inquiry, and why that difference matters. In order to draw out those differences, it is useful to compare law with the publishing principles and practices of other disciplines, which rely on the process of peer review.

PROFESSIONAL PEER REVIEW: THE ACADEMIC GOLD STANDARD Academic research and publishing in every other discipline—whether the natural sciences, social sciences, or fine arts and humanities—follows some version of peer review, and has done so for many decades. In broad outline, the academic publications process involves the submission of manuscripts

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to journal editors, who are themselves trained in the field of specialty coinciding with the subject of the publication and who often have prior experience or training in the editorial process. These editors then send the manuscripts for review to one or more other experts in the field who read and evaluate the suitability of the work for publication. They may recommend immediate publication, publication subject to revisions, or rejection. The names of the reviewers are customarily not revealed to the authors (referred to as ‘‘blind review’’; if the authors’ names are also shielded from the reviewers, this is ‘‘double-blind’’ review). This is done to encourage reviewers to be frank in their evaluations. Editors normally abide by the judgments of the reviewers, but final decisions nevertheless rest with the editors. Just as there are some law reviews where publication decisions do not rest with students, so too there are some professional publications that do not rely on independent peer review, but these are the exceptions.111 The logic of peer review is self-evident: scholarly work, by its nature, is designed to advance knowledge. Field specialists are most likely to be able to judge the relative merits of often complex work that is aimed at a small and specialized field of study. Does the work deal with an important subject? Does it employ sound methods? Does it demonstrate appropriate knowledge of the existing research and literature of the field? Does it represent a new contribution, or merely duplicate that which has already been published? Does the work present concepts and facts accurately? These and other, similar questions guide peer review in every field, from anthropology to zoology, from literature to political science. In short, peer review is ‘‘the gold standard’’ of scientific inquiry.112 Peer review is not without its critics or faults. In fact, peer review has taken a battering in recent years, as highly publicized incidents of scientific fraud in the natural sciences, and fraud in disciplines like history, have shaken disciplinary confidence. In 2005, for example, the international scientific establishment was euphoric when it was revealed that a team of South Korean scientists who claimed to have cloned human embryos and extracted their stem cells, all with relative ease, was reported in the pages of the prestigious publication Science. Shortly after the article’s publication, however, the results were found to be fraudulent, a devastating and humiliating revelation especially for Science’s editors, who were forced to withdraw the article.113 Fraud in scientific research is nothing new.114 Indeed, modern peer review was first established in the 1700s in order to improve the reliability of scientific research; it finally became a uniform scientific standard after World War II.115 In recent decades, concerns about fraud, especially as a result of increasing competition for lucrative government and private research grants, have prompted an increase in safeguards.116


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The social sciences have experienced their own highly publicized instances of fraud and misconduct in recent years. Celebrated and award-winning historians Stephen E. Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin were both discovered to have committed plagiarism in their writings. While their cases were hardly the first, their notoriety (both appeared frequently on national television, served as consultants for Hollywood moviemakers, etc.) drew national attention.117 Historian Michael Bellesiles resigned from his academic position after a university inquiry concluded that he misrepresented data he cited in an article and a book concerning early probate records pertaining to gun ownership. Another researcher on gun control, economist John Lott, was charged with inventing poll data regarding the frequency with which citizens used guns to protect themselves. Lott’s humiliation escalated when he admitted to inventing a fictional defender, ‘‘Mary Rosh,’’ whose comments appeared widely on the Internet extolling his work and criticizing his detractors.118 Leaving aside the serious problem of fraud or other types of willful misconduct, peer review has also been criticized for its tendency to favor institutional conservatism; that is, reviewers and editors tend to support the intellectual status quo and are sometimes reluctant to approve publications that are innovative or controversial. The secretiveness of the review process has also raised objections, since it places much discretion in the hands of people who are able to hide behind anonymity. Peer review is also often slow, especially given the problems of enlisting reviewers (who are almost never paid for their services) and getting them to respond promptly. And, of course, any biases on the part of editors and reviewers, whether intellectual or personal, may hold sway over the review process.119 Such incidents and concerns, especially in the scientific community, have prompted calls for reforms of the peer review system. Among the proposals for change are calls to open up the peer review process—that is, to reveal the names of reviewers to those whose work is being reviewed; to provide open-source reviewing, whereby drafts of work would be posted on the Internet, where anyone with expertise and interest could offer commentary; to encourage greater data sharing and experimental replication; and to beef up the professional staffs of publications in order to have more in-house experts trained and experienced in research evaluation.120 Yet for all its problems, no one has ever suggested that the review process would be improved by placing it in the hands of students. In fact, the thrust of peer review reform efforts has advocated moving in a direction opposite of that found in law reviews: that is, reforms emphasize efforts to draw on more, not less, professional expertise. The title of one article on the peer review process encapsulates the situation this way: ‘‘Peer Review: Crude and Understudied, but Indispensable.’’ 121 Political scientists Lee Epstein and Gary King

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state the case succinctly, referring to the law’s adversary system and studentrun law reviews: ‘‘there exists no serious basis for thinking it would work better in academia than the system—indeed the only system—that has worked so well for learning about the world in so many other disciplines.’’ 122 The existence of fraud within the system of peer review lends no support to the idea of abandoning expertise-based review of academic writing and publication, any more than the persistence of murder in society would support the proposition that laws against murder should be repealed. However imperfect, peer review is a standard and a practice of expertise-based evaluation. Leaving aside the few rare exceptions, law reviews are alone among all academic disciplines in having no such standards.

THE PROBLEMS WITH STUDENT CONTROL It is difficult to fully disentangle the consequences of student editorial control from other traits of legal writing. For example, the great importance given to footnotes stems from a long tradition, dating to the early nineteenth century and before, of their important role in court decisions.123 And legal writing by law scholars has a tradition of using ‘‘the same assumptions, vocabulary, and methods of argument and proof as found in judicial opinions,’’ a trait that distinguishes the method and content of their writing from ‘‘colleagues in other departments of their university.’’ 124 Yet it is the fact of student control that, above all, distinguishes law reviews from the professional publications found in every other discipline. The problem is not difficult to summarize. One may readily concede at the outset that law review service is highly valuable as a learning experience for law students. Would anyone similarly doubt that second-year medical students would reap enormous educational benefits from the chance to perform open heart surgery on live patients? Medical school administrators and faculty (not to mention the patients!) would recoil at such a suggestion, however, for the obvious reason that students do not yet possess the knowledge requisite to perform such a delicate procedure, and therefore the risks to the patients would simply be too great, even though the learning experience for the students would be considerable. The operating room is no place for trainee trial and error. Admittedly, the stakes are not as high in the legal profession, but neither are they trivial. While intelligent and hardworking student editors may be able to discern the meaning of manuscript submissions, they do not possess, and cannot be expected to possess, the knowledge and expertise of those who have researched and published in a field, and who therefore are best suited to provide a substantive evaluation of the merits of a piece of work. While some law students may also possess other advanced degrees or training, the normal


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law school admissions educational prerequisite is only a bachelor’s degree from an undergraduate institution. Further, student editors and editorial assistants are second and third year law students who are working on a part-time basis for law reviews (even if they put in full-time hours) for which they receive little or no formal training, as well as limited or no monetary compensation, and who are also meeting the other demands imposed on law students, including coursework. And normal student turnover means that law reviews undergo constant personnel change.125 Without question, law reviews publish a great deal of important, interesting, stimulating, and significant scholarship. In that respect, the law review system functions effectively. But while it functions without a ceiling on excellence, it also functions without a floor or barrier to writing that is incompetent, bad, and wrong. The mischief that may (and does) result cannot be blithely accepted or dismissed as a reasonable or benign consequence of the law journal system. As Epstein and King caution, academics are well advised to follow the physicians’ maxim of ‘‘first, do no harm.’’ 126 As noted earlier, disciplines where peer review is the norm are not insulated against defective or wrongheaded writing, but the peer review fire wall is at least a functioning barrier; no comparable barrier exists in the world of law reviews.

CONCLUSION The legal profession has long debated the relative merits of the adversarial system that lies at the core of American law. My purpose in this chapter is not to question its utility in the achievement of justice, but rather to elucidate its key traits in order to question the consequences of legal training when those schooled in them decide to enter academia and participate in scholarly debates about constitutional meaning. When zealous advocacy for one’s cause is explicated in the pages of what purports to be a scholarly venue— i.e., law reviews—and when the desire to persuade outstrips the otherwise primal obligation to the truth, the result, too often, is persuasion over truth. The rhetorical and analytical excesses that too often arise from lawyerscholars might be minimized if the field of law followed the academic publishing practices of every other discipline. Instead, the vast realm of law reviews provides uniquely fertile ground in which wayward academic theories may flourish. The law review system of student-run law reviews made sense when a relatively small number of law schools struggled to professionalize legal training in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and when legal writing was narrowly doctrinal and case-oriented. Yet as the field grew, matured, and diversified, the tenets of legal training left students ever further behind in terms of possessing the requisite knowledge (never mind the absence of appropriate editorial skills) at the very time that the number

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of law reviews exploded. Aside from the obvious limitations of students, law reviews on the whole failed to compensate for these problems with any expertise-based standard or mechanism. The result is a vast publication hole that retains unwarranted academic legitimacy and public prestige. Yes, law reviews publish many excellent articles, but in a realm of over 600 law reviews (and over 1,100 legal publications), some excellent articles would be published even if the criterion for selection were by ouija board, astrology, or random selection. The one irrefutable and insurmountable fact of the law review publishing realm, taken as a whole, is that the critical publishing and related editorial decisions are made by people who do not and cannot possess the knowledge or judgment to evaluate submissions on their academic merits. This is not an effort to ‘‘blame the victim,’’ but to identify a problem that I believe has resulted in the systematic distortion of that which is identified as legal scholarship. Add to the fact of student control another— the vastness of the legal publishing realm—and one may readily realize that the sheer volume of publishing possibilities provides a uniquely wide opportunity for the cultivation and propagation of wayward constitutional theories. As historian Garry Wills noted in his analysis of a particular body of law journal writing, ‘‘It seems as if our law journals were being composed by Lewis Carroll using various other pseudonyms.’’ 127

NOTES 1. See Robert J. Spitzer, Saving the Constitution From Lawyers: How Legal Training and Law Reviews Distort Constitutional Meaning (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 2. Harold J. Berman, William R. Greiner, and Samir N. Saliba, The Nature and Functions of Law, 6th ed. (New York: Foundation Press, 2004), 13. See also chap. 6 on legal reasoning. 3. Steven Vago, Law and Society, 5th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991), 279. See also Ruggero J. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers (New York: Clark Boardman Co., 1989). 4. Howard Lesnick, ‘‘Infinity in a Grain of Sand: The World of Law and Lawyering as Portrayed in the Clinical Teaching Implicit in the Law School Curriculum,’’ UCLA Law Review 37 (August 1990): 1158. 5. D. Don Welch, ‘‘ ‘What’s Going On?’ In the Law School Curriculum,’’ Houston Law Review 41 (Spring 2005): 1607. 6. John Bonsignore et al., Before the Law: An Introduction to the Legal Process, 8th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 344. See also Kenneth J. Vandevelde, Thinking Like a Lawyer: An Introduction to Legal Reasoning (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996). 7. Karl E. Klare, ‘‘The Law-School Curriculum in the 1980s: What’s Left?’’ Journal of Legal Education 32 (September 1982): 336. 8. Bonsignore et al., Before the Law, 368.


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9. Stephan Landsman, Readings on Adversarial Justice (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 2000), 3. 10. Kenney Hegland, Introduction to the Study and Practice of Law, 3rd ed. (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 2000), 16. 11. Landsman, Readings on Adversarial Justice, 4–5. 12. For example, federal district court judge Marvin F. Frankel wrote that the ‘‘advocate’s prime loyalty is to his client, not to the truth as such.’’ ‘‘The Search for Truth: An Umpireal View,’’ University of Pennsylvania Law Review 123 (May 1975): 1035. 13. Stephen Gillers, ‘‘The American Legal Profession,’’ in Fundamentals of American Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 166–167. The adversary system has its limits; lawyers are not supposed to lie to clients or encourage clients to lie, for example. Prosecutors in criminal cases who uncover evidence that would help the defendant are obligated to make that information available. 14. Monroe H. Freedman, Lawyers’ Ethics in an Adversary System (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975), 27, 43. 15. Gillers, ‘‘The American Legal Profession,’’ 167–168. 16. Lon L. Fuller, ‘‘The Adversary System,’’ in Talks on American Law, ed. Harold J. Berman (New York: Vintage, 1971), 35. 17. Marvin E. Frankel, Partisan Justice (New York: Hill and Wang, 1980), 11, 21. 18. Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., Ethics in the Practice of Law (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978), 133. 19. Deborah Rhode, ‘‘Ethical Perspectives on Legal Practice,’’ Stanford Law Review, 37 (January 1985): 604. 20. Advocates of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) argue that it is a preferable means for resolving certain kinds of disputes, including workplace disputes and divorces because dispute resolution is less incendiary than advocacy. See, for example, http://www.contilaw.com/adrsyn.html, the Web site of a law firm specializing in ADR (accessed May 1, 2007). 21. Freedman, Lawyers’ Ethics in an Adversary System, 57. 22. Roscoe Pound, ‘‘The Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice,’’ Reports of the American Bar Association 29 (1906): 395–417. Pound compared the practice of law to a game of football, and referred to ‘‘our sporting theory of justice’’ and the law as ‘‘a mere game,’’ 404–405. 23. Marvin F. Frankel, ‘‘The Search for Truth: An Umpireal View,’’ University of Pennsylvania Law Review 123 (May 1975): 1039. 24. Oliver Wendell Holmes, ‘‘The Path of the Law,’’ Harvard Law Review 10 (March 25, 1897): 459. Holmes’s desire to divorce law from morality was part of the effort to treat the law, and legal education, as a ‘‘science’’ where questions of morality simply muddled analytical thinking. This view was shared by Harvard Law School Dean Christopher Langdell. See H. L. A. Hart, ‘‘Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals,’’ Harvard Law Review 71 (February 1958): 593–629; and James R. Elkins, ‘‘Thinking Like a Lawyer: Second Thoughts,’’ Mercer Law Review 47 (Winter 1996): 532–534. 25. For example, Lon L. Fuller, The Law in Quest of Itself (Chicago: Foundation Press, 1940); Henry M. Hart Jr., ‘‘Holmes’ Positivism—An Addendum,’’ Harvard Law Review 64 (April 1951): 929–937.

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26. Elkins, ‘‘Thinking Like a Lawyer,’’ 532. 27. Harry T. Edwards, ‘‘The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education and the Legal Profession,’’ Michigan Law Review 91 (October 1992): 73. 28. Landsman, Readings on Adversarial Justice, 29. 29. David Luban, ‘‘The Adversary System Excuse,’’ in The Good Lawyer: Lawyers’ Roles and Lawyers’ Ethics, ed. David Luban (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1983), 90. 30. Lawyers themselves are among the frankest and harshest of their own profession. Celebrated trial lawyer Roy Grutman said, ‘‘A lawyer is like a utensil, like a knife or fork. It makes no difference who ate with it last, only that it was sufficiently sanitized between meals.’’ Quoted in Bonsignore et al., Before the Law, 368. See also defense attorney James Mills’s, ‘‘I Have Nothing to Do with Justice,’’ in On the Edge (New York: Doubleday, 1971). 31. Freedman, Lawyers’ Ethics in an Adversary System, 3. 32. Frankel, Partisan Justice, 23–24. 33. Anthony T. Kronman, The Lost Lawyer: Failing Ideals of the Legal Profession (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), vii. 34. Tracey E. George, ‘‘An Empirical Study of Empirical Legal Scholarship,’’ Indiana Law Journal 81 (Winter 2006): 144. 35. Arthur Selwyn Miller, ‘‘The Myth of Objectivity in Legal Research and Writing,’’ Catholic University of America Law Review 18 (1969): 291. 36. Miller, ‘‘The Myth of Objectivity,’’ 291–293. 37. Alfred H. Kelly, ‘‘Clio and the Court,’’ The Supreme Court Review, ed. Philip Kurland (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 155. Judge Frankel wrote that ‘‘we know that others searching after facts—in history, geography, medicine, whatever— do not emulate our adversary system. . . . many of the rules and devices of adversary litigation as we conduct it are not geared for, but are often aptly suited to defeat, the development of the truth.’’ ‘‘The Search for Truth,’’ 1036. 38. David Luban, Lawyers and Justice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 69. Luban’s description of scientific research standards are drawn from Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (New York: Harper and Row, 1963). 39. There are exceptions to this, as when scientific researchers are paid by drug companies to conduct research. In such instances, the research findings may be the property of the companies, and they have been known to suppress findings critical of their products. Yet such circumstances, while real, are also widely understood to violate the rules and norms of objective scientific inquiry. 40. Cornelia Dean, ‘‘When Questions of Science Come to a Courtroom, Truth Has Many Faces,’’ New York Times, December 5, 2006, F3. 41. Lee Epstein and Gary King, ‘‘The Rules of Inference,’’ The University of Chicago Law Review 69 (Winter 2002): 9. 42. Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), 4. See also Carl G. Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966).


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43. Thomas S. Kuhn’s seminal critique of the fitful process by which scientific paradigms are formulated, advanced, and discredited applies no less to the social sciences than to the natural sciences. See The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). 44. Carl G. Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation (New York: Free Press, 1965), 150–151. See also Richard S. Rudner, Philosophy of Social Science (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966). 45. Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry (New York: Chandler Publishing, 1964), 32–33. 46. E. Terrence Jones, Conducting Political Research (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), xi. 47. Alan C. Isaak, Scope and Methods of Political Science (Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press, 1981), 51. 48. Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 129. 49. Ibid., 129–131. 50. Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, ‘‘Review Symposium: The QualitativeQuantitative Disputation,’’ American Political Science Review 89 (June 1995): 454–481. 51. See, for example, Fred M. Frohock, Normative Political Theory (Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1974). For texts pertaining to research and theory building in the social sciences, see, for example: Robert Brown, Explanation in Social Science (Chicago: Aldine, 1963); Hubert M. Blalock Jr., Causal Inferences in Nonexperimental Research (New York: W. W. Norton, 1964); Rudner, Philosophy of Social Science; Kenneth R. Hoover, The Elements of Social Scientific Thinking (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976); Stanford Labovitz and Robert Hagedorn, Introduction to Social Research (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981); King, Keohane, and Verba, Designing Social Inquiry; Richard A. Seltzer, Mistakes that Social Scientists Make (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996); John Gerring, Social Science Methodology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Henry E. Brady, Rethinking Social Inquiry (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004); George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Texts specific to political science include: Lawrence C. Mayer, Comparative Political Inquiry (Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press, 1972); James A. Bill and Robert L. Hardgrave Jr., Comparative Politics: The Quest for Theory (Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill, 1973); Jones, Conducting Political Research; Isaak, Scope and Methods of Political Science; Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997); David Marsh and Gerry Stoker, eds., Theory and Methods in Political Science (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). Some that address these issues in historical research are Terrence J. McDonald, ed., The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996); Clayton Roberts, The Logic of Historical Explanation (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996). 52. Rudner, Philosophy of Social Science, 4–7. 53. Examples of historians’ criticisms of ‘‘law office history’’ are found in J. M. Sosin, ‘‘Historian’s History or Lawyer’s History?’’ Reviews in American History 10 (March

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1982): 38–43; Martin S. Flaherty, ‘‘History ‘Lite’ in Modern American Constitutionalism,’’ Columbia Law Review 95 (April 1995): 523–590 (Flaherty’s verdict is that some lawyers’ constitutional historical writing ‘‘is replete with historical assertions that are at best deeply problematic and at worst, howlers’’ [525]); Lauren Kalman says that ‘‘legal scholars who ‘abuse’ history undermine their credibility,’’ in The Strange Career of Legal Liberalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 9 (see also chap. 6); Garry Wills, A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999), 112–122, 252–260; Jack N. Rakove, ‘‘The Second Amendment: The Highest Stage of Originalism,’’ Chicago-Kent Law Review 76 (2000): 106; Saul Cornell, ‘‘A New Paradigm for the Second Amendment,’’ Law and History Review 22 (Spring 2004): 161–168. 54. Kelly, ‘‘Clio and the Court,’’ 122, n.13. Kelly traces the abuse of history to some of the Supreme Court’s earliest cases, but notes its full flowering in contemporary cases. 55. John Phillip Reid, ‘‘Law and History,’’ Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 27 (November 1993): 201. 56. Kenneth Mayer, ‘‘The Return of the King? Presidential Power and the Law,’’ PRG Report 26 (Spring 2004): 13. 57. Epstein and King, ‘‘The Rules of Inference,’’ 15. 58. Ibid., 9. 59. Ibid., 9, n.23. 60. Jack Goldsmith and Adrian Vermeule, ‘‘Exchange: Empirical Research and the Goals of Legal Scholarship,’’ The University of Chicago Law Review 69 (Winter 2002): 156. 61. Lee Epstein and Gary King, ‘‘A Reply,’’ The University of Chicago Law Review 69 (Winter 2002): 194. 62. Mary Ann Glendon, A Nation Under Lawyers (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994), 208. Glendon dates advocacy scholarship to the 1960s and notes that Justice William O. Douglas was among the first to take note of the ‘‘increase in partisan legal literature’’ (208). 63. Ibid., 209. 64. Bernard J. Hibbitts, ‘‘Last Writes?’’ New York University Law Review 71 (June 1996): 619. 65. Robert Stevens, Law School: Legal Education in America from the 1850s to the 1980s (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), 24. 66. Quoted in Hibbitts, ‘‘Last Writes?’’ 620, n.15. 67. Michael Ariens, ‘‘Modern Legal Times: Making a Professional Legal Culture,’’ Journal of American Culture 15 (March 1992): 25–35; Stevens, Law School, 38. 68. Quoted in Stevens, Law School, 24. 69. Hibbitts, ‘‘Last Writes?’’ 625–626, n.45. 70. John Jay McKelvey, ‘‘The Law School Review,’’ Harvard Law Review 50 (April 1937): 871. McKelvey was a student founder of the Review in 1887. 71. Albert J. Harno, Legal Education in the United States (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1953), 192. 72. Richard S. Harnsberger, ‘‘Reflections About Law Reviews and American Legal Scholarship,’’ Nebraska Law Review 76 (1997): 691.


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73. Michael L. Closen and Robert J. Dzielak, ‘‘The History and Influence of the Law Review Institution,’’ Akron Law Review 30 (Fall 1996): 17–19. 74. Michael I. Swygert and Jon W. Bruce, ‘‘The Historical Origins, Founding, and Early Development of Student-Edited Law Reviews,’’ The Hastings Law Journal 36 (May 1985): 742–750. Much of the legal writing from the nineteenth century known well today, including that produced by the important constitutional scholars James Kent, Joseph Story, and Thomas Cooley, is doctrinal. 75. Richard A. Posner, ‘‘Against the Law Reviews,’’ Legal Affairs (November/ December 2004), at http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/November-December-2004/ toc.html (accessed June 12, 2008). See also Harnsberger, ‘‘Reflections About Law Reviews and American Legal Scholarship,’’ 691–692. 76. Stevens, Law School, 24. 77. Ariens, ‘‘Modern Legal Times’’; Samuel Nirenstein, ‘‘The Law Review and the Law School,’’ New York University Annual Review 1 (1924): 31. 78. Stevens, Law School, 58, 73–84, 134–41, 271. See also Harno, Legal Education in the United States; Lyman P. Wilson, ‘‘The Law Schools, the Law Reviews and the Courts,’’ Cornell Law Quarterly 30 (1945): 493. 79. See Laura Kalman, The Strange Career of Legal Liberalism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), chap. 2. Kalman dates the ‘‘law and . . .’’ phenomenon to the 1970s. 80. The link between law and history is both the strongest and longest. Alfred H. Kelly apparently coined the phrase ‘‘law-office’’ history in his 1965 article in which he took the courts to task for their persistent misuse and distortion of history in court cases dating to the late eighteenth century. Kelly concludes his article with this sweeping indictment: ‘‘The Court, I submit, has attempted to sit on two stools at once and has fallen between them. It has confused the writing of briefs with the writing of history.’’ Kelly, ‘‘Clio and the Court: An Illicit Love Affair,’’ The Supreme Court Review, ed. Philip Kurland (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 155. 81. Lawrence M. Friedman, American Law in the 20th Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 499; Richard A. Posner, ‘‘The Future of the Student-Edited Law Review,’’ Stanford Law Review 47 (Summer 1995): 1133; Edwards, ‘‘The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education and the Legal Profession,’’ 50; George L. Priest, ‘‘Triumphs or Failings of Modern Legal Scholarship and the Conditions of Its Production,’’ University of Colorado Law Review 63 (1992): 726. 82. Friedman, American Law in the 20th Century, 499. 83. Posner, ‘‘The Future of the Student-Edited Law Review,’’ 1133. 84. Ibid., 1133. 85. Closen and Dzielak, ‘‘The History and Influence of the Law Review Institution,’’ 43–49; Harnsberger, ‘‘Reflections About Law Reviews and American Legal Scholarship,’’ 685–686. 86. The study was based on on-site, in-depth interviews conducted at 43 law schools around the country, based on a target population of 153 generalist or ‘‘principal’’ student-edited law journals (omitting specialty publications). Jordan H. Liebman and James P. White, ‘‘How the Student-Edited Law Journals Make Their Publication

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Decisions,’’ Journal of Legal Education 39 (March 1989): 387–425. See also Epstein and King, ‘‘The Rules of Inference,’’ 48, 125–127. 87. Liebman and White, ‘‘How the Student-Edited Law Journals Make Their Publication Decisions,’’ 404–405. 88. Liebman and White, ‘‘How the Student-Edited Law Journals Make Their Publication Decisions,’’ 405. See also Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr., ‘‘Legal Scholarship at the Crossroads,’’ Texas Law Review 77 (November 1998): 330. 89. Roger C. Cramton, ‘‘ ‘The Most Remarkable Institution’: The American Law Review,’’ Journal of Legal Education 35 (1986): 5; Hibbitts, ‘‘Last Writes?’’ 641; Leo P. Martinez, ‘‘Babies, Bathwater, and Law Reviews,’’ Stanford Law Review 47 (Summer 1995): 1142–1143. 90. James Lindgren, ‘‘An Author’s Manifesto,’’ University of Chicago Law Review 61 (Spring 1994): 532–533; Posner, ‘‘The Future of Student-Edited Law Reviews,’’ 1133–1134. 91. For example, as early as 1906, some in the legal field complained that the publishing field was being swamped by too many publications, calling it ‘‘overcrowded.’’ Hibbitts, ‘‘Last Writes?’’ 629. 92. Quoted in Charles E. Hughes, ‘‘Foreword,’’ Yale Law Journal 50 (March 1941): 737. 93. Clarence M. Updegraff, ‘‘Management of Law School Reviews,’’ University of Cincinnati Law Review 3 (1929): 119. 94. Fred Rodell, ‘‘Goodbye to Law Reviews,’’ Virginia Law Review 23 (1936): 38. 95. Ibid., 43. 96. Ibid., 45. 97. See Rodell’s book-length indictment of lawyers and the legal profession: Woe Unto You Lawyers! (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1939). The law school community’s soul-searching on this issue is reflected in several symposia issues. See ‘‘Symposium on Law Review Editing: The Struggle Between Author and Editor Over Control of the Text,’’ Chicago-Kent Law Review 61 (1994); ‘‘Special Issue,’’ Stanford Law Review 47 (1995); ‘‘Special Issue,’’ Akron Law Review 30 (Winter 1996). See also Carl T. Bogus, ‘‘The Death of an Honorable Profession,’’ Indiana Law Journal 71 (Fall 1996): 911–947. 98. Alan W. Mewett, ‘‘Reviewing the Law Reviews,’’ Journal of Legal Education 8 (1955): 188; Margaret A. Goldblatt, ‘‘Current Legal Periodicals: A Use Study,’’ Law Library Journal 78 (1986): 55–72; Kenneth Lasson, ‘‘Scholarship Amok: Excesses in the Pursuit of Truth and Tenure,’’ Harvard Law Review 103 (February 1990): 926–929; Hibbitts, ‘‘Last Writes?’’ 629. 99. Elyce Zenoff, ‘‘I Have Seen the Enemy and They Are Us,’’ Journal of Legal Education 36 (1986): 21; Lasson, ‘‘Scholarship Amok,’’ 942–943; Lindgren, ‘‘An Author’s Manifesto,’’ 531–532; Friedman, American Law in the 20th Century, 498; Robert C. Berring, ‘‘Less is More. Really.’’ Green Bag 8 (Spring 2005): 231–234. 100. David Margolick, ‘‘The Law: At the Bar,’’ New York Times, June 9, 1989, B5. 101. John E. Nowak, ‘‘Woe Unto You, Law Reviews!’’ Arizona Law Review 27 (1985): 318; Cramton, ‘‘ ‘The Most Remarkable Institution,’ ’’ 5; David Margolick, ‘‘At the Bar: The Fetish of Footnotes, or the Folly of Trying to Eradicate the Profession’s Enduring Weeds,’’ New York Times, June 8, 1990, B16; Arthur Austin, ‘‘The Reliability of Citation


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Counts in Judgments on Promotion, Tenure, and Status,’’ Arizona Law Review 35 (Winter 1993): 829–839; Posner, ‘‘The Future of the Student-Edited Law Review,’’ 1134. 102. Edwards, ‘‘The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education and the Legal Profession,’’ 1835–1905; Posner, ‘‘The Future of the Student-Edited Law Review,’’ 1133–1134. 103. Carol Sanger, ‘‘Editing,’’ Georgetown Law Journal 82 (December 1993): 513–527; Lindgren, ‘‘An Author’s Manifesto,’’ 528–531; Posner, ‘‘The Future of the StudentEdited Law Review,’’ 1134–1135. 104. Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry ‘‘describe a phenomenon that has come to pervade legal scholarship—the idea that novelty is the ultimate test of the worth of an idea.’’ They do not specifically attribute this to the nature of law reviews, but it lends support to that thesis. Desperately Seeking Certainty: The Misguided Quest for Constitutional Foundations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 6. See also Mewett, ‘‘Reviewing the Law Reviews,’’ 190; Cramton, ‘‘ ‘The Most Remarkable Institution,’ ’’ 8; Posner, ‘‘The Future of the Student-Edited Law Review,’’ 1134. 105. Lindgren, ‘‘An Author’s Manifesto,’’ 527. 106. Phil Nichols, ‘‘A Student Defense of Student Edited Journals,’’ Duke Law Journal (December 1987): 1124–1125; James W. Harper, ‘‘Why Student-Run Law Reviews?’’ Minnesota Law Review 82 (May 1988): 1274–1276; The Article’s Editors, ‘‘A Response,’’ University of Chicago Law Review 61 (Spring 1994): 554. 107. Michael W. Dowdle, ‘‘The Case Against Law Reviews Rebutted,’’ New York Times, December 21, 1990, A38; Wendy J. Gordon, ‘‘Counter-Manifesto: StudentEdited Reviews and the Intellectual Properties of Scholarship,’’ University of Chicago Law Review 61 (Spring 1994): 544–545; Richard S. Harnsberger, ‘‘Reflections About Law Reviews and American Scholarship,’’ Nebraska Law Review 76 (1997): 693; Harper, ‘‘Why Student-Run Law Reviews?’’ 1274–1276, 1279–1282. 108. Nichols, ‘‘A Student Defense of Student Edited Journals’’; Rosa Ehrenreich, ‘‘Look Who’s Editing,’’ Lingua Franca (January/February 1996): 62; C. Scott Andrews, ‘‘Law Review Under Review,’’ Legal Affairs (March/April 2005): 6. 109. Lisa Anderson, ‘‘Law Journals Attack ‘Shopping’ of Manuscripts,’’ New York Times, July 12, 1995, B6. 110. Scott M. Martin, ‘‘The Law Review Citadel: Rodell Revisited,’’ Iowa Law Review 71 (May 1986): 1100–1101; Michael Vitiello, ‘‘In Defense of Student-Run Law Reviews,’’ Cumberland Law Review 17 (1987): 862; Harper, ‘‘Why Student-Run Law Reviews?’’ 1272–1274; Nathan H. Saunders, ‘‘Student-Edited Law Reviews: Reflections and Responses of an Inmate,’’ Duke Law Journal 49 (April 2000): 1670–1673; Ben Potter, ‘‘Law Review Under Review,’’ Legal Affairs (March/April 2005): 6. 111. In political science, for example, the editors of the journal Presidential Studies Quarterly made publishing decisions when it was first founded, a fact that tarnished its reputation. When it converted to peer review, its reputation rose. 112. Daniel Engber, ‘‘Quality Control: The Case Against Peer Review,’’ Slate Magazine, April 5, 2005, at http://slate.msn.com/id/2116244/ (accessed April 6, 2005). 113. Gina Kolata, ‘‘A Cloning Scandal Rocks a Pillar of Science Publishing,’’ New York Times, December 18, 2005, A28.

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114. A famous historical example of scientific fraud was the case of ‘‘Piltdown Man,’’ an allegedly prehistoric human ‘‘discovered’’ by an amateur anthropologist in 1908. It was eventually proven to be a fraud in 1953. Boyce Rensberger, ‘‘Fraud in Research Is a Rising Problem in Science,’’ New York Times, January 23, 1977, A1. 115. Engber, ‘‘Quality Control.’’ 116. Rensberger, ‘‘Fraud in Research Is a Rising Problem in Science’’; Lawrence K. Altman and William J. Broad, ‘‘Global Trend: More Science, More Fraud,’’ New York Times, December 20, 2005, F1. 117. David Greenberg, ‘‘School for Scandal,’’ Slate Magazine, December 10, 2004, http://slate.msn.com/id/2110907/ (accessed December 12, 2004). See also Peter Charles Hoffer, Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud—American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin (New York: Public Affairs Press, 2004); Ron Robin, Scandals and Scoundrels: Seven Cases That Shook the Academy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). The Ambrose and Goodwin cases involved book publishing, not articles in scholarly journals. But book publishing normally relies on peer review as well. 118. Donald Kennedy, ‘‘Research Fraud and Public Policy,’’ Science 300 (April 18, 2003): 393. 119. Liora Schmelkin, ‘‘Weaknesses of Peer Reviewing and Peer Refereeing,’’ Presidential Address to the American Psychological Association, at http:// people.hofstra.edu/liora_p_schmelkin/ (accessed March 27, 2006). 120. Engber, ‘‘Quality Control’’; David Dobbs, ‘‘Trial and Error,’’ New York Times Magazine, January 15, 2006, 18–19. Since the 1980s, the International Congress on Biomedical Peer Review and Scientific Publication has held conferences every four years on this subject. The most recent such conference was in 2005. See http://www .ama-assn.org/public/peer/peerhome.htm 121. Jerome P. Kassirer and Edward W. Campion, ‘‘Peer Review: Crude and Understudied, but Indispensable,’’ Journal of the American Medical Association 272 (July 13, 1994): 96–97. 122. Lee Epstein and Gary King, ‘‘A Reply,’’ University of Chicago Law Review 69 (Winter 2002): 195. Epstein and King urge legal writers ‘‘to follow the norms in the dozens of academic disciplines that have decades of experience making progress in learning about the world’’ (195). 123. Lasson, ‘‘Scholarship Amok,’’ 939–940; Fred R. Shapiro, ‘‘Origins of Bibliometrics, Citation Indexing, and Citation Analysis: The Neglected Legal Literature,’’ Journal of the American Society for Information Science 43 (1992): 337–339. 124. Richard A. Posner, ‘‘Law, Knowledge, and the Academy: Legal Scholarship Today,’’ Harvard Law Review 115 (March 2002): 1315. 125. See Epstein and King, ‘‘The Rules of Inference,’’ 48. 126. Epstein and King, ‘‘A Reply,’’ 195. 127. Garry Wills, ‘‘To Keep and Bear Arms,’’ New York Review of Books, September 21, 1995, 71.

12 Women and Political Leadership CAROLINE HELDMAN

In 1431, at the age of 19, Joan d’Arc, an illiterate farm girl whose military leadership reversed the tides of the Hundred Years’ War between France and England, was burned at the stake. During her time on the battlefield, Joan of Arc suffered an arrow wound to her neck, an artillery shell to her head (that was deflected by her helmet), a crossbow bolt wound to her leg, and a 70-foot jump to attempt freedom while being held captive. But, in the end, it was her violation of gendered conceptions of leadership that got the best of her. Joan of Arc was charged with heresy for her ‘‘cross-dressing’’—wearing ‘‘men’s’’ clothing and armor and keeping her hair short.1 She was put to death for wearing male garb, but, in a broader sense, she was executed for donning ‘‘masculine’’ power through her mantle of military leadership. Had Joan of Arc been a farm boy with similar success in battle or a young woman who stayed on the farm, she would have expired peacefully in battle or on a homestead in the French countryside, respectively. While women are no longer burned at the stake for assuming the traditionally male mantle of leadership, they continue to face significant barriers in getting access to and thriving in positions of leadership. It has been over 30 years since the second wave of the Women’s Movement when women starting moving en masse into corporate high rises and the halls of federal, state, and local government. Yet, the most elite positions of leadership in politics and business continue to be disproportionately awarded to men to such a great degree that persistent gender bias is evident. The few women who do manage to make it to the top are then faced with formidable double standards that cause those around them to discount female leadership. Joan of Arc experienced a prevalent no-win situation that exists today: a ‘‘double bind’’ that

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requires women to act masculine in order to be considered competent leaders, but then penalizes them for acting ‘‘too masculine.’’ 2 The goals of this chapter are to describe the current landscape of gender and leadership in the United States, and to explore the origins, endurance, and implications of the robust leadership gender gap. The chapter begins with a detailed description of who holds positions of power, and where they hold them, highlighting gender gaps in both corporate and political settings. The next section analyzes the origins and contemporary causes of the leadership gender gap, including a backlash against the Women’s Movement; gendered notions of proper ambition; classic and more recent trends in parenting; evaluation bias; masculinist institutions; and the double bind of women’s leadership that symbolically and tangibly limits successful female leadership. This chapter concludes with an assessment of how widely held, contemporary stereotypes about gender and leadership continue to shape opportunities for women in ways that limit democratic representation in the United States.

THE GENDERED LANDSCAPE OF LEADERSHIP Knowledge of the current landscape of leadership is a necessary foundation for later analyses in this chapter. There is a common perception that women have steadily gained access to leadership roles since the recent Women’s Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and that this positive trend will continue into the future. But, as with any social movement that directly challenges the existing order, progress towards gender equity is not a continuous and steady march forward. Studying the broader context of the move towards gender equity is important in terms of understanding how and why leadership continues to be gendered. In short, despite major advancements for women in education and employment since the 1970s, forward momentum has stalled in obvious and measurable ways in the past decade. For the purposes of this chapter, the following analysis focuses on the plateauing of women in positions of leadership in both the public and private sectors. In corporate settings, a clear sign that the movement for gender equity has lost some steam comes from several recent longitudinal studies of female managers showing that the sharp gains of the 1970s and 1980s have slowed and, in some sectors, even reversed.3 The overall number of women in professional positions has steadily increased since the 1970s, with women now occupying 40 percent of all managerial positions in the United States, but progress into the highest echelons of leadership has been slow and, in recent years, has leveled off.4 Women hold only 6 percent of the highest managerial positions, and only 2 percent of CEOs are female. Also, women comprise only

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3 percent of the top earners in Fortune 500 companies.5 Economics professor and employment expert Linda C. Babcock states, I don’t think we have come as far as we think we have. We do see some visible women out there at the top of organizations and those with political power, so we just automatically think that everything has changed. But those are really still tokens.6

A recent survey of senior business executives in the United States and Europe finds that ‘‘men are still viewed as ‘default leaders’ and women as ‘atypical leaders.’ ’’ 7 In addition to the paucity of female corporate leadership, gender stereotypes about leadership persist, and, unfortunately, these stereotypes are enjoying a resurgence with Generation Y.8 Some improvement can be seen in the past 30 years amongst male managers who ‘‘seem to be characterizing women as less passive and submissive and more confident, ambitious, analytical, and assertive’’ 9 in the workplace. However, male college students of today hold attitudes towards women in the workforce that are ‘‘surprisingly similar to those of male managers fifteen years ago,’’ 10 indicating that progress along these lines has not been linear. Young men from the generation that is presently graduating from college and moving into the workforce hold more traditional stereotypes that will likely work against women moving into corporate leadership positions in coming decades. The landscape of women’s leadership in the political sector mirrors that of the corporate sector, characterized by rapid progress a few decades ago that has slowed, and, in some cases, even reversed. In the year 2000, women occupied only 16 percent of both houses of Congress, with 16 women serving as senators and 71 women elected as representatives in the House.11 This percentage has held firm for nearly a decade.12 It appears that, although women constitute 52 percent of the U.S. population and an even higher percentage of the voting population, their relatively negligible presence in national political leadership will endure for the foreseeable future. The picture of progress is similarly bleak when it comes to the state level where less than a quarter of legislative seats and statewide elective offices are held by women, a percentage that peaked at nearly 30 percent in 1992, and has slowly fallen since.13 While it is important to keep in mind that the numbers of female state legislators have increased fivefold since the 1970s, the number of women getting elected to state and federal positions of leadership in government reached its height in the late 1990s and has now leveled off. These finding are particularly surprising given that recent studies of women’s electoral potential show that female candidates fare as well as or better than male candidates when it comes to raising money and getting votes.14 In other words, women have

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become just as competitive as men in most elections, but this has not increased their presence in political office. Researchers have identified four major explanations for the tenacity of the leadership gender gap in politics: incumbency advantage makes progress for underrepresented groups slow and hard; 15 only a small number of women are in professional positions that serve as stepping stones to public office;16 there is unequal recruitment on the part of political parties and politicians;17 and gendered socialization discourages women from pursuing positions of leadership.18 These factors are examined further in the next section that analyzes the origins of the leadership gap. As with stereotypes about female corporate leaders, public opinion about political leaders shows that younger generations are less supportive of female leaders than in the past. Political scientists Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox find that voter bias against female candidates has increased in recent years, and nearly a quarter of Americans believe that men are better suited for politics than women.19 Men are more likely to support this notion than women, but a sizeable portion of both groups now hold this belief. It is difficult to say why young people are less supportive of women’s leadership in business and politics than the generation before them.20 This trend does not support the general tendency of Generation Y to be more ‘‘tolerant’’ when it comes to issues of diversity.21 In summary, public opinion polls show that the three-decade tide of increasing acceptance of female leadership in both corporate and political settings is slowly reversing. Additionally, the representation of women in positions of leadership has reached what appears to be a low peak and is leveling off. These tendencies illustrate the deep and unyielding roots of bias toward women’s leadership in American society.

ORIGINS OF THE LEADERSHIP GENDER GAP The tenacity of the leadership gender gap has myriad origins, some that work to dissuade women from pursuing paths to leadership and others that work against them once they are on their path. This section examines different theories and evidence as to why women remain underrepresented in corporate and political leadership. Both of these sectors are examined because the origins overlap and because research from multiple disciplines provides a more comprehensive assessment than research from one field or the other. The term ‘‘glass ceiling’’ was coined two decades ago to describe women’s systematic exclusion from positions of leadership in businesses and government that endures, despite their movement into the business world in great numbers. The glass ceiling metaphor conjures the imagery of an impenetrable, invisible barrier to leadership, suggesting that women will


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encounter this barrier near the top of their profession. But, after many years of research on the subject, business scholars Alice Eagly and Linda Carli came up with a more sophisticated metaphor to explain why women continue to be underrepresented in the highest ranks of leadership: a ‘‘labyrinth.’’ 22 Rather than one barrier that appears near the top of a career path, the labyrinth metaphor takes into account the variety of challenges that grant men an unfair advantage over women when it comes to leadership promotion. This chapter extends their analysis to the political realm and investigates many possible ubliets23 that hinder women along their path in the labyrinth, including: a backlash against the Women’s Movement; gendered ambition; different expectations and practices of family responsibilities; the authenticity granted to male styles of leadership; the masculinism of societal institutions; and the double bind of women’s leadership.

Backlash Against the Women’s Movement Some scholars attribute the persistent gender gap in leadership to a multiheaded hydra of backlash against the Women’s Movement that furthers stereotypes that devalue women’s professional capabilities. In 1992, journalist Susan Faludi published Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, in which she examined overt and subtle efforts on the part of media, corporations, academics, politicians, and other purveyors of power to oppose women’s gains.24 According to Faludi, cultural narratives have been promulgated to convince them that feminism, not sexism, is to blame for women’s lack of progress and unhappiness. Single women working outside the home were warned about ‘‘man shortages’’ and a potential infertility from postponing childbearing, media inventions meant to indict women who rejected conventional roles. Furthermore, conservative political groups and personalities, such as talk show host Rush Limbaugh, actively worked to taboo the word ‘‘feminism,’’ a campaign that has been successful since only one-quarter of American women identify with the label, while a vast majority identify with its goals.25 Faludi notes that the backlash is not an organized, orchestrated ‘‘movement’’ per se, but an amalgam of different forces with the same end goal of trying to ‘‘push women back into their ‘acceptable’ roles—whether as Daddy’s girl or fluttery romantic, active nester or passive love object.’’ 26 The backlash mediates the pursuit of leadership for women who are persuaded by its rhetoric of limited, ‘‘acceptable’’ roles and life choices. Backlash rhetoric also dampens women’s ambition, the topic of the next section.

Gendered Ambition Part of the leadership gender gap can be attributed to different societal norms of ambition for women and men. While ambition is acceptable for

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men, both genders expect women to temper their ambition, or at least its public display. When it comes to self-promotion, people expect women to act modestly, even if they are already highly accomplished.27 Social norms of ambition, learned at an early age, diminish women’s desires for leadership positions later in life. As political scientist Richard Fox discovered in a 2001 study that compared rates of ambition among male and female professionals, men are significantly more likely to report that they have considered running for public office than their female counterparts.28 This means that women who are well-qualified to hold public office are less likely to consider running than their male peers, and when they do consider running, it is usually at the local level.29 Fox explains this major gap in political ambition by a lack of external support for female candidacies among friends, family, and professional associates; family obligations that disproportionately fall to women; and self-perceptions that female candidates are not as qualified. The female phenomenon of internally discounting one’s qualifications is not something girls are born with. Studies show that boys and girls have similar levels of ambition when they are young, but, as they age, girls grow into women with significantly less ambition as a result of biases in perception of skill level and external recognition.30 With regard to the first factor, skill level perceptions, men tend to think they are better at tasks that are stereotypically ‘‘male’’ (e.g., leadership), whereas women underrate their performance, regardless of actual ability.31 Sociologist Shelley Correll finds that with male activities, such as math, both boys and girls with the same grades and standardized test scores think that boys are better at the subject.32 This finding can be applied to the stereotypically male domain of leadership as well, where both men and women believe that men are more competent to lead. Ambition is also structured along gender lines by external support for it, or lack of it. Psychiatrist Anna Fels finds that girls receive less external encouragement and recognition for being ambitious, and, as a result, they learn that this desire will not be rewarded.33 She further finds that, in light of a lack of external recognition for ambition, many women settle for ‘‘recognition by proxy’’ through attention for their physical attractiveness or the accomplishments of their husband or children. The roles for which women receive recognition by proxy fit well with the narrow, decorative, nonthreatening gender roles that backlash rhetoric prescribes for women. The end result is that childhood ambitions of little girls to become the next president of the United States or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company are eventually forgotten and replaced with more societally acceptable forms of expression and existence. For many women, their entry into the labyrinthine path to leadership is foreclosed before they are able to make a conscious choice about the matter.


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Trends in Parenting Women have historically been unduly burdened by the expectation that they manage affairs inside the home, even if they are working part- or fulltime outside the home. Gendered expectations along these lines have profound implications for women’s pursuit of and success in positions of leadership in business and politics. In this section, the long-standing gender gap in homemaking and child rearing is described first, followed by an examination of new trends in parenting that exacerbate the leadership gender gap. This section closes with an assessment of how all of this affects women’s ability to engage in corporate networking and campaigns for political office. Differences in what is expected of women and men in the home can be traced to the gendering of the public and private domains, and the persistent framing of the private sphere as a ‘‘feminine’’ domain. The public/private divide was a significant issue during the recent wave of the Feminist Movement given that women were encouraged to look and go beyond the domestic sphere. Liberal Feminism, arguably the most popular ‘‘brand’’ of feminism in the United States, calls for the pursuit of gender equality in business and politics through legal and legislative means. Starting in the 1970s, activists used Liberal Feminist approaches to open many doors for American women.34 The idea that women should be able to do anything men can do was liberating in tangible ways for millions of American women who were essentially given permission to be independent—to choose if and when to reproduce, to choose to work outside the home, to explore new expressions of sexuality. However, one of the dark underbellies of Liberal Feminism was a celebration of male pursuits in the workplace without a consummate celebration of ‘‘women’s work’’ in the home. It is not surprising that, in the intervening years, a vast majority of women have opted to work outside the home, but few men have opted to work inside the home. About 65 percent of American women work outside the home at least part-time,35 but, despite this occupational shift, they continue to serve as the primary homemaker and caretaker in the private sphere. Marriage and parenting continue to be heavily gendered when it comes to divisions of labor as a result of early socialization. ‘‘The sexual division of children’s play and labor induces both boys and girls to see housework and child care as women’s responsibility, a responsibility that, ideally, is performed with love and pleasure.’’ 36 Therefore, it is not surprising that women who live with a partner or spouse are nine times more likely than men to be primarily responsible for child care and homemaking.37 Recent trends in parenting expectations have expanded the stress on women who work outside the home and further limited their ability to pursue leadership opportunities. Despite timesaving technological

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advancements in homemaking, women are presently spending more time on housework and child care per week than earlier generations. In 1965, married mothers spent 10.6 hours per week in housekeeping activities, and, in 2000, they spent an average of 12.9 hours on housekeeping per week. 38 While men’s participation in the house has increased from an average of 2.6 hours to 6.5 hours over this same time period, new pressures to provide intensive parenting continue to primarily fall on the shoulders of women. These new parental expectations leave women with little time to build professional networks. The new vogue of intensive parenting has left women at a disadvantage when it comes to social connections that are crucial for eventually obtaining leadership positions. Research indicates that social networking is a more important predictor of advancement in corporations than work performance, and that women are further disadvantaged by the fact that socializing often involves traditionally masculine activities, such as sporting events. This challenge to women’s networking capabilities has the catch-22 effect that, if more women were involved in corporate socializing, acceptable social situations would shift, but women are discouraged from socializing with co-workers because of the venues involved and their responsibilities elsewhere. When it comes to politics, gendered expectations of parenting present a specific and significant challenge for women. The widely held notion that women should be the primary caretakers of children and the home affects the choices that female political candidates make. Most notably, women wait to run for office until their children are grown and raised, but this is not generally a consideration for male candidates.39 Furthermore, responsibility for household tasks is negatively correlated with the likelihood of running for political office for women, but it is not similarly correlated for men.40 In other words, the presence of children and household responsibilities delays the pursuit of political leadership for women, but not men. Some may argue that men should be more considerate of child rearing and household responsibilities, but it is clear that housekeeping expectations will continue to be ubliets in the leadership labyrinth until societal norms evolve.

Leadership Evaluation Bias Male and female leaders tend to have different leadership styles and are judged differently when it comes to the authenticity of their leadership in ways that disadvantage women. Business scholarship is a particularly rich resource when it comes to studying leadership types and effectiveness. James MacGregor Burns was the first to develop the modern typology of major leadership styles that includes transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and laissez-faire leadership.41 Transformational leaders set a goal and


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a plan to achieve it, and focus on developing subordinates to achieve the goal. Transactional leaders focus on tapping into subordinates’ self-interest through rewards and consequences, granting them only limited information and control over their tasks. The laissez-faire approach is a form of nonleadership that is not concerned with moving subordinates toward end goals. Business literature has long established the greater benefits of transformational leadership in terms of productivity and goal achievement, and recent scholarship has uncovered the finding that women are more likely than men to be transformational leaders.42 ‘‘The research tells us not only that men and women have somewhat different leadership styles, but also that the female approach is more generally effective—while men’s often are only somewhat effective or actually hinder effectiveness.’’ 43 Additionally, gender differences in leadership affect the corporate bottom line. A recent study finds that companies with a higher percentage of women in senior management positions outperform those with fewer high-ranking women in terms of two popular monetary performance measures.44 Despite the fact that female approaches to leadership have recently received praise for their effectiveness in the contemporary business environment,45 in general, both men and women continue to prefer male over female bosses, and it remains more difficult for women to achieve and thrive in positions of leadership. An unusually comprehensive survey of executives measuring stereotypes across cultures, conducted by Catalyst, Inc., in 2007, finds that when it comes to perceptions of leadership, women simply cannot win. The study surveyed 1,231 female and male leaders in the United States and Europe, and found that stereotypes about gender and leadership caused both men and women to evaluate female leaders more negatively than their male counterparts, regardless of their leadership style. The Catalyst study found that while different countries value different types of leadership, male leadership was valued the most across the board. ‘‘[I]n some regions the ideal leader was a team builder, in others the most valued skill was problem-solving. But whatever was most valued, women were seen as lacking it.’’ 46 In other words, a clear double standard exists for women and men that rewards whatever leadership characteristics are associated with men, not the characteristics in and of themselves. Researchers have identified many sources for gender differences in evaluation of leadership.47 At a basic level, prescribed social roles for men and women, and expectations attached to those social roles, work against a fair evaluation of female leadership. This disadvantages women who manage to obtain a position of leadership and, more generally, taints the water for women who seek such positions, given lower evaluations of female leadership. Psychologist Peter Glick finds a double standard at play with appropriate dress in the workplace that exemplifies different bases for perceptions of

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male and female leaders.48 In an experimental setting, female executives who dress provocatively were rated as less competent than their provocatively dressed male counterparts. Furthermore, the competence of female secretaries was not diminished by provocative dress, indicating that this is a more comfortable role for women in the workplace and can thus involve more expected modes of feminine dress without being threatening. In other words, women who fit the ‘‘appropriate’’ female role of displaying their bodies for attention are penalized if they hold a position of power, but not if they are lower on the corporate food chain. And men are not penalized, period. Thus, women cannot simultaneously engage in compulsory feminine activities that garner them attention and be considered competent leaders. The deeper sentiment here is that socially acceptable roles for women inherently run counter to the role of a competent leader. Leadership perceptions vary by the extent to which a person supports conventional gender roles. Not surprisingly, men who hold more traditional attitudes about the appropriate roles for women in modern society give female leaders a much more negative evaluation than other men.49 This indicates that, as attitudes about the ‘‘proper’’ role of women shifts, their acceptance as leaders will also expand. It also indicates that, as a society, we continue to hold onto some very conventional stereotypes about what is acceptable for women that inhibit women’s leadership.

Masculinist Institutions In countries across the globe—Ireland, Latvia, Finland, the Philippines, Liberia, Germany, Chile—female heads of state are fast losing their novelty. But, in the United States, the most elite positions of leadership are ‘‘masculinist’’ and reserved almost exclusively for men. ‘‘Masculinism’’ is defined as an ideology that men are the norm when it comes to human nature; thus, traditionally male pursuits have greater value (androcentrism).50 Political scientist Cheryl King writes that political and other societal institutions suffer from compulsory masculinist ideology that serves as the standard for both men and women.51 ‘‘Patterns of domination, subordination, and the exclusion of women are core elements to the historical development of our most basic institutions.’’ 52 In the United States, structural barriers work in tandem to support this masculinism—party recruitment bias that favors men,53 media coverage that favors male candidates,54 and presidential elections that center around stereotypically ‘‘male issues,’’ such as security and crime.55 Masculinist institutional norms likely account for much of the paucity of women in positions of corporate and political leadership in the United States. Societal institutions require stereotypically masculine figures to lead them, a fact that disadvantages women with leadership ambitions. The traditionally


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masculine leadership schema involves being tough, competitive, and incisive, as well as displaying initiative and intellectual acuity.56 The traditional feminine schema includes traits of conscientiousness, consideration, flexibility, enthusiasm, and dedication—characteristics that lend to efficient leadership but do not fit with expectations of proper leadership. Male leaders can display feminine characteristics without penalty, but female leaders will be judged negatively if they display feminine traits, and, ironically, if they exhibit masculine traits (the double bind of women’s leadership). These leadership characteristics, and the gender stereotypes that accompany them, maintain corporate and political domains as male domains that do not easily include female leaders at the highest levels. The presidency is in a league of its own when it comes to being a masculinist institution. ‘‘Executive political power is arguably the most manly of all areas,’’ 57 and it has become even more so since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.58 According to political scientist Jennifer Lawless, citizen preference for male leadership and characteristics has increased since 9/11 when it comes to handling national security and military crises, stereotypically male policy issues. ‘‘As a result of this stereotyping, levels of willingness to support a qualified woman presidential candidate are lower than they have been in decades.’’ 59 The post-9/11 political environment appears to be the newest jag in the labyrinth of women’s leadership, one that has profound implications for progress towards gender equity given that the presidency is the symbolic pinnacle of leadership.

The Double Bind of Women’s Leadership Another obstacle to women ascending to and excelling in positions of leadership is what political scientist Kathleen Hall Jamieson has termed the double bind of women’s leadership, neatly summarized as ‘‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’’ when it comes to ‘‘acting masculine.’’ 60 This phenomenon is best exemplified by Senator Barbara Boxer’s comment that, If I was strong in my expression of the issues, I was strident; if I expressed any emotion as I spoke about the environment or the problems of the mentally ill, I was soft; if I spoke about economics I had to be perfect, and then I ran the risk of being ‘‘too much like a man.’’ 61

Hall Jamieson identifies a number of dichotomies that operate in American society in order to keep women in their proper place and out of positions of leadership, including womb/brain and femininity/competence. Since women are stereotypically aligned with the negative side of these dichotomies, they are forced to go against traditional gender expectations and ‘‘act masculine’’ in order to successfully acquire positions of power. Female

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leaders are then penalized for being too masculine, a seemingly impossible situation for women to successfully navigate. However, unlike Faludi and other scholars who are pessimistic about the backlash phenomenon, Hall Jamieson contends that, over time, women have learned to overcome this double bind for the most part. She argues that, ‘‘although the result is not a steady move toward equitable treatment of women, it is a world in which progress is certainly sufficient to justify optimism.’’ 62 Hillary Rodham Clinton’s political career can be seen as a lesson in straddling the double bind of women’s leadership. Communication professors Karrin Vasby Anderson and Kristina Horn Sheeler studied Clinton’s ability to shift back and forth between feminine and masculine images from her husband’s candidacy in Arkansas to her successful bid to serve as the first female senator from New York.63 Clinton had to morph her image from an ambitious career woman to a supportive spouse during her husband’s campaign for the Arkansas statehouse; from perceptions of her as a ‘‘bitch’’ (as she was called by House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich’s mother during an interview with Connie Chung) to a cookie-baking homemaker during the latter part of her husband’s presidential campaign; from a spouse ‘‘silenced’’ by her failed health care reform initiative and her husband’s infidelities during the Clintons’ time in the White House to a ‘‘tough’’ senate candidate in New York.64 During her run for the White House, Clinton clearly displayed recognition of the double bind of women’s leadership. During the presidential debates, she presented a sufficiently ‘‘soft’’ image with feminine suits and strings of pearls around her neck, but stood and spoke with masculine force and assuredness. She wisely chose to be on senatorial committees that developed her profile as a foreign policy expert who was ‘‘tough on terrorism,’’ an image that she furthered during her presidential bid by positioning herself as the most hawkish of the Democratic candidates with regard to the Iraq war. Clinton’s strategic shifts in gender narratives illustrate the conflicting demands of the double bind for women in positions of leadership, as well as a model for successfully navigating this leadership challenge. Beyond politics and elections, the double bind of female leadership also abounds in the corporate sector. A recent study by New York Times columnist Lisa Belkin finds that women who act in stereotypically feminine ways in the workplace, meaning that they express concern for others and emphasize building good relationships, are evaluated as less competent, but if they act male—task-oriented, ambitious, and assertive—they are rated negatively for being ‘‘too tough.’’ 65 The double bind of leadership also leads to women being labeled as ‘‘control freaks’’ in the workplace when they stand up for themselves compared to men who are seen as ‘‘passionate.’’ Yale business researcher Victoria Brescoll finds that women are penalized for their anger in workplace settings, while men are not.66 More specifically, in Brescoll’s


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experiment, a female employee was judged more unfavorably than a male employee, both of whom were shown getting angry about losing an account because a colleague was late to a meeting. Research participants awarded the ‘‘angry male’’ employee an annual average salary of $38,000 compared to only $23,500 for the ‘‘angry female’’ employee in this scenario. Even a female employee who displayed sadness over losing the account in the experiment—a stereotypically feminine emotion—was paid significantly more than the ‘‘angry woman.’’ In other words, a clear double standard exists for proper displays of emotion for women and men in the workplace. Women are penalized for showing anger, being assertive, and being goal-oriented. All of these characteristics are power tools in a manager’s tool chest that women cannot use without negative pushback from subordinates. When it comes to the double bind of women’s leadership, the findings are clear and consistent. Leadership in both the private and public sectors is stereotyped as male, so female leaders are penalized by colleagues, subordinates, voters, etc., when they exhibit masculine qualities. This indicates that the ubliets in the labyrinth that work against women’s leadership appear both on the path to leadership and at the point a position of leadership is achieved. The labyrinth has so many dark corners that hinder women’s access to and success in positions of leadership that it is little wonder that so few women have achieved the highest positions of power in the United States. Additionally, given the constraints of women’s leadership, and a general lack of concern about the situation in the general populous, there is no reason to believe that circumstances will improve in the near future. The next section discusses the democratic implications of gendered access to positions of leadership.

DEMOCRATIC IMPLICATIONS OF GENDERED LEADERSHIP Women have progressed considerably in recent decades in terms of political and economic power, but, as discussed in this chapter, many obstructions to women’s leadership still exist. This chapter identified the major sources for persistent inequalities along these lines: a backlash against the Women’s Movement; gendered notions of proper ambition; classic and more recent trends in parenting; evaluation bias; masculinist institutions; and the double bind of women’s leadership. This chapter concludes by answering the important question of why the gender leadership gap matters. For a country that prides itself on striving for the democratic principle of political equality, we are surprisingly complacent about the long-standing and well-documented gender gap in leadership. The bigger issue at stake here is that gender bias in leadership hampers the ideal of democracy in the

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United States. Many scholars will be quick to point out that the United States has never been a ‘‘true’’ democracy, but, rather, a republic based on the principles of popular sovereignty, political liberty, and political equality. Popular sovereignty is the belief that government is legitimate only if it is subject to the will of its people, and a political system that systematically excludes a group of people—a majority of the population—from leadership positions cannot accurately reflect the general will of the people. Democratic representation in the United States is diminished where perceptions of gender difference—whether ‘‘real’’ or socially constructed—translate into biases about who can and should hold positions of leadership. As this chapter has detailed, unfair stereotypes, biases, and behaviors serve to privilege men (wealthy, white men in particular) when it comes to who dominates decisions about ‘‘who gets what, when, and how’’ in politics and business.67 This gender gap matters because women and men do not have the same policy priorities, they do not legislate in the same fashion, and policy outcomes differ in measurable ways. Each of these is addressed in turn. Gendered styles of leadership lead to differences in terms of what policy topics are on the agenda and what solutions are proposed. Women and men legislate differently and advocate for different policies, so the gender gap in leadership means that our current, lopsided gender representation in the White House, Congress, governorships, state legislatures, and even businesses disadvantages women’s concerns.68 First, when it comes to styles of decision making, female legislators are more likely to take the broader context into account when making policy decisions, so prescriptions for societal problems tend to differ by gender.69 Female legislators are likely to approach policy making through an ‘‘ethic of care’’ that considers how issues are connected, whereas their male counterparts tend to consider only the issue at hand. For example, political scientist Lyn Kathlene analyzed policy approaches to crime and found that male legislators tend to see criminals as individuals who have made a choice to engage in a life of crime, whereas female legislators tend to view criminals within a broader context of poverty and educational inequalities. 70 These different approaches led to different policy outcomes with male legislators focusing on penalties and after-the-fact solutions, and female legislators proposing long-term, structural solutions. If the leadership gender gap were abolished, the content of much legislation would be different. Second, gender matters when it comes to the types of policies that leaders put on the agenda. Female legislators are more likely than their male counterparts to put issues of concern to most women on the agenda, such as child support enforcement, funding for women’s health issues, and funding for domestic violence programs. 71 This means that if women were equitably


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represented in positions of leadership, the policy agenda would look quite different. Furthermore, female legislators are significantly more liberal than male legislators, regardless of their political party identification, 72 so if women were accorded a fair number of leadership positions, public policy would shift in directions that better represent the ‘‘will of the people.’’ It is difficult to say precisely what this shift would look like, but it is apparent that societal values would be altered in significant ways. ‘‘Women’s work’’ would likely be valued more through the establishment of a homemaker’s pension and universal child care; children would be a higher priority on the legislative agenda through better funding of education; discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace would be taken more seriously; and violence against women would be a legislative priority. Furthermore, once these issues were on the agenda, they would be addressed in ways that take the broader context of the issues into account. In short, gender equity in political leadership would eventually change the way Americans experience and perceive the world around them. Also, as more women move into positions of leadership, their distinctive ways of solving problems would move American institutions closer to the interests of the people they serve. Last, the gender gap in leadership is symbolically important because female leaders promote empowerment for other women. Political scientists Angela High-Pippert and John Comer find that female constituents who are represented by a woman in Congress exhibit higher rates of political efficacy than those represented by a man. Political efficacy is the belief that a person can make a difference in politics, that his/her voice will be listened to. Additionally, women who live in a congressional district with a female representative participate in politics at a higher rate than those who are represented by a male member of Congress.73 Female leaders inspire other women in ways that improve democratic participation, so their presence in positions of political leadership are important in terms of maximizing citizen engagement in politics. In her short life, Joan of Arc’s leadership experience exemplified the contemporary labyrinth of women’s leadership, fraught with gendered notions of proper ambition, biases in evaluation of her leadership successes, the masculinism of military institutions, and the double bind that would ultimately spell her doom. The ubliets in the labyrinth no longer bring death to those who dare to enter, but they do detain many women along the way. Joan of Arc’s strategic abilities and fighting spirit are essential for the contemporary woman who enters the labyrinth, as Hillary Rodham Clinton can attest, although quick wit and a thick skin have replaced the warrior’s sword and mettle. But even these modern tools are not sufficient for women to make noteworthy progress on the leadership front without a level battlefield.

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NOTES 1. Kelly DeVries, Joan of Arc: A Military Leader (Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1999). 2. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). 3. Alice H. Eagly and Linda L. Carli, ‘‘Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership,’’ Harvard Business Review 85, no. 9 (September 2007): 63. 4. Ibid., 63. 5. Michelle Conlin and Wendy Zellner, ‘‘The Glass Ceiling: The CEO Still Wears Wingtips,’’ Business Week, November 22, 1999. 6. As quoted in Nancy Hatch Woodward, ‘‘Women in the Workplace: Still Fighting Stereotypes (Part One),’’ West Human Resources Advisor, 2007, https.west.advisor. thompson.com 7. Susan Nierenberg and Serena Fong, ‘‘Damned or Doomed—Catalyst Study on Gender Stereotyping at Work Uncovers Double-Bind Dilemmas for Women,’’ Catalyst, Inc., 2007, www.catalyst.org 8. Generation Y is generally defined as people born in the year 1980 and after. 9. Emily E. Deuhr and Joyce E. Bono, ‘‘Men, Women, and Managers: Are Stereotypes Finally Changing?’’ Personnel Psychology 59, no. 4 (2006): 824. 10. Ibid., 824. 11. ‘‘Women Officeholders: Fact Sheet and Summaries,’’ compiled by the Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, http://www.eagleton.rutgers.edu/ (accessed November 16, 2007). 12. According to ‘‘Women Officeholders: Fact Sheet and Summaries,’’ in the current 110th Congress, women comprise 16 percent of the seats in both houses. 13. ‘‘Statewide Elective Executive Women: 1969–2007,’’ compiled by the Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University. 14. Barbara Burrell, A Woman’s Place Is in the House (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994); Barbara Burrell, ‘‘Campaign Finance: Women’s Experience in the Modern Era,’’ in Women and Elective Office, ed. S. Thomas and C. Wilcox (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Kathleen Dolan, ‘‘Voting for Women in the ‘Year of the Woman,’ ’’ American Journal of Political Science 42, no. 2 (1998): 272–293. 15. Susan J. Carroll and Krista Jenkins, ‘‘Increasing Diversity or More of the Same? Term Limits and the Representation of Women, Minorities, and Minority Women in the State Legislatures,’’ paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, August 30–September 2, 2001. 16. Georgia Duerst-Lahti, ‘‘The Bottleneck, Women as Candidates,’’ in Women and Elective Office, ed. S. Thomas and C. Wilcox (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 17. Kira Sanbonmatsu, ‘‘Political Parties and the Recruitment of Women to State Legislatures,’’ The Journal of Politics 64, no. 3 (2002): 791–809. 18. Richard L. Fox, Jennifer L. Lawless, and Courtney Feeley, ‘‘Gender and the Decision to Run for Office,’’ Legislative Studies Quarterly 26, no. 3 (2001): 411–435. 19. Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox, It Takes a Candidate: Why Women Don’t Run for Office (Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 2006).


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20. I have argued in a previous publication that the normalization of female objectification promotes stereotypes about women that are fundamentally incompatible with leadership, but further, sustained analysis of this trend is needed. (See Lori Cox Han and Caroline Heldman. Rethinking Madame President: Are we Ready for a Woman in the White House? [Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007].) 21. Jean Twenge, Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable than Ever Before (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006). 22. Eagly and Carli, ‘‘Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership,’’ 63. 23. This term is not found in standard dictionaries; however, according to The World Unknown (www.worldunknown.blogspot.com), it refers to a small dungeon-like hole: a ‘‘place for forgetting.’’ 24. Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women (New York: Anchor, 1992). 25. Michelle Seyler, ‘‘Feminism: It’s What Women Don’t Want,’’ American Observer, April 25, 2007. 26. Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women, x11. 27. Eagly and Carli, ‘‘Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership,’’ 68. 28. Richard Fox, ‘‘Gender, Political Ambition, and the Decision Not to Run for Office,’’ presented by the Center for the American Woman and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, 2001, 11. 29. Ibid. 30. J. D. Nordell, ‘‘Positions of Power: How Female Ambition Is Shaped,’’ Slate.com, November 21, 2006. 31. Ibid., 2. 32. As discussed in Nordel, ‘‘Positions of Power: How Female Ambition in Shaped,’’ 2. 33. Anna Fells, Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Changing Women’s Lives (New York: Anchor, 2005). 34. Rosemary Tong, Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988), 15. 35. Wendy Nixon, ‘‘Women in the Workforce: Facts about Women’’ (New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Women and Work, Rutgers University, 2002). 36. Virginia Valian, Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), 33. 37. Fox, ‘‘Gender, Political Ambition, and the Decision Not to Run for Office,’’ 10. 38. Eagly and Carli, ‘‘Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership,’’ 68. 39. Virginia Sapiro, ‘‘Private Costs of Public Commitments or Public Costs of Private Commitments? Family Roles versus Political Ambition,’’ American Journal of Political Science 26, no. 2 (1982). 40. Fox, ‘‘Gender, Political Ambition, and the Decision Not to Run for Office.’’ 41. James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper and Row, 1978). 42. Eagly and Carli, ‘‘Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership,’’ 63. 43. Ibid., 68.

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44. Catalyst, Inc., The Bottom Line: Connecting Corporate Performance and Gender Diversity, 2004. Available at www.catalyst.org. This study surveyed 353 companies that appeared on the Fortune 500 list at least four out of five years in the late 1990s. Companies with the most female representation in leadership significantly outperformed companies with the fewest women in these positions, with a 35 percent higher return on equity and a 34 percent return to shareholders. 45. Alice Eagly, ‘‘Female Leadership Advantage and Disadvantage: Resolving the Contradictions,’’ Psychology of Women Quarterly 31, no. 1 (2007): 1. 46. Lisa Belkin, ‘‘Life’s Work: The Feminine Critique,’’ The New York Times, November 1, 2007. This article summarizes and analyzes the findings of a 2006 Catalyst, Inc., study, The Double-Bind Dilemma for Women in Leadership: Damned if You Do, Doomed if You Don’t. 47. Birgit Weyer, ‘‘Twenty Years Later: Explaining the Persistence of the Glass Ceiling for Women,’’ Women in Management Review 22, no. 6 (2007): 482. 48. Peter Glick, S. Weber, C. Johnson, and H. Branstiter, ‘‘Evaluations of Sexy Women in Low and High Status Jobs,’’ Psychology of Women Quarterly 29 (2005): 389–395. 49. Robert W. Rice, Lisa Richer Bender, and Alan G. Vitters, ‘‘Leader Sex, Follower Attitudes Toward Women, and Leadership Effectiveness: A Laboratory Experiment,’’ Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 25, no. 1 (1980): 46. 50. See Georgia Duerst-Lahti and Rita Mae Kelly, Gender Power, Leadership, and Governance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997); Maryanne Borrelli, ‘‘Gender, Credibility, and Politics: The Senate Nomination Hearings of Cabinet Secretariesdesignate, 1975 to 1993,’’ Political Research Quarterly 50, no. 1 (1997): 171–197; Cheryl Simrell King, ‘‘Sex Role Identity and Decision Styles: How Gender Helps Explain the Paucity of Women at the Top,’’ in Gender Power, Leadership, and Governance, ed. Duerst-Lahti and Kelly (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997); Hall Jamieson, Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership. 51. King, ‘‘Sex Role Identity and Decision Styles.’’ 52. Noelle Norton and Barbara Morris, ‘‘Feminist Organizational Structure in the White House: The Office of Women’s Initiatives and Outreach,’’ Political Research Quarterly 56, no. 4 (2003): 478. 53. See R. Darcy, Susan Welch, and Janet Clark, Women, Elections, and Representation, 2nd ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988); Lynn Ford, Women and Politics: The Pursuit of Equality, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006). 54. See Dianne G. Bystrom, Mary Christine Banwart, Lynda Lee Kaid, and Terra A. Robertson, Gender and Candidate Communication: Videostyle, Webstyle, Newstyle (New York: Routledge, 2004); Kim Fridkin Kahn, The Political Consequences of Being a Woman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Caroline Heldman, Susan Carroll, and Stephanie Olson, ‘‘ ‘She Brought Only a Skirt’: Print Media Coverage of Elizabeth Dole’s Bid for the Republican Nomination,’’ Political Communication 22, no. 3 (2005): 315–335. 55. See Leonie Huddy and Nayda Terkildsen, ‘‘The Consequences of Gender Stereotypes for Women Candidates at Different Levels and Types of Offices,’’ Political Research Quarterly 46, no. 3 (1993): 503–525; Kate Kenski and Erika Falk, ‘‘Of What Is


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the Glass Ceiling Made? A Study of Attitudes about Women and the Oval Office,’’ Woman and Politics 26, no. 2 (2004): 57–80. 56. Borrelli, ‘‘Gender, Credibility, and Politics,’’ 182. 57. Georgia Duerst-Lahti, ‘‘Reconceiving Theories of Power: Consequences of Masculinism in the Executive Branch,’’ in The Other Elites: Women, Politics, and Power in the Executive Branch, ed. MaryAnne Borelli and Janet Martin (Boulder, CO: Lynne Riemer, 1997), 11–31. 58. Jennifer L. Lawless, ‘‘Women, War, and Winning Elections: Gender Stereotyping in the Post September 11th Era,’’ Political Research Quarterly 57, no. 3 (2004): 479–490. 59. Ibid., 480. 60. Hall Jamieson, Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership, 6. 61. As quoted in Hall Jamieson, Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership, 6. 62. Ibid., 7. 63. Karrin Vasby Anderson and Kristina Horn Sheeler, Governing Codes: Gender, Metaphor, and Politics Identity (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). 64. See Ibid., 117–149. Although the authors do not explicitly analyze Clinton’s strategies in terms of ‘‘masculine’’ and ‘‘feminine’’ shifts, the narratives they provide neatly fit these categories. 65. Lisa Belkin, ‘‘The Feminine Critique,’’ The New York Times, November 1, 2007. 66. Victoria Brescoll, ‘‘How to Walk the Tightrope of ‘Nice and Able’: Overcoming Workplace Challenges for Female Bosses,’’ Psychology of Women Quarterly 31, no. 2 (2007): 217–218. 67. Harold D. Lasswell, Who Gets What, When, and How (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith Publisher, 1990). This phrase is a popular definition of ‘‘politics,’’ originally coined by Lasswell in the 1930s. 68. This is not to suggest that there is one set of policy concerns for women. Indeed, women’s policy concerns differ along many lines—age, race, political ideology, religion, region, parental status, ethnicity, income, etc. However, it is safe to conclude that, if women are systematically excluded from equitable representation in positions of leadership, concerns that are common to most women are not properly prioritized and addressed. 69. Lyn Kathlene, ‘‘In a Different Voice: Women and the Policy Process,’’ in Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future, ed. Sue Thomas and Clyde Wilcox (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2005). 70. Ibid. 71. Sue Thomas and Susan Welch, ‘‘The Impact of Women in State Legislatures: Numerical and Organizational Strength,’’ in The Impact of Women in Public Office, ed. Susan J. Carroll (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 168. 72. John M. Carey, Richard G. Neimi, and Lynda W. Powell, Term Limits in State Legislatures (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994). 73. Angela High-Pippert and John Comer, ‘‘Female Empowerment: The Influence of Women Representing Women,’’ Women and Politics 19, no. 4 (1998): 53–65.


About the Editors and Contributors THE EDITORS Michael A. Genovese is the Loyola Chair of Leadership Studies, Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Institute for Leadership Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. In 2006, he was made a Fellow at the Queens College, Oxford University. He has written 17 books, including The Paradoxes of the American Presidency (with Thomas E. Cronin, 2004), The Presidency and the Challenges of Democracy (co-edited with Lori Cox Han, 2006), The Presidency and Domestic Policy (with William W. Lammers, 2000), The Power of the American Presidency 1789–2000 (2001), The Presidential Dilemma (2003), The Encyclopedia of the American Presidency (2004, winner of the New York Public Library, ‘‘Best of Reference’’ work), and Memo to a New President: The Art and Science of Presidential Leadership (2007). He has won over a dozen university and national teaching awards, including the Fritz B. Burns Distinguished Teaching Award (1995). He is also Associate Editor of the journal White House Studies, has lectured for the United States Embassy abroad, and is editor of Palgrave Macmillan’s ‘‘The Evolving American Presidency’’ book series. He is also past president of the Presidency Research Group of the American Political Science Association.

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Lori Cox Han is Professor of Political Science at Chapman University in Orange, California. She is the author of Governing from Center Stage: White House Communication Strategies During the Television Age of Politics (2001), Women and American Politics: The Challenge of Political Leadership (2006), and co-editor of Rethinking Madam President: Are We Ready for a Woman in the White House (with Caroline Heldman, 2007), The Presidency and the Challenge of Democracy (with Michael A. Genovese, 2006), and In the Public Domain: Presidents and the Challenge of Public Leadership (with Diane J. Heith, 2005). Her research has also appeared in Presidential Studies Quarterly, Congress and the Presidency, and White House Studies. She has served as president of the APSA’s Presidency Research Group, and her research focuses on the American presidency, mass media and politics, and women and politics.

THE CONTRIBUTORS Meena Bose is Peter S. Kalikow Chair in Presidential Studies at Hofstra University and Director of Hofstra’s Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency. She is the author of Shaping and Signaling Presidential Policy: The National Security Decision Making of Eisenhower and Kennedy (1998), and co-editor of From Cold War to New World Order: The Foreign Policy of George H. W. Bush (with Rosanna Perotti, 2002), The Uses and Abuses of Presidential Ratings (with Mark Landis, 2003), and Classic Ideas and Current Issues in American Government (with John J. DiIulio Jr., 2007). She also is a contributor to the tenth edition of the American Government: Institutions and Policies textbook by James Q. Wilson and John J. DiIulio Jr. Her current research focuses on the changing role of the United Nations in American foreign policy, and she teaches courses on the American presidency, American foreign policy, and American politics. She represented the American Political Science Association on the Department of State’s Historical Advisory Committee from 2001 to 2004. Richard S. Conley is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He is author of The Historical Dictionary of the George W. Bush Era (forthcoming 2009), The Historical Dictionary of the Reagan-Bush Era (2007), The Presidency, Congress, and Divided Government: A Postwar Assessment (2002), as well as editor of Transforming the American Polity: The Presidency of George W. Bush and the War on Terrorism (2004) and Reassessing the Reagan Presidency (2002). His articles have appeared in leading journals on the presidency, American politics, and comparative politics. He regularly teaches courses on the U.S. presidency, comparative executives, Irish politics, and French politics. Victoria A. Farrar-Myers is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at Arlington. She specializes in the American presidency, presidential-congressional relations, separation of powers, and campaign


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finance reform. Among her many publications, Dr. Farrar-Myers is the author of Scripted for Change: The Institutionalization of the American Presidency (2007) and co-author of Limits and Loopholes: The Quest for Money, Free Speech and Fair Elections (with Diana Dwyre, 2008). During 1997–1998, she served as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow. She was the recipient of the 2001 University of Texas at Arlington’s Chancellor’s Council Award for Excellence in Teaching, the 2005 Arlington Star-Telegram Service Learning Award, and the 2007 Honors College Faculty Award. She is also past president of APSA’s Presidency Research Group. Brian Frederick is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. His research interests include the U.S. Congress, women and politics, and judicial elections. His work has appeared in Public Opinion Quarterly, PS: Political Science and Politics, Judicature, and Politics and Policy. Caroline Heldman is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Her research specializes in gender, race, and presidential politics. She is co-editor of Rethinking Madam President: Are We Ready for a Woman in the White House (with Lori Cox Han, 2007). Her work has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, and Political Communications. She has previously worked as a congressional staffer and professional pollster, and she is currently working on a book examining presidential power and persuasion through the media. Wayne S. Le Cheminant is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. His research and teaching focuses on political culture and how ideas and ideology impact political institutions. He is currently working on an edited volume titled Mormons and Politics: The Lessons of History, Belief, and Practice, as well as a book titled Human Nature and the Political Imagination: The Crafting of the Polity. Bruce Miroff is Professor of Political Science and Collins Fellow at the State University of New York, Albany. His books and articles cover the presidency, political leadership, American political development, and American political theory. His most recent book is The Liberals’ Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party (2007). John M. Parrish is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Loyola Marymount University. His teaching and research focus especially on political ethics, the history of political thought, and political rhetoric and public discourse. He has published articles in the journals History of Political Thought and the Historical Journal, as well as a book, Paradoxes of Political Ethics: From Dirty Hands to the Invisible Hand (2007).

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Christopher Shortell is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Portland State University and writes on constitutional law, the interaction between law and society, and federalism. His recent publications include Rights, Remedies, and the Impact of State Sovereign Immunity (2008) and articles in Election Law Journal and Judicature. Robert J. Spitzer is Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York, College at Cortland. His books include The Presidency and Public Policy (1983), The Right to Life Movement and Third Party Politics (1987), The Presidential Veto (1988), The Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution (1990), President and Congress (1993), Media and Public Policy (1993), The Politics of Gun Control (4th ed., 2007), Politics and Constitutionalism (2000), The Right to Bear Arms (2001), Essentials of American Politics (2nd ed., 2006), The Presidency and the Constitution (with Michael Genovese, 2005), and Saving the Constitution from Lawyers: How Legal Training and Law Reviews Distort Constitutional Meaning (2008). He is also Series Editor for the book series ‘‘American Constitutionalism’’ for SUNY Press. In 2003, he received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship. Spitzer is the author of over 300 articles and papers appearing in many journals and books on a variety of American politics subjects. He served as president of the Presidency Research Group of the American Political Science Association from 2001 to 2003. He also served as a member of the New York State Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, and has testified before Congress on several occasions. Matthew J. Streb is Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Political Science at Northern Illinois University. He is the author of two books, The New Electoral Politics of Race (2002) and Rethinking American Electoral Democracy (2008), and the editor or co-editor of five others including Running for Judge (2007) and Academic Freedom at the Dawn of a New Century (2006). Streb has published numerous articles and book chapters, including pieces in Political Research Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly, Election Law Journal, and Judicature. His research has been featured on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, and has been mentioned in such places as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Times, Washington Monthly, and Chronicle of Higher Education.

Index Abortion, 110, 133–34, 245 Academic writing. See Law reviews Acheson, Dean, 178–79, 180 ACLU, Allegheny County v., 134 ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), 157 Adams, John, 104, 130, 205, 210 Administrative Office Act (1939), 135, 136 ADR (Alternative dispute resolution), 273 n.20 Adversary system. See Law reviews Advocacy in the adversarial system, 255–58 Afghanistan, 116, 165–66. See also War on terror African Americans, 68, 235. See also Civil rights Agency (representation), 11, 15–16 Airports. See Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Albright, Madeleine, 188–91

Alito, Samuel, 244 Allegheny County v. ACLU, 134 Al-Qaeda: in Afghanistan, 116; anthrax attacks, 148; Mohammed’s capture, 149; plot to blow up airliners, 160–61, 162, 163. See also Afghanistan; War on terror Alternative dispute resolution (ADR), 273 n.20 Ambition, 285–86 Ambrose, Stephen E., 269 American Bar Association, 130, 136 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 134, 157 American Law Institute, 130 American Liberty League, 67 The American Presidency (Laski), 90 American Revolution, 88 The American Voter (Converse), 228, 233 Ames, James Barr, 262 Amygdala. See Brain activities Anderson, Karrin Vasby, 292

306 Animals, 35, 37, 48 n.74, 51 n.102 Anthrax attacks, 148 Apes/primates, 35, 37, 48 n.74. See also Animals Apollo project, 17 Application of leadership, 4, 8–10, 22 n.10 Appointments: frustrations of presidential appointees, 143; lifetime appointments of Supreme Court justices, 241–42; mass exodus in final year of presidencies, 165; recess appointments, 113–14; Senate approval, 113 Aristotle, 28–29, 30 Arnold, R. Douglas, 235, 248 n.18 Ashcroft, John, 149, 157 Attorney General, 144. See also Sub-presidential leadership (cabinets) Austin, Warren R., 178, 179, 180, 187 Avolio, Bruce J., 145 Awareness, 41–42, 51 n.102 Babcock, Linda C., 283 Babies, 37–38 Backlash (Faludi), 285 Bahrain, 186 Baker, James A., III, 184, 186–87 Balkans. See Bosnia Bargaining, 106–7, 113, 206. See also Communication skills Bartels, Larry M., 240 Bass, Bernard M., 145 Bay of Pigs invasion, 180–81, 182 Belkin, Lisa, 292 Bellesiles, Michael, 269 Berkman, Michael, 233 Berlin Wall, 219–20 Beveridge, William, 70 Bill of Rights, 58–59, 70–71 Black, Hugo, 132 Black Caucus, 235 Blackmun, Harry, 134 Blacks, 68, 235. See also Civil rights

Index Blair, Tony, 77 Blanco, Kathleen Babineaux, 202 Bloomberg, Michael, 159–60 Board of Education, Brown v., 126, 132–33 Bolton, John, 113–14 Bonsignore, John, 254 Book publishing, 269, 280 n.117 Border and Transportation Security (BTS), 151 Border security. See U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Bosnia, 190, 191 Boxer, Barbara, 291 Boyea, Brent, 245 Brace, Paul, 245 Brain activities, 40–41, 42, 49–50 nn.90, 91 Brandeis, Louis, 61, 62, 135 Brazil, 190 Brescoll, Victoria, 292–93 Brinkley, Alan, 62, 69 Brown, Michael, 158, 159 Brownlow, Louis, 69 Brown v. Board of Education, 126, 132–33 BTS (Border and Transportation Security), 151 Budgets, 107–8, 127, 238–39. See also Economy Bullying, 28 Bully pulpits. See Communication skills Bureaucrats, 217. See also specific positions by name Burger, Warren: Congress lobbied by, 130; informal diplomatic duties, 131; judges appointed by, 128; opinion assignments, 125, 126; relationships with presidents, 131; review of criminal jury instructions and the federal courts’ rulemaking system, 127 Burke, Edmund, 231 Burns, James MacGregor: on FDR, 53– 54, 63–72; on Great Man Theory, 34, 45 n.25; on laissez-faire leadership, 288; leadership described by, 92; on

Index study of political leadership, 143; on transactional leadership, 17, 204–5, 288; on transformational leadership, 17, 45 n.25, 100, 204–5, 288–89 Burstein, Paul, 234, 236 Burton, Harold, 133 Bush, George H. W.: foreign policy experience, 183, 185; Gulf War, 183– 87; Haiti, 190; as office holder, ix, x; Somalia, 189 Bush, George W.: California wildfires, 202; on Chertoff, 156; Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created by, 144, 147–48; as example of situational leadership, 116–17; executive orders, 109, 110; governing majority in Congress lost by, 241; Hurricane Katrina response, 158, 159, 202; insights into the state of contemporary presidential leadership, 114–17; Iraq War, no lack in confidence in American troops’ capabilities, 23 n.30; leadership style, 114–16; manipulation of public opinion by, 241; mass exodus of political appointees in final year, 165; post-9/11 neoconservative thought, 79; on public opinion, 236–37, 240–41; recess appointments, 113–14; September 11 terror attacks, 108, 203; Supreme Court appointments, 244; tax reductions, 240; 2008 elections influenced by, 241; unitary executive theory of presidential power, 79, 82, 88–89; vice-presidential power, 115– 16; war on terror, 108, 116–17, 151–52, 154, 155, 164; Web sites on WhiteHouse.gov, 115 Bush, Rasul v., 82, 89 Butler, Pierce, 135 Cabinets (sub-presidential leadership), 144, 217. See also Public leadership; specific departments by name California Assembly, 234

307 California wildfires, 201–2, 222 Cameron, Charles M., 106–7 Campaigns. See Elections Canes-Wrone, Brandice, 208, 235 Card, Andrew, 158 Cardozo, Benjamin, 135 Carli, Linda, 285 Carter, Jimmy, viii, 188 Case, Clifford, 111 Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania, 134 Case-Zablocki Act, 111 Castro, Fidel. See Cuba Catalyst, Inc., 289 Cedras, Raoul, 191 Centers of Disease Control (CDC), 163 CEOs (Chief executive officers), 283. See also Fortune 500 companies Charisma and charismatic leadership, 205–6, 208 Chase, Salmon, 138–39 Checks and balances: expanded presidential powers as result of media coverage, 211, 215–16; overview of, vii–viii; presidential leadership in Congress, 99–121; presidential leadership in Congress, functional aspects, 104–8; presidential leadership in Congress, governing realities, 114–19; presidential leadership in Congress, structural aspects, 101–4; presidential leadership in Congress, unilateral actions, 109–14; veto power, 78, 92, 102, 106–7, 113. See also Separation of power system Cheney, Dick, 115–16, 186 Chertoff, Michael: Al-Qaeda plot to blow up airliners, 160–61, 162, 163; Bush on, 156; California wildfires, 202; career background and personal work ethic, 155–57; constraints faced by, 157, 164; criticism of, 157–59, 162– 63; DHS funding, 154; Hurricane Katrina, 157, 158–59, 163, 164;

308 personnel, 157–58, 162, 163, 164, 165; public opinion of, 163; Ridge compared to, 159, 163; Ridge on, 156; Senate confirmation, 155; successes, 165; on threats vs. New York City subway, 159–60, 163; as transactional leader, 146, 159–62, 163–64; as transformational leader, 146–47 Chief executive officers (CEOs), 283. See also Fortune 500 companies Chief justices: administration of the courts, 126–27, 134–39; American politics influenced by, 123; ceremonial roles, 126, 130; Constitutional provisions, 124; effectiveness of, 123, 131–36; as first among equals, 122; formal powers, 124–28; impeachment trials, 124, 127; legitimacy of the Court impacted by, 123, 130, 137; limitations on, 123; power of persuasion, 128–31; as quasi-diplomats, 130–31; relationships with presidents, 131. See also specific chief justices by name; Supreme Court, U.S. Children’s Health Insurance Plan, 236 Chile, 290 China, 178, 186, 187, 190 Choi, Jaelil, 146 Christopher, Warren, 188 Citizenry. See Public opinion Citizenship and Immigration Services, 151 Civil rights, 19, 109 Civil War, 79, 82–83, 84–85, 138 Class (social), 46 n.31 Clinton, Bill: Ambassadors to the UN, 188–91; Blair visit, 77; Bosnia, 190, 191; communication skills, 210, 220; Congressional policymaking during administration, 92; executive orders, 109, 110; Haiti, 190–91; health care reform, 239, 292; Hillary Rodham Clinton’s role in campaign, 292; missed opportunity as

Index transformational leader, 220; national security team, 188; Oklahoma City bombing, 203; on public opinion, 239; Rwanda, 189, 190, 191; sexual indiscretions of, 292; signing statements, 112–13; Somalia, 189–90, 191 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 292 Clinton, Joshua, 234 Cloning, 268 Coercion, 10–11, 28, 34 Cognitive theory: emotion and, 27, 33– 42; on free will, 35; great leader theory, 28–30; ‘‘I,’’ 40; on manipulation by leaders, 25–26, 32– 33; morality and, 30–33; overview of, 26–27; on the soul, 42 Cohen, Jeffrey, 237 Cold War: Bay of Pigs invasion, 180–81, 182; Cuban missile crisis, 180–83, 202–3, 219; Gulf War as first test of ‘‘new world order,’’ 185, 187; Korean War, 178–80, 187; Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate statement, 219–20; U.S. leadership at the UN, 180–83 Coleman, Norm, 159 Collective representation, 231. See also Public opinion Comer, John, 295 Commander-in-chief role, 79, 82, 89, 103 Communication skills, 205–9; of animals, 37; carried through emotions, 37; Framer’s suspicion of popular leaders, 211; power of the presidency increased by, 209–11; public images translated into greater political opportunities, 221; strategies of presidents, 212–14; style vs. substance, 221–22. See also Bargaining Competition, 11, 12–13 Conford, Francis, 46 n.31 Congress, U.S.: Black Caucus, 235; budgetary process, 108; categories of constituencies, 231–32; complacency towards presidential authority,

Index 117–19; Contract with America, 220– 21; elections, 235; foreign policy, 111; going public model of presidents directed towards, 208, 209; governing majority lost by Bush, 241; Gulf War, 196 n.58; lobbied by chief justices, 129–30; mandate elections, 233; media coverage of, 215–16; New Deal’s ‘‘institutional revolution’’ and, 56, 65–66; opposition to New Deal policies, 65–66, 68–69; opposition to presidents, 95; partisan membership, 95; policy led by, 92–93; presidential leadership in Congress, 99–121; presidential leadership in Congress, functional aspects, 104–8; presidential leadership in Congress, governing realities, 114–19; presidential leadership in Congress, structural aspects, 101–4; presidential leadership in Congress, unilateral actions, 109–14; president’s influence on individual members of, 232; prior to FDR’s presidency, 56; public policy congruence, 231–34; specialized courts established by, 127–28; State of the Union Address to, 104–5, 210; vetoes overridden by, 106; women as members, 283, 295. See also House of Representatives; Public leadership; Senate; Separation of power system Conscious awareness, 41–42, 51 n.102 Consensus, 91 Consequentialism, 5–6. See also Moral dilemmas Conservatism, 55, 69. See also Republican Party Constitution, U.S.: commander-in-chief clause, 79, 82, 89, 103; Constitutional Dictatorship, 86–87; constitutional law analysis, 264–65; constitutional relativity, 87; declaration of rights, 58–59; emergency provisions, 80; Establishment Clause, 134; executive authority, 82, 99, 101–3, 106; freedom

309 of the press, 212; popular leadership proscribed by, 105; presidential term limits, 118; presidential violations of, 80; process for enacting legislation into law, 106; small-c constitution, 105; Supreme Court provisions, 124. See also Framers; Separation of power system Constitutional Dictatorship (Rossiter), 79 Content of leadership, 22 n.10 Context of presidency, 93, 116–17 Contract with America, 220–21 Converse, Philip, 228 Cooper, Phillip J., 110 Cooperation, 35, 37, 44 n.13, 91 Cornell Law School, 264 Cornwell, Elmer, 206 Corporate leadership, 282–83, 284, 289– 90, 292–93 Corporate socializing, 288 Correll, Shelley, 286 Corruption, 246. See also Scandals Corwin, Edward S., 86–87 Court of International Trade, 140 n.18 Courts. See Judicial system; Law reviews Covey, Stephen R., 43 n.6 Cox, Christopher, 149 Creativity, 145–46, 154–55 Crisis conditions: Bush on ‘‘nonreviewable’’ actions of the president, 88–89; crisis vs. routine dyad, 93–95; democracy rejected in times of, 80, 86–87; emergency situations kindled by emergency powers, 85; leadership of public officials, 201–2; political opportunities as result of crisis leadership, 221; public support for presidency during, 108. See also Military; specific crisis by name; U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS); Wartime leaders Croly, Hebert, 61 Cronin, Thomas E., 27, 29–30, 43 n.5, 90

310 Crosson, Mary, 145 Crying, 37–38 Cuba: Bay of Pigs invasion, 180–81, 182; Cuban missile crisis, 180–83, 202–3, 219; Gulf War, 184, 187 Culture, 38 Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., United States v., 79, 86, 89 Customs and Border Protection agency, 153 Customs Service, 151 Czechoslovakia, 190 Dahl, Robert, 91, 242 Damasio, Antonio, 41 Danelski, David, 128 Darwin, Charles, 24 Daschle, Tom, 148 Davidson, Roger H., 216 Davis, David, 85 Davis, John W., 67 Dayton Accords, 197 n.79 Death sentences, 245 De Boef, Suzanna, 233 Debs, Eugene V., 205 Deception. See Manipulation Decision making: emotions and, 27, 34, 41; free will, 30, 34–35, 40; manipulation vs., 26, 30; Western philosophy on, 34 Defense spending, 233 Deleuze, Gilles, 45 n.18 Delli Carpini, Michael X., 229–30 Dellinger, Walter, 112–13 Democracy: democratic implications of gendered leadership, 293–95; described, 226; elite democracy, 9, 227, 236; during emergencies, 80, 86– 87; Greek translation, 226; ‘‘icons of democracy,’’ 205; normative theory of, 9; popular sovereignty, defined, 294; Schumpeter’s model, 9. See also Public opinion Democracy’s Discontent (Sandel), 61. See also Sandel, Michael

Index Democratic Party: 1960s, 54; minorities, women, and organized labor participation, 68; response to subconstituency preferences, 234–35; transformed by FDR, 58–59, 67–68. See also Liberalism; Political parties Democratic-Republican Party, 58, 66–67 Dennett, Daniel C., 48 n.60 Deontological ethics, 5–6, 7, 11 Department of Homeland Security. See U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) The Depression. See Roosevelt, Franklin D. Descartes, Rene´, 37 De Waal, Frans, 37, 44 n.13 DHS. See U.S. Department of Homeland Security Dies, Martin, 66 ‘‘Dirty hands,’’ 5–10. See also Moral dilemmas Disaster situations. See Crisis conditions Discourses on Livy (Machiavelli), 11 Dispute resolution, 273 n.20 Domestic policy, 95 Douglas, Stephen, 18 Douglas, William, 126, 132, 276 n.62 Dred Scott v. Sandford, 138 Drew, Elizabeth, 188 Drug companies, 274 n.39 Dyadic model, 93–96, 231. See also Separation of power system Dynamic representation, 232–34 ‘‘Dynamic Representation’’ (Stimson, MacKuen, and Erikson), 233–34 Eagly, Alice, 285 East Germany, 219–20 Eccles, Marriner, 69 Economy: budgets, 107–8, 127, 238–39; economic bill of rights proposal, 70– 71; Keynesian economics, 62, 69; New Deal policies, 61–62; public opinion on, 229, 233 Edelman, Murray, 31

Index Edwards, George, 208, 209 Edwards, Harry T., 256 Egypt, 179, 186 Eisenhower, Dwight: Bay of Pigs invasion planned under, 180; elections, 181; modern Republicanism of, 54; schools desegregated by, 109; Warren appointed by, 132 Elections: of judges, 245–46; ‘‘male issues’’ as focus of, 290; mandate elections, 233; mass media role in, 212; percentage of women in the voting population, 283; policy congruence and, 234, 235, 238–39 Electorate. See Public opinion Elite-oriented theories of democracy, 9, 227, 236 Ellsworth, Oliver, 130 Emancipation Proclamation, 109 Emergencies situations. See Crisis conditions Emotions: communication via, 37–38; decision making and, 27, 34, 41; emotional reassurance from leaders, 36; habitual, 41–42; intellect and, 40; manipulation and, 31, 33–42; memories invested with, 50 n.90; subsystems, 50 n.101 Empathy, 33, 35, 37–38 Energetic presidency, 81–82 Epstein, Lee, 260–61, 269–70, 271 Erikson, Robert, 233–34, 236, 237, 239, 241 Ervin, Clark Kent, 153 Eshbaugh-Soha, Matthew, 208 Establishment Clause, 134 Ethical challenges. See Moral dilemmas Ethiopia, 187 European Union (EU), 161, 162 Evolution, 27 Executive agreements, 110–11 Executive branch. See Presidency/presidents Executive orders, 109–10

311 Executive Reorganization Act (1939), 60 Ex Parte Merryman, 142 n.60 Ex Parte Millegan, 85 Facial expressions, 37 Faludi, Susan, 285, 292 Fear, 31 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 149 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 158–59, 164. See also Hurricane Katrina Federalist Papers, 81–82, 102, 105, 211 Federal judges, 245–46 Federal Judicial Center, 126–27 Feinstein, Dianne, 202 Feldman, Stanley, 228 Fels, Anna, 286 FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), 158–59, 164. See also Hurricane Katrina Feminism. See Women as leaders, Women’s Movement Fenno, Richard, 231–32 Finland, 290 FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court), 127–28 Fiscal policies. See Economy Flaherty, Martin S., 276 n.53 Flynn, Stephen, 152–53 Foley, Mark, 215 Followers: incentives for, 32; leader as extension of, 32; transforming capacities of, 17–18; transforming strategic situations of, 18–19; when led by leaders to their detriment, 27. See also Public opinion Ford, Gerald, viii, 106, 185 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA), 127–28 Foreign policy: Bush’s leadership style and, 115, 116, 117; chief justices as quasi-diplomats, 130–31; executive agreements, 110–11; executive orders, 109–10; foreign vs. domestic policy

312 relationship, 95; public opinion on, 229, 233; treaties, 110. See also United Nations (UN) Fortas, Abe, 86 Fortune 500 companies, 283, 298 n.44 Founding Fathers. See Framers Fox, Richard, 284, 286 Framers: on capabilities of average citizens, 227; on consensus and cooperation, 91; on the judiciary branch, 227, 241; on presidential authority, 89, 102–3, 211; spirited public debate encouraged by, 212, 222. See also Hamilton, Alexander; Jefferson, Thomas; Madison, James; Washington, George France, 178, 187 Frankel, Marvin F., 256, 257, 273 n.12 Frankfurter, Felix, 132–33, 136 Fraud in academic and scientific research, 268–69, 270 Free will, 30, 34–35, 40. See also Decision making; Manipulation Friedman, Lawrence, 264 Friedman, Tom, 148 Fuller, Lon, 255–56 Fuller, Melville, 131 Functional aspects of presidential leadership, 104–8 Gage, Phineas, 33 Gandhi, Mohandas, 20 GAO (Government Accounting Office) report, 164 Gender: academic achievements of children, 286; ambition norms, 285– 86; corporate socializing, 288; leadership schema, 291; leadership styles by, 288–90, 294; marriage and household trends, 287–88; masculinism, defined, 290; parenting trends, 287–88; perceived competence of men, 286; policy concerns by, 294–95; presidency as masculine institution, 291; salary

Index differences, 293. See also Women as leaders Generation Y, 283, 284 George, Tracey, 257 Germany, 290 Gingrich, Newt, 55, 92, 220–21, 292 Giuliani, Rudy, 221 Glass ceilings, 284–85 Glendon, Mary Ann, 261–62 Glick, Peter, 289–90 Glynn, Carroll, 246 Goodwin, Doris Kearns, 269 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 186–87, 219–20. See also Soviet Union Government Accounting Office (GAO) report, 164 A Government of Strangers (Heclo), 143 Governors, 217–18 Graber, Doris, 218 Graham, Bob, 151 Grant, Ulysses S., 138–39 Gray, Virginia, 235 Great Britain: Al-Qaeda plot to blow up airliners, 160–61, 162, 163; American Revolution, 88; DHS coordination with, 150; Gulf War, 186, 187; political system, 77; subway attacks, 160; as UN General Assembly permanent member, 178 The Great Depression. See Roosevelt, Franklin D. Great leader theory, 25–26, 27, 28–30, 31–32, 34 Great Society, 54 Griffin, John, 232 Griswold, Hepburn v., 138–39 Group behavior, 19 Grutman, Roy, 274 n.30 Guatemala, 109 Guattari, Felix, 45 n.18 Gulf War, 183–87 Gun control studies, 269 Hacker, Jacob, 239–41 Haiti, 190–91

Index Halberstam, David, 191 Hall Jamieson, Kathleen, 291–92 Hamden v. Rumsfeld, 89 Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 82, 89 Hamilton, Alexander: on capabilities of average citizens, 227; heroic leadership represented by, 205; on the judiciary branch, 227; on power and leadership, 89; on presidential authority, 58, 66, 79, 81–82, 102–3 Hamlet (Shakespeare), 24 Harno, Albert J., 263 Hart, Roderick, 211 Hartley, Thomas, 236 Harvard Law School, 262–63, 264 Hauser, Marc D., 38, 48 n.74 Hawley, Kip, 161 Hazard, Geoffrey, 256 Heclo, Hugh, 143 Hempel, Carl, 259 Hepburn v. Griswold, 138–39 Heritage Foundation, 155 Heroic leadership, 205 Higham, Scott, 162–63 High-Pippert, Angela, 295 Hill, Kim Quaile, 233, 236 Hinton-Andersson, Angela, 236 History, study of, 264 Hobbes, Thomas, 26, 47 n.49 Hodges, Albert, 83 Holbrooke, Richard, 197 n.79 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 256, 266 Homeland security. See U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Honesty. See Truth Hooiberg, Robert, 146 Hoover, Herbert, 68 House of Representatives: policy congruence, 233, 234–35; women serving in, 283. See also Congress, U.S. Hsu, Spencer, 158–59 Hughes, Charles Evans, 124, 125, 128, 135–36

313 Human embryos, 268 Hurricane Katrina, 116, 157, 158–59, 163, 164, 202 Hussein, Saddam. See Iraq IMF (International Monetary Fund), 150 Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 151 Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), 151 Impartiality, 11, 13–14 Impeachment trials, 124, 127 India, 179 Industrial capitalism, 61, 62 Ineffective leadership, 28 Infants, 37–38 Influence, 89, 91. See also Power Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, 152 Innovation, 19–20. See also Transformational leadership INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), 151 Intellect, 40, 145 Interest groups, 235 International Congress on Biomedical Peer Review and Scientific Publication, 280 n.120 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 150 International security. See United Nations (UN) Internet, 211–12. See also Media Intuition, 38 Iran: Iran-Contra arms-sales, 109–10, 219; Soviet withdrawal from, 178 Iraq: Bush on public opinion polls, 236, 241; Bush’s visionary challenge, 23 n.30; Clinton’s position on, 292; Iraq War (Gulf War), 183–87; risk to American armed forces, 14; unilateral actions of the president, 116; wars in Afghanistan and Iraq vs. domestic security, 165–66 Ireland, 290 Irvine, William, 40

314 Ivory Coast, 187 Jackson, Andrew, 131 Jackson, John, 233 Jackson, Michael P., 157–58, 162 Jackson, Robert, 85, 132 Jacobs, Lawrence, 239, 240 Jay, John, 130, 131 Jefferson, Thomas: Democratic-Republican Party created by, 58, 66–67; on doctrine of necessity, 83–84; on economic rights, 70; Louisiana Territory purchase, 83–84; Marshall as chief justice during presidency, 137, 138; as small government advocate, 66, 83 Jesus Christ, 20 Joan d’Arc, 281–82, 295 Johnson, Lyndon B.: executive orders, 109, 110; Great Society, 54; political system shifted by, 55; Vietnam War, 229 Johnson, Marc, 35, 48 n.64, 50 nn.97, 98 Judgments, 38 Judicial Conference of the United States, 126–27, 129–30, 135 Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, 127–28 Judicial system: administration by the chief justice, 126–27, 134–39; FDR’s reorganization of, 59–60; federal judges, 245–46; influence of public opinion on, 227; limits on the federal government, 56; policy congruence and, 241–46; state judges, 245. See also Law reviews; Separation of power system; Supreme Court, U.S. Kalman, Lauren, 276 n.53 Kant, Immanuel, 35 Kaplan, Abraham, 259 Kathlene, Lyn, 294 Keeter, Scott, 229–30 Kefauver, Estes, 181 Kelly, Alfred H., 258, 260, 277 n.80

Index Kennedy, Anthony, 134 Kennedy, John F.: Apollo project, 17; Bay of Pigs invasion, 180–81, 182; communication skills, 210, 219; Cuban missile crisis, 180–83, 202–3, 219; executive orders, 109; heroic leadership represented by, 205; on presidential leadership, 93; Stevenson as Ambassador to the UN, 180, 181–83 Kennedy, Robert F., 183 Kerik, Bernard, 156 Kernell, Samuel, 105, 207, 209 Key, V. O., Jr., 226, 227, 228 Keynesian economics, 62, 69 Khrushchev, Nikita S., 181, 182, 219. See also Soviet Union King, Cheryl, 290 King, David, 233 King, Gary, 260–61, 269–70, 271 King, Martin Luther, Jr., ix, 205 Knowledge, 29 Korean War, 178–80, 187 Kosovo, 14 Kronman, Anthony T., 257 Kuhn, Thomas S., 275 n.43 Kuwait. See Gulf War Labor movement, 66, 68 Labyrinth metaphor, 285, 286, 291, 293 Laissez-faire leadership, 288–89 Laitin, Dan, 28 Lake, Anthony, 188 Lakoff, George, 35, 48 n.64, 50 nn.97, 98 Lame ducks, 118, 165 Landsman, Stephan, 256 Landy, Marc, 60 Langdell, Christopher Columbus, 262 Laski, Harold, 90 Latvia, 290 Lawless, Jennifer, 284, 291 Law reviews, 253–72; the adversary system, advocacy, and truth, 255–58; case writing, 263–64; constitutional law analysis, 264–65; critics of,

Index 261–62, 266–67; doctrinal writing, 263–64; explanation for student control, 262–65; ‘‘law office history,’’ 260, 277 n.80; lawyering is not scholarship, 257–62; lawyers as harshest of their own profession, 274 n.30; legal reasoning, described, 254; litigation compared to sporting events, 256; mechanics of the law review system, 265–66; problems with student control, 270–71; professional peer review, 267–70; separation of law from morality, 256 Leadership: application of leadership, 4, 8–10, 22 n.10; competition as result of, 13; as contextual, overview of, viii; definitions of, ix, 8, 78, 89, 91–92; as extension of subjects and state, 32; natural order represented by, 30; power vs., 78–79, 91–92, 93; principle-centered, 43 n.6; traits, 24– 25, 28–30 Leadership (Burns). See Burns, James MacGregor Leadership (Giuliani), 221 League of Nations, 177 Le Doux, Joseph, 36–37, 40–41 Lee v. Weisman, 134 Legal scholarship. See Law reviews Legal Tender Act (1862), 138–39 Legislation: Constitutional process for enacting legislation into law, 106; executive orders, 109–10; public support for president during legislative process, 206–9; shaped by the chief justice, 123, 132–34; signing statements as, 112–13; veto power, 78, 92, 102, 106–7, 113 Legislatures, 231–36, 294. See also Congress, U.S. Leviathan (Hobbes), 47 n.49 Liberalism, 54–55, 61–62, 63, 69. See also Democratic Party; Roosevelt, Franklin D., New Deal Liberia, 290

315 Lieberman, Joe, 152, 160 Light, Paul, 106, 152 Limbaugh, Rush, 285 Lincoln, Abraham: doctrine of necessity, 79, 82–83, 84–85; as ‘‘icon of democracy,’’ 205; powerful presidential model precedent set by, 87, 88; slavery question redefined by, 18; Supreme Court during presidency, 138 Lindgren, James, 267 Lippmann, Walter, 42, 227–28 Local officials, 218 Locke, John, 79–80, 89, 101 ‘‘Locksley Hall’’ (Tennyson), 177 Lombardi, Vince, 256 Los Angeles Times, 202 Lott, John, 269 Louisiana. See Hurricane Katrina Louisiana Territory purchase, 83–84 Lowi, Theodore, 53, 55–58, 65–66, 71–72, 206–7 Luban, David, 256, 258 Lustick, Ian, 28 Machiavelli, Niccolo`: on excuses for ethical violations, 11, 12; on liberality and mercy, 13, 14; on new modes and orders, 20; on use of manipulation, 26 MacKuen, Michael: on emotional subsystems, 50 n.101; on habit, 41, 49 n.83; on policy congruence, 233–34, 237, 239, 241 Madison, James, 58, 66, 67, 227 Madison, Marbury v., 138 Mafia leadership, 29 Malaysia, 187 Mandate elections, 233 Mandela, Nelson, ix Manipulation, 24–43; brain activities, 40–41, 42, 49–50 nn.90, 91; coercion vs., 34; cognitive theory on, 25–26, 32–33; continual, 41–42; described, 25–26, 27, 33; of emotions, 31, 33–42; great leader theory, 25, 27, 28–30,

316 31–32, 34; morality and, 30–33; overview of, 24–25; Plato and Aristotle on leadership traits, 28–29, 30; reciprocal relationship between leaders and followers, 32; as skill, 38– 39; tactical deception, 38, 40 Marbury v. Madison, 138 Marcus, George E., 41, 49 n.83, 50 n.101 Marriage, 287 Marshall, George, 141 n.38 Marshall, John, 86, 123, 137–38 Marshall, Thurgood, 133 Masculinism, defined, 290. See also Men Mass media. See Media Mayer, Kenneth, 260 McDermot, Rose, 27 McIver, John, 234 McKelvey, John Jay, 263 McKinley, William, 131 McReynolds, James, 135 Media: bureaucrats, coverage of, 217; communication skills of public officials and, 206–9; Congress, coverage of, 215–16; depictions of public leadership, 204; expanded presidential powers as result of coverage, 211, 215–16; FDR’s fireside chats, 57, 202, 210, 218–19; freedom of the press, 212; governors, state and local leaders, coverage of, 217–18; interpretive vs. descriptive style, 222; male candidates favored by, 290; manipulation by, 31; negatives and shortcomings of leaders highlighted by, 221–22; during New Deal, 213; oversaturation of the mass media, 222–23; political environment dominated by, 211–12; post-Watergate years, 214–15; public opinion influenced via, 206–9, 212; relationships with presidents, 212– 16, 218, 219; role in campaigns, 212; scandals, coverage of, 213, 215; strategies for public leaders, 209–18; style emphasized over substance by, 221–

Index 22; Supreme Court coverage, 215, 216–17; technological advances, 211– 12; White House Correspondents’ Association, 213; White House press corps, 213–14. See also Communication skills Memories, 50 n.90 Men: academic achievements of boys, 286; as default leaders, 283; leadership styles of, 288–90, 294; masculine leadership schema, 291; masculinism, defined, 290; norms of ambition for, 285–86; perceived competence of, 286; presidency as masculine institution, 291; salaries of, 293; stereotypes of women in workforce, 283, 284. See also Gender Miers, Harriet, 116 Military: desegregated by Truman, 109; risks to American armed forces, 14, 16. See also specific actions by name Milkis, Sidney, 53, 55–56, 58–61, 66–69, 71–72 Miller, Arthur Selwyn, 257–58 Minds, 26 Minorities, 68, 235. See also Civil rights Minton, Sherman, 133 Miroff, Bruce, 205 Mishler, William, 242–43 Mobsters, 29 Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh, 149 Monarchical doctrine, 79 Monkeys, 37. See also Primates Monroe, Alan D., 248 n.24 Monroe, James, 111 Moral dilemmas, 3–20; application of leadership, 4, 8–10, 22 n.10; competition and the ethics of rivals as excuses, 11, 12–13; instruments of violence and coercion, 10–11; leadership’s creative possibilities, 16– 20; overview of ethical theories, 5–7; partiality and impartiality as justification, 11, 13–14; problem of dirty hands, 5–10; representation and

Index agency as excuse, 11, 15–16; resolved by group behavior, 19. Morality: cognitive theory on, 32–35; described, 30; as evolutionary process, 32–33; FDR on moral leadership, 70; manipulation and, 26– 27, 30–33; as metaphoric, 35–36; Plato and Aristotle on, 28–29; relativist position on, 47 n.45; separation of law from, 256; Western philosophy on, 26. Mueller, Robert, 149 Nagin, Ray, 202 National Resources Planning Board, 69, 233 National security: Bush’s leadership style and, 115; National Security Act (1947), 144; National Security Council (NSC), 109; National Security Presidential Directives, 109. See also U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 191 Natural laws, 30, 43 n.6 Natural sciences, 257–60 Natural selection, 37–38 NBC News, 148 Necessity doctrine, 79, 82–85 Negotiations. See Bargaining Neuman, W. Russell, 41, 49 n.83, 50 n.101 Neuroscience. See Brain activities Neustadt, Richard E.: on bargaining, 106; on FDR, 71–72; on informal powers, 92, 143; on presidential skills, 90, 206; on separation of powers, 103 The New Deal. See Roosevelt, Franklin D. Newman, Brian, 232 New Orleans. See Hurricane Katrina News media. See Media New York City subway, 159–60, 163

317 New York Stock Exchange, 149 New York Times, 217, 292 9/11 Terror attacks. See September 11 terror attacks Nixon, Richard: Bay of Pigs invasion, 181; Burger’s relationship with, 131; Bush as Ambassador to the UN, 183, 185; public trust eroded by Watergate, viii; Rehnquist appointed by, 133; unitary executive model, 88 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 191 North Korea. See Korean War Northouse, Peter, 45 n.26 Nussbaum, Bernard, 112–13 O’Connor, Sandra Day, 134 Office of Communications, 213, 214 Office of Management and Budget (OMB), 107 O’Harrow, Robert, 162–63 Oklahoma City bombing, 203 Oleszek, Walter J., 216 Opportunities, 89–90, 93 Oratory skills. See Communication skills Organizational structure/system, 89–90 Page, Benjamin I., 228–29, 233 Paine, Thomas, 70 Paletz, David L., 217 Pardons, ix Parenting trends, 287–88 Partiality, 11, 13–14 Partisanship. See Political parties Patriot Act, 108, 116 Patterson, Thomas, 222 Paulison, R. David, 159 Perkins, Frances, 70 Perry, Philip, 157 The Personal President (Lowi). See Lowi, Theodore Persuasion, 206, 257, 261. See also Communication skills The Phantom Public (Lippmann), 227–28

318 The Philippines, 290 Philosophical ethics, 5–6 Pickering, Thomas R., 184, 187 Pierson, Paul, 239–41 Piltdown Man, 280 n.114 Pinker, Steven, 33–34, 49–50 nn.81, 90 Plagiarism, 269, 280 n.117 Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania, Casey v., 134 Plato, 28–29, 30, 46 n.31 Political efficacy, 295 Political opportunities, 89–90, 93 Political parties: contemporary party revival, 66–67; Democratic-Republican Party, creation of, 58, 66–67; partisan membership of Congress, 95; recruitment bias that favors men, 290; transformed by FDR, 58–59, 60, 67–68. See also Democratic Party; Republican Party The Politics Presidents Make (Skowronek), 72 Popularity of presidents, 95 Popular sovereignty, defined, 294. See also Democracy Posner, Richard A., 263 Pound, Roscoe, 273 n.22 Powell, Colin, 186, 191 Power: conversion of resources into, 90; definitions of, 91–92; dyadic model of presidential leadership, 93–96; formal vs. informal powers of the president, 92; influence, defined, 89; leadership vs., ix, 78–79, 91–92, 93; power vacuums, 78, 89; presidential level of political opportunity in context of power, 89–90, 93; presidential responsibilities exceeding, 90–91. See also Separation of power system Presidency/presidents: absence of ’’great’’ presidents since FDR, 60–61; budget shaped by, 107–8; as chief executive, 79, 103–4; as commander in chief, 79, 82, 89, 103;

Index communication skills and strategies, 105–6, 107, 206–9, 212–14; constitutional authority, 79, 82, 99, 101–3, 106; context of presidency of, 93; crisis leadership, 80, 87, 108; declining responsiveness of presidents to public opinion, 240–41; energetic presidency, 81–82; Executive Agreements, 110–11; Executive Orders, 109–10; expanded powers as result of media coverage, 211, 215–16; FDR’s leadership example, 57–58, 60–61, 63–64, 65; foreign policy, 110–11; Framer’s suspicion of popular leaders, 211; going public model directed towards Congress, 208, 209; impeachment trials, 124, 127; influence on individual members of Congress, 232; informal powers of, 92, 103–4, 119; lame duck status, 118, 165; leadership in Congress, 99–121; leadership in Congress, functional aspects, 104–8; leadership in Congress, governing realities, 114–19; leadership in Congress, structural aspects, 101–4; leadership in Congress, unilateral actions, 109–14; limited powers of, 90–91; manipulation of public opinion by, 239–41; as masculine institution, 291; oversaturation of the mass media, 222; ‘‘pandering’’ to public opinion, 208; pardons, ix; partisan membership of Congress vs., 95; personal (plebiscitary) presidency created by FDR, 57, 65; policy agenda controlled by personalizing the agenda, 206–9; policy congruence and the president, 236–41; political opportunities, 89–90, 93; popularity of, 95, 238; presidential leadership, described, 89; public expectations of, 57–58, 118–19; recess appointments, 113–14; reelections, 238–39;

Index relationships with chief justices, 131; relationships with U.S. Ambassadors to the UN, 176; relationship with the press, 212–16; resources of, 89–90, 92, 93; responsibilities exceeded by power, 90–91; signing statements, 111–13; skills, 89–90, 93, 95; small-c constitution, 105; State of the Union Address, 104–5, 210, 238; structure/ system of organization of, 89–90, 93; term limits, 118; veto power, 102, 106–7; White House press corps, 213– 14. See also Public leadership; Separation of power system; specific presidents by name The President and the Parties (Milkis), 58– 59, 60–61. See also Milkis, Sidney Presidential Decision Directives, 109 Presidential Greatness (Landy and Milkis), 60. See also Milkis, Sidney Presidential Power (Neustadt), 71, 90, 92 Presidential Studies Quarter, 279 n.111 Press secretary, 213, 214 Primates, 35, 37, 48 n.74 Principle-centered leadership, 43 n.6 Private sector leadership. See Corporate leadership Progressive Era, 61–62 Prudential Financial, Inc., 150 Public leadership, 201–23; defining, 203–9; memorable examples of, 204, 205, 218–21; strategies, 209–18. See also specific types of leaders by name Public opinion, 226–52; congressional response to changes in, 233; declining responsiveness of presidents to, 240– 41; democracy, described, 226; dynamic representation, 232–33; elite manipulation hypothesis, 227, 236; on female leaders, 284; Framer’s suspicion of popular leaders, 211; influence on the judiciary branch, 227; interest groups vs., 235; knowledge of politics, 228–31, 229t; manipulation of by presidents, 239–

319 41; media’s influence on, 206–9, 222; during national crisis, 108; nonattitudes, 228; Opinions on Selected Issues, by Ideology, 230f; ‘‘pandering’’ to, 208; policy congruence, described, 226; policy congruence and the judiciary, 241–46; policy congruence and the president, 236–41; policy congruence in the federal and state legislatures, 231–36; policy influenced over time by, 227– 31; presidential popularity and responsiveness to public opinion, 238; reliance on the media, 212; on representatives as delegates of the people, 226; shaped by presidential rhetoric, 105–6, 107, 206–9; spirited public debate encouraged by Framers, 212, 222; State of the Union Addresses, 104–5, 210, 238; strategies for public leaders, 209–18; of Supreme Court justices, 217, 244; Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘‘Stewardship Doctrine,’’ 210; of transformational leaders, 118–19; transition from inattentive to attentive citizens, 248 n.18. See also Followers Al-Qaeda: in Afghanistan, 116; anthrax attacks, 148; Mohammed’s capture, 149; plot to blow up airliners, 160–61, 162, 163. See also Afghanistan; War on terror Race. See Civil rights; Minorities Radio. See Media Ramachandran, Vilayanur S., 37 Rasul v. Bush, 82, 89 Reagan, Ronald: Brandenburg Gate statement, 219–20; communication skills, 210, 219; Congressional policymaking during administration, 92; executive orders, 109–10; on government reform, 220; Iran-Contra arms sales, 109–10, 219; Reagan

320 Revolution, ix-x, 55; signing statements, 111–12; Supreme Court appointments, 243; ‘‘Teflon’’ presidency, 219–20; unitary executive model, 88 Reality (objective), 50 n.97. See also Truth Reason, 34. See also Decision making Recess appointments, 113–14 Reciprocal relationship between leaders and followers, 32 Reed, Stanley, 133 Rehnquist, William: agenda, 127, 130; Congress lobbied by, 130; effectiveness as chief justice, 125, 133–34; judges appointed by, 128 Reid, John Phillip, 260 Relationships, 31 Religious liberty, 133–34 Representation (agency), 11, 15–16 The Republic. See Plato Republicanism, 61–62 Republican Party: Contract with America, 220–21; New Deal policies undone by, 55; response to subconstituency preferences, 234–35. See also Conservatism; Political parties Resources of presidents, 89–90, 92, 93 Responsibilities of leaders, 11–12 Revolutionary War, 88 Rhetorical skills. See Communication skills Ridge, Tom: anthrax attacks, 148; on Chertoff, 156; Chertoff compared to, 159, 163; constraints faced by, 153–54, 155, 157; criticism of, 147, 148–50, 151–53, 154, 158, 161; departure from DHS, 153, 154–55; DHS missions outlined by, 150–51; failure as transactional leader, 152–53, 154–55; ‘‘hands-off’’ leadership, 152; legacy, 153–54; political experience, 147; public opinion of, 163; Ready Campaign, 148–49; successes, 150, 153–54, 165; terrorist alert system, 149, 154;

Index as transformational leader, 146, 147, 153 Rights, 58–59, 62–63, 70–71 The Rights of Man (Paine), 70 Rivalries. See Competition Roberts, John, 130, 131, 244 Roberts, Owen, 124 Rodell, Fred, 266 Roe v. Wade, 133–34 Rogers, Hal, 164 Romania, 187 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 52–72; Austin’s support for, 180; Burns assessment of, 63–72; call for expanded power during Depression, 85, 87; communication skills, 210, 218–19; context of presidency, viii, 64–65, 71; court-packing plan, 135, 136; Executive Reorganization Act (1939), 60; failures, 59–60; fireside chats, 57, 202, 210, 218–19; Hamiltonian model of the presidency, 60–61, 65; as ‘‘icon of democracy,’’ 205; judiciary reorganization plan, 59–60; modern presidency defined by, 66; New Deal, ‘‘Commonwealth Club Address,’’ 58–59; New Deal, civic vision of, 69– 70; New Deal, constitutionality of program, 264; New Deal, Keynesian economics embraced by, 62, 69; New Deal, media relations during, 213; New Deal, new conception of rights, 58–59, 62–63, 70–71; the New Deal, reappraising, 54–55; New Deal, republicanism replaced by liberalism, 61–62, 69; the New Deal, structural critiques of, 52–53, 55–63; New Deal policies, Congressional opposition to, 65–66, 68–69; New Deal policies, ‘‘revolutions’’ launched by, 56–57, 58, 59–61, 65–66, 68–69; personal (plebiscitary) presidency created by, 57, 65, 66; political parties transformed by, 58– 59, 60, 67–68; powerful presidential

Index model precedent set by, 87, 88, 90; transformation of ideas and values by, 19; White House press corps, 213; World War II commitment, 17 Roosevelt, Theodore, 61, 205, 210, 213 Roosevelt (Burns). See Burns, James MacGregor Rosenau, James N., 93 Rossiter, Clinton, 79, 86, 87 Rost, Joseph, 22 n.10 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 80 Routine, 93–95 Rudner, Richard S., 259 Rumsfeld, Hamden v., 89 Rumsfeld, Hamdi v., 82, 89 Russett, Bruce, 236 Russia, 178. See also Soviet Union Rwanda, 189, 190, 191 Ryle, Gilbert, 44 n.11 Sandel, Michael, 53, 56, 61–63, 69–72 Sandford, Dred Scott v., 138 Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 134 Saudi Arabia, 186 Sawyer, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v., 85, 110, 141 n.41 Scalia, Antonin, 134 Scandals: corruption, 246; fraud in academic and scientific research, 268–69, 270; media coverage of, 213, 215; sexual indiscretions, 292; Watergate, viii Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., 182 Schneider, Paul A., 162–63 Scholarship. See Law reviews School desegregation, 109 School-sponsored prayer, 134 Schumpeter, Joseph, 9 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 201–2, 222, 234 Science (publication), 268 Scientific research, 267–69 Scientific theory, 257–60 Scowcroft, Brent, 186, 187

321 Second Treatise on Government (Locke), 79–80, 101 Seduction of followers, 31–32. See also Manipulation Segal, Jeffrey, 243 Senate: appointments approved by, 113; Madison on creation of, 227; policy congruence, 232, 233, 234, 238; treaties ratified by, 110; women serving in, 283. See also Congress Separation of power system, 77–98; Alexander Hamilton’s ‘‘energy,’’ 81– 82; constitutional dictatorship, 86–87; coordinate construction of the constitution, 82; court decisions in support of, 86; direct action and the unitary executive, 78–79; the doctrine of necessity, 79, 82–85; dyadic model of presidential leadership, 93–96; emergency situations kindled by emergency powers, 85; as ‘‘invitation to struggle’’ between Congress and president, 103; John Locke’s ‘‘executive prerogative,’’ 80; power vacuums, 78; precedent, 87–89; presidential leadership, 89–93; presidential leadership in Congress, 99–121; presidential leadership in Congress, functional aspects, 104–8; presidential leadership in Congress, governing realities, 114–19; presidential leadership in Congress, structural aspects, 101–4; presidential leadership in Congress, unilateral actions, 109–14; presidential violations of the law of Constitution, 80. See also Checks and balances; Congress; Constitution; Presidency/presidents; Supreme Court, U.S. September 11 terror attacks: Bush’s remarks at National Cathedral, 203; Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created after, 144, 147–48; Giuliani’s leadership during, 221;

322 9/11 Commission, 154; post-9/11 neoconservative thought, 79; presidential unilateralism following, 89, 116–17; public preference for male leadership following, 291; USA Patriot Act passed following, 108, 116; war on terrorism declared following, 108, 116–17. See also Bush, George W. Sexism. See Women as leaders, Women’s Movement Shakespeare, William, 24 Shapiro, Robert Y., 228–29, 233, 239, 240 Shapiro, Walter, 149 Sheehan, Reginald, 242–43 Sheeler, Kristina Horn, 292 Shogan, Colleen, 208–9 Shouse, Jouett, 67 Signing statements, 82, 111–13 Situational leadership, 93, 116–17 Skills, 89–90, 93, 95 Skinner, Richard, 162 Skowronek, Stephen, 72 Slavery, 18, 83 Small-c constitution, 105 Smith, Al, 67 Smith-Connally bill, 66 Social classes, 46 n.31 Social sciences, 257–60 Social Security, 19, 116 Socrates, 20, 46 n.31 Somalia, 189–90, 191 Souls, 26, 42 Souter, David, 134 South Africa, 92 South Korea. See Korean War Soviet Union: Cuban missile crisis, 180– 83, 219; Gulf War, 183, 185, 186–87; on North Korea, 178; Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate statement, 219–20; as UN General Assembly permanent member, 178; withdrawal from Iran, 178 Spaeth, Harold, 243 Speaker, Andrew, 163

Index Speaking skills. See Communication skills Sporting events, 256, 288 Stalin, Joseph, 179. See also Soviet Union Stanford Law School, 264 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 205 State judges, 245 State legislatures, 231, 234. See also Judicial system State officials, 218 State of the Union Address, 104–5, 210, 238 Stem cell research, 268 Stephens, Harold, 129 Stern, Sheldon, 183 Sternberg, Robert J., 145–46. See also WICS (wisdom, intelligence, and creativity, synthesized) model Stettinius, Edward R., Jr., 178 Stevens, John Paul, 134 Stevenson, Adlai E., 180, 181–82 Stewart, Potter, 204 Stimson, James, 233–34, 236, 237, 239, 241, 243 Stodder, Seth, 153 Stodgill, Ralph, 45 n.24 Stone, Harlan Fiske, 125, 135, 136 Story, Joseph, 137 Strategic interaction, 13 Structure/system of organization, 89– 90, 93, 101–4 Stuckey, Mary, 207 Sub-presidential leadership (cabinets), 144, 217. See also Public leadership; specific departments by name Success, factors in, viii–ix Supreme Court, U.S., 122–39; appeals received annually by, 140 n.7; attitudinal model of judicial behavior, 243–44; during Civil War, 138; common law system, 122; constitutional law analysis, 264–65; Constitutional provisions, 124; decisions congruent with public opinion, 242–45; decisions made

Index seriatim prior to Marshall, 137; executive orders struck down by, 110; FDR’s Court-packing plan, 135, 136; insulated from the opinions of the masses, 241–42; media coverage of, 215, 216–17; on New Deal programs, 60, 264; number of justices, 142 n.61; power of persuasion, 128–31; procedures, 124–26; public opinion of justices, 217, 244; writ of certiorari issued by, 140 n.7. See also Chief justices; specific decisions by name; specific justices by name Sutherland, George, 86, 135 Tactical deception, 38, 40. See also Manipulation Taft, William: as chief justice, 122, 129– 30, 131; as president, 68 Taney, Roger, 131, 138 Tax reductions, 240 Tax Reform Act (1978), 233 Television. See Media Tennyson, Alfred, 177 Tet Offensive, 229 Thatcher, Margaret, 186 Thomas, Clarence, 134, 217 Thompson, Bennie, 162 Thompson, Richard F., 50–51 n.102 Time Magazine, 156–57 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 227 Traits of leaders, 24–25, 28–30 Transactional leadership, 17, 145–46, 159–62, 163–64, 204–5, 288–89 Transcendental truth, 26–27, 30, 32, 36, 37, 42–43 Transformational leadership: challenges, 145–46; Chertoff as, 146– 47; Clinton’s missed opportunity as, 220; described, 17, 100–101, 145–46, 204–5, 288–89; public expectations of, 118–19; Ridge as, 146, 147, 153; transforming followers’ capacities, 17–18; transforming followers’ strategic situations, 18–19;

323 transforming ideas and values, 19–20 Transportation Security Administration (TSA), 151, 152, 153, 160–61, 162 Treaties, 110 Truman, Harry S.: on creation of the UN, 177; executive orders, 110; Korean War, 178–80, 187; steel mills seizure (Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer), 85, 110, 131, 141 n.41; U.S. military desegregated by, 109; Vinson asked to serve as emissary to Moscow by, 131 Truth: adversary system and, 255–57, 261; interpretation of, 31; as universal and transcendental, 26–27, 30, 32, 36, 37, 42–43. See also Manipulation TSA (Transportation Security Administration), 151, 152, 153, 160– 61, 162 Tuberculosis, 163 Tucker, Robert C., 28 Tulis, Jeffrey, 105, 114–15, 211 Turkey, 183 Unilateral actions of the president, 89, 109–10, 116–19 Unitary executive theory of presidential power, 78–79, 82, 88–89 United Kingdom. See Great Britain United Nations (UN), 172–92; ambassadors’ relationships with presidents, 176; Classification of U.S. Permanent Representatives to the United Nations, 176t; Clinton administration, 188–91; common features of ambassadors, 173, 176; creation and structure, 177–78, 181; Cuban missile crisis, 180–83; early U.S. leadership, 178–80; the Gulf War, 183–87; selection of U.S. ambassadors, 173, 176; twenty-first century, 192; U.S. as UN General Assembly permanent member, 174t– 75t, 178; U.S. dues, 188–92

324 United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 79, 86, 89 University of Chicago Law School, 264 University of Michigan, 228, 264 Urban Areas Security Initiative, 161–62 USA Patriot Act, 108, 116 U.S. Department of Defense, 144, 146– 48, 159 U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 143–66; Afghanistan and Iraq vs. domestic security, 165–66; Chertoff’s leadership, 145–47, 155– 64; creation of, 116; Department of Defense coordination with, 159; exodus of top officials prior to Chertoff, 153; Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 158– 59, 164; goals and responsibilities, 144; Government Accounting Office (GAO) report on, 164; Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, 152; missions outlined by Ridge, 150–51; 9/11 Commission on, 154; Ridge’s leadership, 145–55; successes under Ridge’s leadership, 150; terrorist alert system, 149, 154, 160; Urban Areas Security Initiative, 161–62 U.S. Department of Justice, 157. See also Attorney General U.S. Department of State, 144 U.S. Department of the Treasury, 144 Utilitarianism, 6–7, 11 Value conflicts, 6–7, 11. See also Moral dilemmas Van Buren, Martin, 67 Vandenberg, Arthur H., 177 Van Devanter, Willis, 135, 141 n.30 Vera, Dusya, 145 Veto power, 78, 92, 102, 106–7, 113 Vice presidents, 115–16. See also specific vice presidents by name Vietnam War, 54, 190, 191, 229 Vinson, Fre, 131, 132

Index Violence, 10–11, 28. See also Coercion Visionary challenges set by leaders, 17–18 Voter behavior. See Public opinion Wade, Roe v., 133–34 Waite, Morrison, 128–29 War of Independence, 88 War on terror, 108, 116–17, 151–52, 154, 155, 164. See also Bush, George W.; U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Warren, Earl, 123, 131, 132–33 Wartime leaders: doctrine of necessity, 79, 82–85; Inter Arma Silent Leges (in war time, the laws are silent), 82; monarchical doctrine, 79; national-security state formed by FDR, 66; Plato on, 29. See also Crisis conditions; Military Washington, George, 104, 130 Washington Post, 158–59, 163, 202 Watergate scandal, viii Weber, Max, 10 Weisman, Lee v., 134 Weissberg, Robert, 231 West Germany, 219–20 What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters (Delli Carpini and Keeter), 229–31 White, Edward, 125, 131 White House Correspondents’ Association, 213 WhiteHouse.gov, 115 White House press corps, 213–14 WICS (wisdom, intelligence, and creativity, synthesized) model, 145–46, 148, 154–55, 156, 161, 163, 164 Wildavsky, Aaron, 95 Will, George F., 79 Wills, Garry, 272 Wilson, Woodrow: Federalists’ view of leadership attacked by, 105; powerful presidential model precedent set by,

Index 87, 88; as Progressive, 61; State of the Union Address, 104, 210 Wisdom, 29, 145 Wisdom, intelligence, and creativity, synthesized (WICS) model. See WICS model Women as leaders, 281–95; academic achievements of girls, 286; ambition norms, 285–86; in corporate settings, 282–83, 284, 289–90, 292–93; decision making styles, 294; delayed pursuits of political leadership, 288; democratic implications of gendered leadership, 293–95; within Democratic Party, 68; double bind of women’s leadership, 281–82, 291–93; dress of, 290; empowerment for other women promoted by, 295; factors in leadership gender gap, 284; female heads of state, 290; feminine leadership schema, 291; the gendered landscape of leadership, 282–84; Generation Y stereotypes, 283, 284; glass ceilings, 284–85; labyrinth metaphor, 285, 286, 291, 293; leadership evaluation bias, 288–90;

325 leadership style, 294; masculinist institutions, 290–91; media coverage of, 290; as members of U.S. Congress, 283–84, 295; origins of the leadership gender gap, 284–86; parenting trends, 287–88; policy concerns of, 294–95; political party membership, 290; population of women in the U.S., 283; public opinion on, 284; salaries of, 293; Women’s Movement, 281, 282, 285, 287 Wood, John F., 157 World Bank, 149 The World Unknown, 297 n.23 World War II, 17 Wright, Gerald, 233, 234 Yale Law School, 264 Yemen, 184, 186, 187 Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 85, 110, 141 n.41 Yugoslavia, 110, 178. See also Bosnia Zaire, 187 Zajonc, Robert, 41 Zaller, John, 228





Volume 3 Leadership and the Humanities Edited by Joanne B. Ciulla




In Memory of Our Fathers Andrew Joseph Ciulla, 1926–2006 Marinus Johannes Kanters, 1929–2007


Contents Preface

ix

Part I. What Fictitious Leaders Tell Us about Leadership

1

1. Of ‘‘Gods and Commodores’’: Leadership in Melville’s Moby-Dick Nicholas O. Warner

3

2. The Relevance of Don Quixote to Leadership Studies: Nostalgia, Cynicism, and Ambivalence Aurora Hermida-Ruiz

20

3. Against the Heroic: Gilgamesh and His City Michael Harvey

51

Part II. What Real Leaders Tell Us about Leadership

67

4. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, and Alternative Accounts of Lee’s Surrender at Appomattox George R. Goethals

69

5. Ressentiment as a Political Passion Ruth Capriles

90

viii

Contents

Part III. How Philosophy Sheds Light on Leadership

115

6. Understanding Leadership: Is It Time for a Linguistic Turn? Antonio Marturano

117

7. Why ‘‘Being There’’ Is Essential to Leadership Joanne B. Ciulla

132

Part IV. How Music and Musicians Lead

149

8. Leadership through Music Kathleen Marie Higgins

151

9. Leadership through Music and Laughter: How Henry Carey Reinvented English Music and Song Jennifer Cable

172

Part V. How Artists and Art Lead

187

10. Art History and Leadership Studies Charles Johnson

189

11. Establishing Regimes of Truth: A Study of the Relationship Between Leaders, Power, and Artistic Expression Scott Boylston

213


237

Index

241

Preface It is surprising that the field we now call ‘‘leadership studies’’ did not originate in the humanities because, as you will see, it has been there for a very long time. The humanities consist of disciplines that explain how we came to be what we are today. They tell us what people did in the past, how they felt, what they believed, and how they expressed themselves through language, literature, art, music, and dance. The subjects that make up the humanities peer into the depths of human nature and relationships. When we read a great piece of literature, history, or biography, we enter into a conversation that sometimes spans across place and time and connects us as human beings. All too often in universities today, students, their parents, and some administrators write off humanity courses as nice luxuries that are not very useful, especially for getting a job. After all, except for history, biography, and anthropology, the rest of the humanities, such as art, music, literature, and philosophy, are not about facts or real things. They concern themselves with fictions—mere creations of human imagination. Yet when you think about it, perhaps leadership too is a creation of our collective imagination—an idea about human relationships forged from the hopes, fears, dreams, emotions, wants, needs, and collective experiences of humanity. This is not to disparage the social sciences and, in particular, the various fields of psychology that

x

Preface

have long dominated leadership studies. Social scientists have done an excellent job of describing and explaining leadership. What the humanities offer that the social sciences cannot adequately provide is the backdrop or context for understanding leadership. This book aims to do two things. First, it brings different areas of knowledge into leadership studies, and second, it demonstrates how to use this knowledge to learn about leadership. While most scholars believe that work in leadership studies should be interdisciplinary, that is easier said than done. Humanities scholars are typically not trained to do quantitative research and social scientists usually are not trained to interpret texts or works of art. The best way to develop an interdisciplinary field is by encouraging work on leadership from experts in their own disciplines. In doing so, we create a body of quality work from the social sciences and the humanities that can be used to do interdisciplinary research on leadership. The authors in this book draw from literature, autobiography, philosophy, classics, music, and art to deliver new perspectives on leadership. The first three chapters of this book are stories about leaders who never existed—Moby-Dick, Don Quixote, and the Gilgamesh Epic. These chapters tease out different aspects of leadership and leaders. In all of the stories, we recognize some of the universal challenges that the leaders face. We find leaders with drive and vision who motivate and care for others, but we also witness the tragedy that befalls leaders and followers when leaders succumb to their own human frailty. In the next chapters, the authors analyze real leaders. We first encounter the general, and then president, Ulysses S. Grant, through his autobiography. This chapter examines in detail Grant’s description of the surrender of General Robert E. Lee to him at Appomattox. It scrutinizes what happened that day, how Grant felt, and what this episode teaches us about Grant as a leader and about leadership in general. We meet the second leader in this section in a different way. Chapter 5 draws from literature in philosophy and fiction to describe the powerful emotion of resentment (specifically the French concept of this emotion ressentiment). It then uses this description to explain how the controversial president, Hugo Cha´vez, has cultivated and exploited this emotion to gain and consolidate his power in Venezuela today. The third section offers two papers by philosophers. In Chapter 6 we see how contemporary linguistic philosophy and Umberto Eco’s work in semiotics offer a way of resolving the problem of defining leadership—a pervasive problem in the leadership literature. Through this linguistic analysis, we learn that it is followers who construct the meaning of the word ‘‘leader.’’ Using examples of the Roman Emperor Nero and the former Russian president Vladimir Putin, the next chapter draws from the classics, literature, and philosophy to explain why followers expect leaders to be physically

Preface

xi

and mentally present in times of disaster. It assesses what this expectation means in terms of the normative aspects of leadership such as care, duty, and propriety. The rest of the chapters in this book are about music and art. The arts contribute to the study of leadership in two general ways: first, leaders use the arts to lead, and second, artists and works of art can lead or initiate change in society and/or in the arts. Chapter 8 chronicles the ways in which music influences meaning, behavior, and morality. Leaders can and have used music to perform functions that are necessary to leadership. For example, music motivates us; it provides a way for people to come together, cooperate, and create community. In Chapter 9, we have a look at a composer as a leader. This chapter describes how the English composer Henry Carey used satire to bring English opera back to the English stage. Carey exercises leadership among other artists and uses his art to help change the artistic preferences of English society in his time. The last two chapters are about the visual arts. In Chapter 10 we look at leadership through the lens of art history. It begins by focusing on how leaders used art during Renaissance and the Reformation. The chapter then goes on to examine how artists such as Honore´ Daumier acted as powerful social critics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The final chapter looks at how art and design sell the ideas of leaders and consumer products. Leaders take advantage of art to create symbols that represent their values, ideologies, and perceptions of truth and reality. In particular, the chapter examines some of the poster art that was used in Nazi propaganda and in the service of the Bolshevik Revolution. We learn how the artist Ludwig Hohlwein provided Adolf Hitler with images that promoted Hitler’s Aryan ideology. We also encounter artists who banded together in small groups to challenge leaders and the status quo. As I hope the reader will discover, this volume offers new insights and unique approaches to the study of leadership. I am very grateful to all of the authors of this book for their time, wisdom, scholarship, creative energy, and willingness to do something different. I also owe a debt of thanks to the Keck Foundation for funding a project that encouraged academics from disciplines that are typically outside of leadership studies to develop courses on leadership. Many of the authors in this book either taught such courses and/or took part in the conferences supported by this grant. Last, but not least, books are not born without editors. I also want to thank our editor, Jeff Olson, for shepherding us through the process of turning our ideas into a book. Joanne B. Ciulla


PART I

WHAT FICTITIOUS LEADERS TELL US ABOUT LEADERSHIP


1 Of ‘‘Gods and Commodores’’: Leadership in Melville’s Moby-Dick NICHOLAS O. WARNER

Given its concern with all forms of human conflict and cooperation, it is not surprising that literature has abundant ramifications for the study of leadership. Literary works offer compelling depictions of the ways that leadership can succeed or fail, of the emotional relationship between leaders and followers, and of the ethical complexities and challenges that that relationship so often entails. This discussion focuses on a masterpiece both of American literature and of the artistic depiction of leadership: Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, first published in 1851. The action of the novel, of course, takes place largely on a nineteenth-century whaling vessel, the Pequod, but its relevance to leadership goes far beyond its immediate period and setting. Relying on all of the artistic resources available to him as an author, rather than on scholarly discourse or quantitative research, Melville presents, in effect, a qualitative examination of the insidious ways that an inspiring, imaginative leader can mold followers to do his will, even against their better judgment; of the competing claims that exert their force on followers; and of the tensions between ethical and pragmatic considerations in leadership. Through precise language, evocative imagery, an eventful plot, and rich characterization, Moby-Dick delves into the nature of leaders, followers, and the forces that both bind them and drive them apart. In addition to clarifying one particular novel’s take on leadership, an analysis of these issues can testify to the broader importance of leadership as a theme in literature, and to the importance of literature for understanding leadership.

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Leadership and the Humanities

From his earliest adventure narratives, Typee and Omoo, to his last prose fiction, ‘‘Billy Budd,’’ Melville’s work shows a persistent concern with such leadership-related topics as official versus unofficial authority, justice in the treatment of subordinates, the hierarchies of rank and power, and a love of democracy combined with a fear of social disorder.1 The primary literary locus of these issues is a world that Melville knew well—that of his own youthful experiences as a sailor on ships both military and commercial. Thus the bulk of Melville’s fiction gives us a nineteenth-century world, an American world, a male world, a seaman’s world. Nevertheless, though bound by nation and period, and often located within the microcosm of a ship with its officers and crew, Melville’s depictions of power relations between leaders and followers have applicability beyond the confines of any one profession or context. Melville himself understood his works to have broad moral and philosophical implications. This is apparent in his frequent metaphorical use of nautical imagery and in the explicit comparisons his fiction makes between its particular settings, American society, and the human condition in general. In the last chapter of White Jacket, for instance—a novel dealing with naval life and published a year before Moby-Dick—Melville makes his analogical approach plain. Specifically addressing his readers as ‘‘shipmates and world-mates,’’ Melville writes, ‘‘As a man-of-war that sails through the sea, so this earth that sails through the air. We mortals are all on board a fast-sailing, never-sinking, world-frigate, of which God was the shipwright.’’ 2 Clearly, this is a writer for whom life and leadership at sea exist in significant parallel with life and leadership on shore. Like many of his other writings, Moby-Dick depicts matters of shipboard hierarchy, rank, and protocol, reflecting Melville’s interest in leadership and the organizational structures within which it occurs. But Moby-Dick goes further than any of Melville’s other works to explore the relation between institutional and personal authority as a basis for leadership; the moral dimensions of means and ends in leadership; the powers and perils of charisma; and above all, the emotional intertwining of followers and leaders, whether for good or ill. A full account of these issues in Moby-Dick could easily threaten to reach the length of a novel itself. This discussion, instead, will focus on several salient examples of the topics mentioned above, with emphasis on the infamous Captain Ahab, and on the important role played in the book by Ahab’s followers. At this point, I should make it clear that my use of the term ‘‘leader ’’ extends to moral and immoral leaders alike. James MacGregor Burns has argued that a tyrannical or unethical authority figure should be called by some other term than leader, such as ‘‘power-wielder,’’ a phrase that certainly fits the dictatorial Captain Ahab.3 But Ahab is also an undeniably brilliant influencer, motivator, and persuader—in a word, a leader. In this regard, I

Of ‘‘Gods and Commodores’’

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follow Robert C. Solomon’s view that it is possible ‘‘to distinguish between effective but evil leadership and ethical leadership.’’ 4 The work of Jean Lipman-Blumen is also apposite here, as she has painstakingly analyzed the damage wrought by people in power who, though alluring and at times even inspiring, are ‘‘toxic’’ in their effects; pernicious as their leadership is, it seems artificial not to call them leaders.5 Similarly, Barbara Kellerman argues that ‘‘To deny bad leadership equivalence in the conversation . . . is misguided, tantamount to a medical school that would claim to teach health while ignoring disease.’’ Drawing on Adolf Hitler as ‘‘the most extreme example’’ of evil leadership, Kellerman points out that ‘‘not only was his impact on twentiethcentury history arguably greater than anyone else’s but also he was brilliantly skilled at inspiring, mobilizing, and directing followers.’’ 6 One of the most significant things about Moby-Dick is that, while fully revealing the dangers of his leadership, ‘‘the book neither justifies nor condemns Ahab.’’ 7 Instead—and more interestingly—through the character of Ahab, Melville invites his readers to contemplate the intricacies of the leader-follower dynamic, and of the ways that people assess both leadership ethics and effectiveness. Central as Captain Ahab is to Moby-Dick, he is neither the only nor the first leader we meet in the novel. By beginning with the various leader-figures and themes introduced in the book’s opening chapters, we can follow Melville’s own creative process, as he gradually develops the issues identified in the preceding paragraphs. As we will see, although Ahab is the ‘‘supreme lord and dictator ’’ 8 on an isolated ship thousands of miles from shore, his leadership, like that of all leaders, takes place in a context where other influences—whether of religion, ideology, past experience, the examples of other models of leadership, and even personal temperament—exist in the minds and memories of his followers. That context is carefully established by Melville early in the novel. ‘‘Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that.’’ With this striking rhetorical question in the book’s very first chapter (Moby-Dick, 28), Melville’s narrator, Ishmael, alerts us to his view of the universality of servitude and obedience in some form or other, and to the ubiquitous need to accept the presence of authority, if not of leadership. Everyone in life is buffeted, whether by crotchety sea captains or others in positions of power—a truth to which Ishmael submits with ironically resigned good humor. In fact, Ishmael prefers to go to sea as a common sailor rather than as an officer. Explaining that the power of leaders is not as great or enviable a thing as it seems, Ishmael slyly jokes that ‘‘for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not so.’’ The text then shifts to leaders in general: ‘‘In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little

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suspect it’’ (Moby-Dick, 28–29). Of course, this generalization only partially applies to Ahab; while he is highly sensitive to his followers’ reactions to him, in his overall goal of wreaking vengeance on the great white whale, Moby-Dick, and in specific decisions in the pursuit of that goal, Ahab is the prime initiator and controller. But what is especially noteworthy here is that Melville himself includes this comment about leaders being led by their followers—a comment that ties in with much recent thinking on the reciprocity of the leader-follower dynamic, and that points to Melville’s concern with leadership already in the book’s earliest pages.9 The leadership theme in Moby-Dick expands with the introduction of several other figures whose depiction provides a background against which the novel’s chief leader, the mysterious Captain Ahab, will appear all the more powerfully when he makes his theatrical entry on the Pequod’s upper deck in Chapter 28. Long before Ahab, however, we meet the enigmatic clergyman known as Father Mapple, a popular spiritual leader among the whalemen, who preaches a powerful sermon about the Biblical Jonah (himself swallowed by a whale). I do not attempt here to resolve or even to join the critical debate over Melville’s attitudes toward Father Mapple’s Calvinistic sermon in Chapter 9. While earlier critics tended to take Mapple’s sermon ‘‘straight,’’ as a reflection of Melville’s own views, scholars since Lawrance Thompson’s controversial Melville’s Quarrel with God have inclined toward a far darker, satirical reading of both Mapple and his sermon. My own sense is that Father Mapple’s sermon is at least partly a send-up of the fire-and-brimstone sermons familiar to Melville from youth; irony, whether facetious or bitter, is always close at hand in Melville’s work.10 Be that as it may, my emphasis here is not on Melville’s theological views, but on the relevance of Mapple and his sermon to the larger theme of leadership in Moby-Dick. Father Mapple’s personal vigor, his thunderous oratory, his employment of a ship’s rope for a ladder with which to climb into his prow-shaped pulpit— all of these facts speak to his leaderly ability to communicate with his congregation. It is intriguing, as well, that his stern and suffering persona, as well as the fierceness of his message, actually foreshadow the demonic Captain Ahab. But the actual content of Father Mapple’s sermon is also important to leadership in two basic ways. First, Father Mapple stresses the importance of following the commands of God, the leader above all others. To follow such commands is not easy, Father Mapple asserts, for ‘‘if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists’’ (Moby-Dick, 72). Second, Father Mapple explains the need to disobey not only ourselves but our earthly leaders when they conflict with the commands of God. ‘‘Delight is to him,’’ Father Mapple promises, ‘‘a far, far upward, and inward, delight—who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth ever stands forth his own inexorable


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self’’ (Moby-Dick, 80). Both of these issues—the need to obey God and to disobey earthly ‘‘gods and commodores,’’ including our own selfish desires— implicitly appear later in the novel. Examples include Ahab’s refusal to respect the natural order that seems a reflection of God’s order, his monomaniacal pursuit of the whale that bit off his leg, his blasphemous ‘‘baptism’’ of his harpoon ‘‘in nomine diaboli’’ (in the name of the devil), and his first mate Starbuck’s agonized internal struggle between loyalty and mutiny. Ahab, indeed, will come to seem a Father Mapple in reverse as he indeed insists on being his ‘‘own inexorable self,’’ but a self that seeks to obey not God or the laws of God’s creation, but rather its own willful desire to destroy Moby-Dick. Through Father Mapple’s sermon, Melville introduces a web of ideas— obedience, acceptance, pride, humility, defiance, self-assertion, and the choice between conscience and expedience, between the ‘‘God of heaven’’ and ‘‘the gods and commodores of this earth.’’ It is possible that Father Mapple also comes off as a self-appointed ‘‘god’’ or ‘‘commodore’’; Melville’s wonderfully ironic juxtaposition of the power and divinity of ‘‘gods’’ combined with the far less significant, but still dignified, almost pompous image of those who would set themselves up as ‘‘commodores,’’ redounds to Father Mapple himself. He is, after all, very ready to tell everyone else what to do, even as he tells them not to listen to what others tell them to do! In this way, Father Mapple suggests the ‘‘noisy’’ quality that Robert Solomon, drawing on Voltaire, detects in leadership: ‘‘Too many leaders, as Voltaire complained of heroes, ‘are so noisy.’ ’’ Solomon goes on to say, ‘‘So much of what I have noticed about leadership is the noise.’’ 11 In any event, Father Mapple’s persona, the ideas raised in his sermon, and even, perhaps, his ‘‘noise,’’ form part of the ethical backdrop for the leader-follower relationship that unfolds on the Pequod over the course of the book’s remaining several hundred pages. From Father Mapple, Melville turns to more secular authority figures—two of the owners of the Pequod, Captains Peleg and Bildad, and then to the Pequod’s first, second, and third mates. The blustering Peleg and the taciturn Bildad are really more managers than leaders—their focus is on such necessary but mundane things as efficiency, profit, and competence. Of the two, Bildad especially is singled out for his hypocrisy. Just after reading aloud the passage from Matthew beginning ‘‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,’’ he obsesses about the slightest costs of materials and fussily orders the crew to be sparing in their use of cheese and especially butter, at ‘‘twenty cents the pound’’ (Moby-Dick, 147). (The character of Bildad is, in fact, on a spectrum with a whole subset of hypocritical or sanctimonious authority figures whom Melville exposes throughout his work, e.g., the pietistic missionaries in Typee, the two-faced Captain Riga in Redburn, and, of course, the sinister, Iago-like mate, Claggart, in ‘‘Billy Budd.’’) What is

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notably lacking in both Bildad and Peleg is any sense of something larger than their own immediate pecuniary concerns; it is clear that neither will ever rise to the kind of intense relation with followers or articulation of a vision that is usually associated with leadership. These two men also form part of the larger background for the development of leadership in this novel. Once aboard the Pequod, Ishmael gives us a detailed description, in two successive chapters both entitled ‘‘Knights and Squires’’ (Chapters 26 and 27), of the subleaders of the ship: the three mates Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, each with his own particular strengths and failings. All are skilled at their tasks, yet each is a distinct individual. Starbuck is the most thoughtful and serious of the three; Stubb is the happy-go-lucky second mate whose abilities are limited by what he himself calls his eleventh commandment: ‘‘think not’’ (Moby-Dick, 174). The third mate is the mediocre, unimaginative Flask, a man of ‘‘ignorant, unconscious fearlessness’’ (Moby-Dick, 163). Each mate is accompanied by his own ‘‘squire’’ or harpooner—the South Sea islander Queequeg for Starbuck, the American Indian Tashtego for Stubb, and the African Daggoo for Flask. Through his description of officers and harpooners, of the owner-captains Bildad and Peleg, and the figure of Father Mapple, Melville has on one level merely created suspense about the mysterious, much talked about but as yet invisible Captain Ahab. But at the same time, Melville has achieved something more important: he has unobtrusively set up the hierarchical, cultural, religious, multiracial, and commercial organizational structure of the Pequod, thereby creating a realistic context within which we can see Ahab’s own leadership and the interrelations of those around him. To understand Ahab’s leadership, we must understand the profound irony at its heart: Ahab embodies what many today consider to be positive, admirable leadership skills, but he deploys those skills toward a disastrous end, resulting in the destruction of his ship, himself, and his crew—save the ‘‘one [who] did survive the wreck,’’ the narrator Ishmael (Moby-Dick, 723). Quite apart from his rank as Captain, which in nineteenth-century American law gave him powers on shipboard far in excess of what most leaders on land would have,12 Ahab’s personal qualities read like a recipe for successful leadership. These include charisma, social and emotional intelligence, oratorical skills, imagination, professional competence, courage, and the ability to exert both transformational and transactional leadership. As the above suggests, dictatorial though he often is, Ahab relies far less on coercion than on inspiration, motivation, and theatrics to bond his followers to his own dark vision—the destruction of the great white whale, MobyDick. Ahab well understands what Ishmael tells us about the importance of theater in leadership: ‘‘For be a man’s intellectual superiority what it will, it can never assume the practical, available supremacy over other men, without the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always, in


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themselves, more or less paltry and base’’ (Moby-Dick, 98). Such ‘‘external arts and entrenchments’’ appear throughout the book, but most vividly in ‘‘The Quarter-Deck’’ (Chapter 36), especially the scene where Ahab first reveals to the crew his own secret agenda of pursuing Moby-Dick. If, as Edwin Hollander points out, Peter Drucker was correct in noting that ‘‘leadership is performance,’’ it could also be said that leadership is a performance.13 And performance, in this theatrical sense, rather than the evaluative sense that Drucker and Hollander mean, is certainly what we see in Ahab’s carefully managed use of language and gesture throughout the novel, but especially in ‘‘The Quarter-Deck.’’ As he speaks to his assembled mariners, Ahab uses the institutional aura of his captaincy as a stepping stone to something more emotionally compelling—to the noninstitutional, personally charismatic authority whereby Ahab convinces the sailors to make his goal of slaying Moby-Dick their own.14 But to accomplish this, Ahab needs to evoke the kind of fervor and personal loyalty that will allow him to transform the ostensible, legitimate task of the Pequod into the illegitimate task of his own purely personal vendetta. ‘‘The Quarter-Deck’’ chapter reveals just how Ahab evokes such fervor and loyalty. Far more than the authority of his institutional rank as captain, Ahab uses such devices as his potent oratory (reminiscent of the eloquence of Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost); his personal interaction with crew members (e.g., affectionately calling the harpooner Tashtego ‘‘Tash,’’ calling the rest of the crew ‘‘my hearties’’ as he gathers them around to hear him speak of the white whale, and exchanging tales with them of Moby-Dick); his offer of the golden doubloon that he nails to the mast as a trophy for the sailor who first spots Moby-Dick; and his communion-like ritual of drinking with his crew. In a shrewd, daring manipulation of metaphor, Ahab turns his three mates into, as he calls them, ‘‘cardinals’’ (by which logic, of course, he himself is the Pope); Ahab also makes them ‘‘cup-bearers’’ to the three harpooners— the men who will be most instrumental in slaughtering Moby-Dick. Intoxicated by his rhetoric no less than by the grog he has them drink from the caps of their own harpoons, the harpooners Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo join Ahab in swearing ‘‘Death to Moby-Dick,’’ whereupon the celebratory drink, with its traditional symbolism of sealing a pledge, is passed round to the entire crew in Ahab’s masterful manipulation of ritual to his own purposes: ‘‘The long, barbed steel goblets were lifted; and to cries and maledictions against the white whale, the spirits were simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss’’ (Moby-Dick, 225). As ship’s captain, Ahab has the official authority to dispense or withhold grog; but in turning the grog drinking into a eucharistic ritual of brotherhood and solemn oath-taking, Ahab charismatically forges an emotional bond with his followers more intense than that between mere employer and employee,

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or between superior officer and common sailor. The full flavor of this bond— and its perilousness—can only be conveyed by Melville’s own prose: Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him near the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his three mates stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship’s company formed a circle round the group; he stood for an instance searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, as the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but, alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian (Moby-Dick, 223).

One important feature of the episodes with the doubloon and the communal drink is Ahab’s seeming empowerment of his followers, as he extends prestige and a semblance of power to carefully selected subordinates. This is apparent in Ahab having Starbuck provide the hammer with which to nail up the doubloon, thus involving the first mate in this act that symbolizes the Pequod’s new mission of finding Moby-Dick. Empowerment also appears in Ahab’s making the three mates ‘‘cup-bearers’’ and ‘‘cardinals’’ during the ceremonial toast, and in his elevation of the harpooners to the role of virtual communicants. Ahab’s treatment of the three nonwhite harpooners as elites is all the more significant and symbolically potent a gesture when one remembers that when Moby-Dick was published (1851), slavery still existed in the United States, and nonwhite mariners were paid at a lower rate than whites.15 Thus Ahab’s leadership here transcends even the racial boundaries of his day as he unifies all of his followers into a single, controllable unit. Through the doubloon itself, Ahab cleverly sets up a perpetual emblem and reminder of the crew’s new mission; at the same time, he democratically offers status and monetary incentive to any sailor, however humble, who first spots the white whale. In truth, however, all of Ahab’s elevations and inclusions amount to no more than a nineteenth-century version of what Joanne Ciulla, in a more contemporary business context, has called ‘‘bogus empowerment.’’ 16 Ahab’s empowerment of his followers is temporary and shallow—such things as having men provide hammers and share in symbolic drinking rituals give them no genuine or lasting authority, and serve only to involve the crew more deeply in Ahab’s own personal agenda. In ‘‘The Quarter Deck,’’ first mate Starbuck alone remonstrates against Ahab’s quest, recalling the Pequod’s proper mission—to hunt whales and provide whale oil for the crew’s (and Ahab’s) employers. But the ever adroit Ahab turns his subleader ’s legitimate objection into an opportunity to manipulate what Burns, in his well-known discussion of transforming and transactional leadership, would call higher level and lower level needs. For Burns, transactional leadership is associated with more material, ‘‘lower-level


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needs’’; thus transactional leaders ‘‘approach followers with an eye to exchanging one thing for another: jobs for votes, or subsidies for campaign contributions.’’ Transforming leadership, on the other hand, ‘‘seeks to satisfy higher needs’’; the transforming leader ‘‘taps the needs and raises the aspirations and helps shape the values—and hence mobilizes the potential—of followers.’’ 17 The pragmatic, honest Starbuck tries to recall Ahab to his basic transactional contract with the Pequod’s owners: ‘‘I came here to hunt whales,’’ Starbuck coolly informs Ahab, ‘‘not my commander’s vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? It will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market.’’ Belittling such prudential considerations, Ahab contemptuously cries, ‘‘Nantucket market! Hoot!’’ Telling Starbuck, and by implication the entire crew that looks on, that ‘‘thou requirest a little lower layer’’—i.e., a layer of deeper insight and meaning—Ahab goes on to emphasize the more intangible, emotional, and even spiritual dimensions of his quest as he strikes his chest and declares, ‘‘my vengeance will fetch a great premium here!’’ (Moby-Dick, 220). Ahab’s leadership in this scene typifies the charismatic leader’s bold departure from the confinements of the routine and the rational. As Sonja Hunt puts it in her analysis of Max Weber’s famous conceptualization of charisma, the charismatic leader opposes the ‘‘routinizing process by rejecting rational, economic objectives and redressing the balance toward more ‘irrational,’ but more essentially human pursuits.’’ 18 This helps to explain the futility of Starbuck’s rational, economic arguments to Ahab—the first mate will never get past Ahab’s visionary monomania through such appeals. Starbuck is, after all, not addressing two other captains whom we, like the sailors on the Pequod, have already met: and if ever two men embodied the ‘‘routinizing process’’ that Hunt describes, it would be Peleg and Bildad. Their earlier appearance helps to explain how, in contrast with such uninspiring, petty figures, Ahab’s color, daring, and contempt for narrow monetary considerations can only make his leadership all the more dangerously appealing to his crew. Not content with just dismissing the objections of his first mate, Ahab, in one of the most famous passages in nineteenth-century American literature, calls on his sailors to transform themselves into heroes, if they but ‘‘strike through the mask!’’—the ‘‘pasteboard’’ mask of mundane reality (MobyDick, 220). In so doing, they will then reach some transcendent truth beyond the world of mere appearances, including the ‘‘Nantucket Market’’ that the conventionally dutiful Starbuck invokes. Ahab here seems to epitomize transformational leadership—he calls on his men to rise above merely mercantile considerations so as to pursue a nobler, more heroic quest; to repeat Burns’s language above, Ahab ‘‘taps the needs and raises the aspirations and helps shape the values—and hence mobilizes the potential—of followers.’’ At the

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same time, through the very tangible gold doubloon that he has nailed to the mast, Ahab addresses the crew’s natural interest in lower level, material needs. Thus both transforming and transactional leadership, with their attendant higher and lower level needs, become tools that Ahab cunningly deploys in his successful manipulation of the crew to his disastrous enterprise. As Ahab himself says, in the pithiest commentary I have yet seen on his blend of effective technique with unethical ends, ‘‘my means are sane; my method and my object mad’’ (Moby-Dick, 250). Ahab’s awareness of the more mundane side of his followers—and of the importance of keeping this side satisfied while challenging the crew to rise to the heroic, if misguided opportunity he offers them in chasing down Moby-Dick—clearly emerges later in the book, when Ahab worries about maintaining control over the crew as their voyage continues: In times of strong emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent. . . . Granting that the White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it they give chase to Moby-Dick, they must also have food for their more common, daily appetites.

Reasoning thus, Ahab does not forget the uninspiring but ineluctable lower level needs of human beings: ‘‘I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all hopes of cash—aye cash’’ (Moby-Dick, 286). Cynical as Ahab’s thinking is here, it has important implications about the insufficiency of purely inspirational or higher-level appeals to one’s followers; given the realities of human nature as Melville presents them, both the lower and higher level needs require satisfaction for leadership to succeed. Of course, part of what makes Ahab’s approach to his men so seductive is that the pursuit of Moby-Dick is not that far removed from the ship’s official mission—to hunt, capture, and kill whales. It is not as if Ahab has proposed some task unrelated or antithetical to the ship’s original assignment; in fact, the very closeness of Ahab’s goal—the pursuit of a single particular whale—to that assignment helps to assure the crew’s acquiescence. Consequently, Ahab’s violation of his own duty to the ship’s owners is less immediately and flagrantly obvious than it might otherwise have been; as we have seen, his first mate publicly upbraids him for this violation, but following Ahab’s fiery response, lapses into tacit submission to the captain’s will. Precisely because whale hunting is already the purpose of everybody on board the Pequod, it is easier for Ahab to divert his followers toward his personal, vengeful goal of slaying Moby-Dick—and indeed, to fill those followers with enthusiasm for this goal. Through Ahab, Melville illuminates the insidiousness with which a deceptive leader, whatever the context, can substitute his


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own wrongful agenda for the rightful, original agenda to which both he and his followers were bound. That Ahab’s relation to his crew can be called seductive points to its chief defect: the inspiring visions that Ahab offers his men are counterfeit, exemplifying what Bernard Bass calls ‘‘pseudotransformational leadership.’’ 19 Just as with his ostensible empowerment of his followers, so too the transforming nature of Ahab’s leadership is ultimately illusory, since Ahab is quite willing to destroy not only himself but the ship and the entire crew in the service of his proud, courageous, but suicidal quest for Moby-Dick. As the novel shows, Ahab’s charismatic persona, his skill with symbolic gestures (such as the nailing of the doubloon or, later in the book, his ‘‘baptism’’ of his harpoon with the blood of Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo), and his tireless ability to invoke ‘‘higher-level’’ ideas and motivations make it hard, on the surface, to distinguish his pseudotransformational leadership from the genuine article. Prominent as Ahab is in Moby-Dick, the novel’s treatment of leadership is far from being leader-centric. A brief consideration of just three passages (out of many) will clarify Melville’s insight into the role of followers—especially the interplay of psychological, ethical, and pragmatic factors in that role. The first of these passages recounts Ishmael’s own response to Ahab’s impassioned quarterdeck scene with the doubloon; the second reflects on the consequences of a particular conjunction of followers and leader; the third deals with the dilemmas confronting a follower who tries to stop a deluded or evil leader. The emotional bond that a follower can feel for a leader is nowhere more strongly expressed than at the beginning of Chapter 41, where Ishmael recounts his reaction to Ahab: ‘‘I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; my oath had been welded with theirs and stronger I shouted, and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab’s quenchless feud seemed mine’’ (Moby-Dick, 239). That by this point in the novel we have gotten to know Ishmael well, as a tolerant, peaceable character, makes the violence of his attachment to Ahab all the more disturbing. Both the intensity and the lyricism of Ishmael’s language here reveal, as only a work of art can, the infectious nature of Ahab’s leadership; indeed, the passage supports Andrew Delbanco’s claim that ‘‘some eighty years before it emerged as the central political fact of the twentieth century, Melville had described in Moby-Dick the reciprocal love between a demagogue and his adoring followers.’’ 20 But the love Ishmael feels is not just that of a follower for a leader, but of a follower for his fellows. Ishmael experiences a heightened sense of self-identity not just through devotion to the figure in command, but through fusion with the group around him. The first thing Ishmael tells us here is that he ‘‘was one of that crew’’; it is with the crew that

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he first expresses his sense of belonging, and the term he uses here is telling— ‘‘welded.’’ This passage with Ishmael exemplifies part of Melville’s genius in exploring leadership; rather than deal only with the obvious, and admittedly important figure of the leader, Melville probes—or, as he liked to say, dives— into the deepest parts of a follower ’s response to the leader. Going even beyond the leader-follower connection, Melville recognizes an undeniably important but relatively little-studied aspect of leadership: the relationship among the followers themselves, and the potent role that this relationship can play in the entire process of leadership. The interconnectedness of leaders and followers, and the potential of such interconnectedness for disaster, emerges explicitly in a passage where Ishmael becomes more aware of his own and his fellow followers’ contributions to the tragedy of the Pequod. What Melville paints here is largely a failure of followership—or, to be more precise, a failure of a leadership situation in which a particular leader was matched with particular followers in a particular set of circumstances that proved fatal: Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals—morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire—by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs . . . all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go (Moby-Dick, 251).

For Melville, as this passage suggests, leadership can entail elements so deeply, mysteriously, and unpredictably interconnected as to defy generalization. Such a conclusion may seem fatalistic, and indeed, there is a streak of fatalism in Melville’s work, including Moby-Dick. Ahab himself asks, ‘‘Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm?’’ (Moby-Dick, 685), and during the actual encounter with Moby-Dick, Ahab declares, ‘‘This whole act’s immutably decreed. . . . I am the Fates’ lieutenant; I act under orders’’ (Moby-Dick, 707). But Melville’s reference to the seeming ‘‘fatality’’ by which leaders, followers, and circumstances come together does not mean that good or bad leadership depends merely on the luck of the draw. Yes, Melville’s text acknowledges, even emphasizes, the uncontrollable factors that come into play with leadership. But far from encouraging a hopeless or passive fatalism, this acknowledgement can be seen as constituting a realistic understanding of just how elusive the nature of leadership is—and thus how difficult it can be to withstand leadership that goes awry, however necessary such an effort must be.


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Of the Pequod’s crew, the only member who seriously tries to withstand Ahab’s leadership gone awry is Starbuck. In addition to the quarterdeck scene discussed above, Starbuck challenges Ahab several more times in the book. The struggle between the two even assumes a briefly comic cast when, in Chapter 119, that dependable man of affairs, Starbuck, informs Ahab that they must repair an oil leak in the ship’s hold. Dismayed by Ahab’s refusal to expend time on anything other than his quest for Moby-Dick, Starbuck asks, helplessly, ‘‘What will the owners say, sir?’’ Despite the grim context, Ahab’s response is truly amusing: Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons. What cares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck, about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience. But look ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander, and hark ye, my conscience is in this ship’s keel.—On deck! (Moby-Dick, 604)

One cannot help feeling that poor Starbuck is out of his depth here, and that he does, in fact, ‘‘prate.’’ The eminently sane but limited, protocol-observing first mate is right, of course, in trying to stop Ahab. But how do you stop a man who, in a King-Lear-like rage at the universe, demands that his sailors ‘‘strike through the mask,’’ and who at the moment of his death still cries out to the white whale that destroys him, ‘‘from hell’s heart I stab at thee’’ (Moby-Dick, 721)? Not, in any event, by asking him what the owners will say. Starbuck’s plight takes a more somber turn in Chapter 123, significantly entitled, as we will see, ‘‘The Musket.’’ By presenting Starbuck’s thoughts in the form of an interior monologue that anticipates modernist stream of consciousness techniques, Melville dramatizes with great pathos the turmoil of a follower who knows that his leader is going in the wrong direction.21 Aptly summarizing all autocratic leadership as he watches Ahab asleep in his cabin, Starbuck says, under his breath, ‘‘Not reasoning; not remonstrance; not entreaty wilt thou hearken to; all this thou scornest. Flat obedience to thy own flat commands, this is all thou breathest’’ (Moby-Dick, 651). Desperately seeking a ‘‘lawful way’’ to prevent Ahab from going on, Starbuck considers arresting his captain, but realizes that his own emotions could not endure for long the sight and sound of a caged, bound Ahab. Thus the practical facts of his situation, and the toll that an imprisoned Ahab would make on him personally, hinder Starbuck’s ability to stop, or even to decide how to stop Ahab. If only land were closer, then perhaps the option of arrest would work, thinks Starbuck, but he knows that the closest land where he could turn Ahab over to the law would not be America, but the unfamiliar Japan—and that is still ‘‘hundreds of leagues away’’ (Moby-Dick, 651). Even murder occurs to Starbuck, an option all the more extreme for this pious Quaker, loyal first

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mate, and friend to Ahab, at whom Starbuck will still gaze with tearful affection in the Pequod’s final moments. But if he does not kill Ahab, ‘‘shall this crazed old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship’s company down to doom with him?’’ (Moby-Dick, 651). Starbuck wonders if he would really be a murderer when, by killing Ahab he could save himself and his crew, as well as prevent his wife and son from becoming his widow and his orphan. As so often with Melville concerning such questions, no answer comes. Starbuck goes so far as to point a loaded musket at the sleeping Ahab’s head—hence the chapter ’s title—but the mate remains adrift, unable to resolve either his moral dilemma or the practical one of what to do next. ‘‘Great God, where art thou? Shall I? shall I?’’ says Starbuck, only to put the musket away and leave for the deck (Moby-Dick, 652). It is as if Starbuck has been torn asunder and rendered powerless by the many images, ideals, and persons competing for his allegiance here, like so many different ‘‘gods and commodores.’’ Chief among these are his basic sense of duty to his superior officer, whoever that officer might be; the ‘‘ungodly, god-like’’ figure of Ahab himself (Moby-Dick, 119), who even in sleep exerts a powerful hold on Starbuck; the moral injunction against murder; Starbuck’s duty to the ship’s owners; the memories of Starbuck’s wife and child, whom he fears he will never see again if Ahab continues unchecked; Starbuck’s sense of self-preservation and fear of death; his compassion for his endangered crew; his reverence for legal procedure. Through the intimate, detailed, and realistic rendering of what goes on in Starbuck’s mind, Melville puts us, the readers, into Starbuck’s place. In this way, Melville is the leader here, and we, the readers, are his followers. But we are followers who, even as we follow, participate actively in interpreting the text, reacting to it, and entering into the consciousness of the characters at the same time that we retain our own consciousness. We become, as Georges Poulet has written of the reading experience, ‘‘on loan to another, and this other thinks, feels, suffers, and acts within [us].’’ Then, as readers, we ‘‘start having a common consciousness’’ with the text that we read.22 In a situation such as Starbuck’s in the cabin, where the action unfolds chiefly on the inner stage of the character’s mind as he struggles with various ethical and pragmatic options, such a merging of consciousness between reader and character is all the more effective a means of deepening our experience of the text. The word experience is important, for what takes place here is not simply a cognitive understanding of the text, but an emotional experience of it, leading us to an imaginative empathy with the character and the moral issues at stake. This empathy includes but also goes beyond a cognitive apprehension of the text’s ‘‘meaning’’ to a deeper level of intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, and vicariously experiential engagement with the text.


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In just a few short pages, Melville has recreated the moral anguish endured by Starbuck, and shown what it feels like to be a follower, pulled upon by so many competing ethical and practical considerations, yet feeling stymied at every turn. And by ending the chapter with no resolution, Melville throws the ball into the reader’s court: should Starbuck have killed Ahab? should he have arrested him? and what would we, from the comfort of our position as readers and outsiders gazing on the situation, have done? In one of his letters about Russian literature, Anton Chekhov famously wrote that ‘‘There is not a single question answered in Anna Karenina or Eugene Onegin, but they are still fully satisfying works because the questions they raise are all formulated correctly.’’ 23 Similarly, Moby-Dick provides few, if any, answers about leadership, even as it raises many hard questions. The character of Ahab himself, for all of his clearly evil misleadership, eludes attempts to pin him down with a single label or to find an easy answer to the mystery of his power. Indeed, as Alfred Kazin warned long ago, we should avoid the temptation to ‘‘construe Moby-Dick into a condemnation of mad, bad Ahab’’ 24—like the book in which he appears, Ahab’s complexity is too great for any such reductive categorization. So too, in Melville’s rendering, the issues of leadership are of a complexity that cannot be finally categorized or fully explained. But in representing that complexity with such vividness and emotional resonance, Melville’s novel still breathes life into our understanding of leadership in theory and practice alike.

NOTES 1. Although there has been no full-scale analysis of leadership in Melville, several studies make valuable contributions to aspects of leadership or related matters in his work. These include C. L. R. James, Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2001, originally published 1953); Nicholas Canaday Jr., Melville and Authority (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1968); Michael Davitt Bell, ‘‘Melville’s Redburn: Initiation and Authority,’’ New England Quarterly 46 (1973): 558–572; Richard E. Ray, ‘‘ ‘Benito Cereno’: Babo as Leader,’’ American Transcendental Quarterly 7 (1975): 18–23; Mark R. Patterson, ‘‘Democratic Leadership and Narrative Authority in Moby-Dick,’’ Studies in the Novel 16 (1984); Christopher S. Durer, ‘‘Moby-Dick and Nazi Germany,’’ Melville Society Extracts 66 (1986): 8; Larry J. Reynolds, ‘‘Moby-Dick, Napoleon, and Workers of the World,’’ Melville Society Extracts 6 (1986): 6–7; Catherine H. Zuckert, ‘‘Leadership—Natural and Conventional—in Melville’s ‘Benito Cereno,’ ’’ Interpretation 26 (1999): 239–255. Although more oblique in its treatment of leadership than these studies, a thought-provoking discussion of politics, power, and literary interpretation in connection to Moby-Dick appears in Denis Donoghue’s ‘‘Moby-Dick After September 11th,’’ Law and Literature 15 (2003): 161–188. On the tension in Melville between rebelliousness and a conservative veneration for legal order, see Milton R. Stern,

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‘‘Introduction,’’ in Herman Melville, Billy Budd, ed. Milton R. Stern (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975), vii–xliv. 2. Herman Melville, White Jacket or, The World in a Man-of-War (London: Purnell & Sons, 1952), 374. 3. James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 18–19. 4. Robert C. Solomon, ‘‘Ethical Leadership, Emotions, and Trust: Beyond ‘Charisma’, in Ethics, the Heart of Leadership, ed. Joanne B. Ciulla (Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 1998), 93. 5. Jean Lipman-Blumen, The Allure of Toxic Leaders (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 6. Barbara Kellerman, Bad Leadership (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004), 11. Also helpful with regard to the confusion surrounding ‘‘leadership’’ as a value-free or value-laden term is Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership without Easy Answers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 13–14. 7. Richard B. Sewall, ‘‘Moby-Dick as Tragedy,’’ in Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, ed. Harrison Hayford and Hershel Parker (New York: Norton, 1967), 700. 8. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, ed. Charles Feidelson Jr. (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1964), 167. All further quotations from Moby-Dick are from this edition and will appear in the text. 9. John W. Gardner notes that such reciprocity was pointed out long ago by the sociologist Georg Simmel; see Gardner, ‘‘Leaders and Followers,’’ in The Leader’s Companion, ed. J. Thomas Wren (New York: The Free Press, 1995), 186. On leaderfollower reciprocity of influence, see also Burns, Leadership, 425; Martin Chemers, ‘‘The Social, Organizational, and Cultural Context of Effective Leadership,’’ in Leadership: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Barbara Kellerman (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984), 91–112; and Joseph C. Rost, Leadership for the Twenty-First Century (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1991), 107–108. A recent scholarly conference entirely focused on such reciprocity, with particular emphasis on followers, was the Kravis– de Roulet Conference, ‘‘Rethinking Followership,’’ held in February 2006 at Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California. 10. For a summary of, and rebuttal to, positive views of Mapple’s sermon, see Lawrance Thompson, who interprets the sermon as a ‘‘mousetrap’’ for the naı¨ve reader in his Melville’s Quarrel with God (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), 9–11, 153– 155, 427–429; another highly critical discussion of the sermon is William V. Spanos, The Errant Art of ‘‘Moby-Dick’’ (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1995), 87–114; for a cogent, up-to-date commentary on recent views of the sermon, see ‘‘ ‘Chiefly Known by His Rod’: The Book of Jonah, Mapple, and Scapegoating,’’ in‘‘Ungraspable Phantom’’: Essays on ‘‘Moby-Dick,’’ ed. John Bryant, Mary K. Bercaw Edwards, and Timothy Marr (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2006), 37–57. 11. Solomon, ‘‘Ethical Leadership, Emotions, and Trust,’’ in Ethics, ed. Ciulla, 87. 12. Kathryn Mudgett, ‘‘ ‘I Stand Alone Here upon an Open Sea’: Starbuck and the Limits of Positive Law,’’ in ‘‘Ungraspable Phantom,’’ ed. Bryant, Edwards, and Marr, 132. 13. Edwin Hollander, ‘‘Ethical Challenges in the Leader-Follower Relationship,’’ in Ethics, ed. Ciulla, 56.


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14. My analysis builds on Mark Patterson’s excellent discussion of Moby-Dick, in which he observes that Ahab’s authority undergoes a transformation ‘‘from legitimate and institutional to charismatic,’’ and that Ahab succeeds in ‘‘blurring the distinction between the two’’; see Patterson, ‘‘Democratic Leadership and Narrative Authority in Moby-Dick,’’ Studies in the Novel 16 (1984): 292. Obviously relevant here is Max Weber’s analysis of authority in terms of rational and traditional categories, both of which Ahab possesses by virtue of his officially sanctioned and traditionally respected position; the third and most famous type of authority that Weber discusses, the charismatic, is fostered by Ahab partly through his rank but mainly through his skillful dramatic selfpresentation—aka his demagoguery. For Weber’s categories, see his On Charisma and Institution Building, ed. S. N. Eisenstadt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 46–48. For an insightful discussion of Weber, and an extension of his notions of institutional versus noninstitutional forms of charisma, see James V. Downton Jr., Rebel Leadership: Commitment and Charisma in the Revolutionary Process (New York: Free Press, 1973). A helpful overview of theories of charisma appears in Jay A. Conger, ‘‘Theoretical Foundations of Charismatic Leadership,’’ in Charismatic Leadership: The Elusive Factor in Organizational Effectiveness, ed. Jay A. Conger and Rabindra N. Kanungo (San Francisco and Oxford: Jossey-Bass, 1989), 12–39. 15. Fred V. Barnard, ‘‘The Question of Race in Moby-Dick,’’ Massachusetts Review 43 (2002): 385. 16. Joanne B. Ciulla, ‘‘Leadership and the Problem of Bogus Empowerment,’’ in Ethics, the Heart of Leadership, ed. Ciulla, 63–86. 17. Burns, Leadership, 4, 455. 18. Sonja M. Hunt, ‘‘The Role of Leadership in the Construction of Reality,’’ in Leadership, ed. Kellerman, 157–178. 19. Bernard M. Bass and Ronald E. Riggio, Transformational Leadership, 2nd ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006), viii, 12–16. 20. Andrew Delbanco, Melville, His World and Work (New York: Knopf, 2005), 143. 21. ‘‘Interior monologue,’’ as I use it here, refers to ‘‘the technique of recording the continuum of impressions, thoughts, and impulses either prompted by conscious experience or arising from the well of the subconscious,’’ as defined in J. A. Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 422. 22. Georges Poulet, ‘‘Phenomenology of Reading,’’ in Critical Theory Since Plato, ed. Hazard Adams (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), 1149–1150. 23. Anton Chekhov to Alexei Suvorin, October 27, 1888, trans. Kate Jenkins, http//: www.minimumfax.com/video/2003/3cechov.pdf (accessed July 18, 2007). 24. Alfred Kazin, ‘‘ ‘Introduction’ to Moby-Dick,’’ in Melville: Twentieth-Century Views, ed. Richard Chase (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1962), 45.

2 The Relevance of Don Quixote to Leadership Studies: Nostalgia, Cynicism, and Ambivalence AURORA HERMIDA-RUIZ

Miguel de Cervantes is one of the great authors of the European Renaissance, one of the most prominent authors of the Western canon, and one of the most important figures in the history of human culture. With the recent worldwide celebration in 2005 of the 400th anniversary of the publication of Don Quixote, there should be no doubt that Cervantes continues to be one of the most effective and charismatic ‘‘leaders’’ of contemporary literary culture.1 An interesting manifestation of the magnitude of Don Quixote’s influence and vitality has recently been made by way of a poll of leading world cultural figures. Winning by a landslide, Don Quixote was chosen as the ‘‘most meaningful book of all time.’’ 2 Salman Rushdie, one of the authors queried, considers it ‘‘the unifying novel between the literatures of the East and the West,’’ and categorically affirms: ‘‘the history of the whole literature of the world comes out of this single novel.’’ 3 At such a level, it is not surprising to see the Bible appearing often as the only other ‘‘key’’ text of the Western tradition worthy of its company. For Saint-Beuve, Don Quixote was ‘‘the Bible of humanity’’;4 for Miguel de Unamuno, ‘‘the true Spanish Bible.’’ 5 Harold Bloom, confessing to be overwhelmed by it, considers it a ‘‘vast scripture.’’ 6 Dismissing with Cervantine irony this lofty reading of Don Quixote, Nabokov said: ‘‘let us not fall under the spell of these enchanters.’’ 7 Indeed, though religion and faith are fundamental topics of debate among readers and critics of Don Quixote, one needs not interpret the analogy with the Bible religioso modo.8 In a broader sense, they both are what Matei Calinescu calls ‘‘rereadable’’ texts, that is,

The Relevance of Don Quixote to Leadership Studies

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texts that are impossible to consume or dispose of on a first and single reading.9 Certainly, the more Don Quixote is reread and suggested for repeated reflective (re)reading, inspiration, and imitation, the more Don Quixote becomes the exemplary never-ending text: whether as an icon of the ‘‘inexhaustible genre,’’ as Robert Alter put it in his seminal study of Don Quixote;10 or as ‘‘an endless pleasure,’’ as it has been described by Bloom.11 By virtue of becoming one of the best-known, if most reviled, readers and commentators of Don Quixote, Nabokov himself seems to have fallen heavily under the spell of Cervantes’s fiction. As is the case with the Bible, the power of Don Quixote is also extended to those who, like Nabokov, need to proclaim their cynicism or disbelief about its power or its authority. Whether in reverence or irreverence, hyperbole has become the standard mode among Cervantes’s readers. Certainly, much of the power and authority of Cervantes today comes from this ongoing tradition of (re)reading Don Quixote as a difficult riddle still to be solved or as a worthy quest for meaning. The struggle attached to the quest is perhaps best exemplified by Harold Bloom, who begins his introduction to Edith Grossman’s recent translation of Don Quixote with little critical decorum: ‘‘What is the true object of Don Quixote’s quest? I find that unanswerable’’ (xxi).12 Considering the object of don Quixote’s desire, Diana de Armas Wilson, a leading Cervantes critic, asks the same question, albeit with more drama: ‘‘(D)ear God, what does he want?’’ 13 There are many answers. The list of important readers and readings of Don Quixote is so immense that namedropping seems more superfluous than usual. As Harry Levin, a highly reputed expert on the theme of Cervantes’s posterity, put it: ‘‘no book has had more spectacular fortune’’ than Don Quixote.14 For Levin, it was nothing short of a paradox that ‘‘a book about literary influence, and indeed against it, should have enjoyed so wide and pervasive a literary influence.’’ 15 Paradox, to be sure, does seem to be a particularly fitting figure of speech as far as readings and readers go. This is a book that is easy to read and difficult to grasp. It has been considered the most comic and the most tragic of books, the cruelest and the most humane; a celebration of life, of freedom and faith as well as the testament of a pessimist and nihilist. Don Quixote seems to make possible and plausible the opposite of any single interpretation. In the words of Harold Bloom, the reading history of Don Quixote proves that the book ‘‘will sustain any theory you bring to it, as well or as badly as any other.’’ 16

READERS, AND (MIS)READINGS . . . investigating what people have made of canonical texts is as important as reading those texts themselves. It is the misreadings that have often been historically effective. —Hillis J. Miller17

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The instability of Don Quixote’s meaning is particularly intense as a result not only of history and culture, but of the profound differences between part I—El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha (The ingenious gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha), published in 1605—and part II—Segunda parte del ingenioso caballero don Quijote de la Mancha (Second part of the ingenious gentleman Don Quixote of la Mancha), published in 1615. Further complicating matters is the multiplicity of narrators, stories, and characters as well as the novel’s parodic and ironic openness. In the dilemma over what we are to take literally and what we are to take ironically lies much of the meaning of the book. As John J. Allen explains, the most common approach has been to identify a particular meaning of the book and interpret any contradictory statements as meant ironically.18 The range of interpretations of Don Quixote has hence become a major focus of Cervantine scholarship, as it is considered not only a continued gloss to Cervantes’s text, but also an important key to cultural history.19 Confronting the sheer variety of interpretations, experts on the historical reception of Don Quixote have come to approach its canonical status not just as a particularly deceiving form of permanence but, perhaps more importantly, as a kind of guarantee that freshly minted interpretations are to be expected in the future. Wondering about the next meaning or metamorphoses of Don Quixote, Margaret Atwood recently asked: ‘‘What will Don Quixote become next? It’s hard to say, but he will become something, for he is a figure of many lives, always transforming.’’ 20 This mixture of confidence and anticipation is extensive in Quixote scholarship, where a new ‘‘trendsetting–‘ism’ ’’ is not simply expected but almost eagerly anticipated.21 However active they may be in their search for clues, and while perhaps too focused on the most likely places or the most usual suspects, Cervantes’s literary critics remain mostly unaware of what could possibly be the most effective or influential reading of Don Quixote being made today: the Leadership approach to Don Quixote, that is, a reading of Cervantes’s novel that is mainly concerned with the evaluation of its hero as leader, and the related notion of leadership as a ‘‘quixotic’’ endeavor. This new approach is a highly idealistic take on Don Quixote born in the unexpected context of business education in the United States, and it is rapidly gaining adepts in programs of leadership and business management around the globe. It is a reading meant to add a new category to the already long list of ‘‘quixotic’’ descendants of Don Quixote, a list that comfortably includes and mixes historical figures from Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.—whose ‘‘I have a dream’’ speech has become the paradigmatic American ‘‘quixotic’’—to successful entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or David Packard and William Hewlett: versions of the legendary rags-to-riches story that often starts in the quintessentially American garage. Don Quixote, it appears, has arrived


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through the gates of the ‘‘impossible dream’’ of Man of la Mancha to the canon of the ‘‘American dream.’’ The shift is certainly meaningful. The mix of social idealists and successful businessmen has the interesting effect of comparison and correspondence: the dreamers and the ‘‘movers and shakers’’ of society are no longer, or at least not necessarily, of the venerably stoic type. Leadership, from the perspective and the example of Don Quixote, may be considered a romantic and visionary endeavor but, from the perspective and example of Bill Gates, needs no longer be an ‘‘impossible’’ dream or yield a sacrificial victim. As Joe Badaracco, Harvard Business School professor of ethics, so clearly puts it, leaders ‘‘are the kinds of people who make a difference in the world, not just the saints.’’ 22 The shift is starting to be noticeable even in the use of the term ‘‘quixotic.’’ As an adjective, ‘‘quixotic’’ has traditionally identified a lofty pursuit of impractical idealism and, as such, has often been used to qualify nouns like ‘‘quest,’’ ‘‘vision,’’ ‘‘dream,’’ ‘‘fight,’’ or ‘‘battle.’’ Lately, nonetheless, the results of a Google search of the word brings in ‘‘proposal’’ and ‘‘campaign’’ as very frequent companions, proof that the newest vogue in the quixotic imaginary is leaving behind the realm of the unique and extraordinary. In this sense, the interest and the study of ‘‘quixotic’’ leadership not only foresees a new kind of hero or a new hierarchy of heroism but, for our purposes, a redefinition as well of the ‘‘quixotic’’ itself; a new reading indeed. Don Quixote is the story of an extremely avid, enthusiastic, and gullible reader who, at the age of 50, loses his mind, decides to revive knight errantry and imitate one his favorite heroes of chivalry books: the brave, young, handsome, and chaste Amad’s of Gaul, the first chivalric hero of Spanish literature (1508). Briefly and somewhat pessimistically put, this decision sets him on a journey that will be plagued with ridicule, deception, and failure. In the end, vanquished and having achieved nothing tangible—no princess for himself and no kingdom for his squire Sancho Panza (no Dulcinea and no Insula Barataria)—Don Quixote returns home ‘‘vencedor de sı´ mismo’’ (‘‘conqueror of himself’’) in Sancho’s words (II, LVXXII, 928), and dies deeply aware and deeply repentant of his past madness and ignorance.23 Is Don Quixote an incongruence in the curriculum of leadership studies and business management? Can it be ‘‘right’’ to approach Don Quixote as a role model for leadership or a success story? Does Don Quixote have ‘‘lessons’’ for the exercise of leadership? To start answering these questions, let me first approach briefly the wider context of leadership studies in the United States. By connecting the redefinition of the quixotic, the recent emphasis on quixotic leadership and the vogue of leadership studies, I hope to emphasize the role of context in the reception history of Don Quixote. My ultimate goal is to prove that, considering the current discourse of crisis in the humanities and the move towards its reappraisal in higher and professional education, the best way to honor Cervantes and the

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humanist tradition that he represents is through acknowledging not the timelessness of quixotic leadership, but the ‘‘timeliness’’ of leadership studies and its nostalgic rereading of the humanist tradition.

THE CASE OF LITERATURE IN LEADERSHIP STUDIES . . . (L)iberal arts colleges have allowed moral and civic education to be divorced from the curriculum, thereby compromising one of their defining qualities. —Dr. Kenneth Ruscio, President, Washington and Lee University24 The notion of a ‘‘divorce’’ between higher education and moral and civic values, the ‘‘divorce’’ of the liberal arts from the professional schools, and the parallel notion of neglect in the teaching of ethics in professional schools have become some of the most debated topics in American higher education today. There is a strong sense among critics and analysts of American higher education that this divorce has, regrettably, already happened and been detrimental to society, as it has exclusively served individual and competitive interests at the expense of the common good. According to many of its critics, American higher education itself has become an individual interest in dire need of reform or correction. Finding the usefulness of scholarship in the world outside the university, or finding the purpose and immediate use of research, is equivalent to making a sound public investment.25 There is, in other words, a strong tendency to correlate the crisis of values in contemporary society, or the strong sense of moral bankruptcy, with a failure in higher and professional education.26 And there is, ultimately, a profound fear about the future: the future of the American democracy, the future of the market economy, the future of the planet, etc.27 As Tom Piper put it, referring to Harvard Business School’s initiative to create what later became the Program in Leadership, Ethics and Corporate Responsibility, the ‘‘call to rebalance the educational trilogy of values, knowledge and skills’’ has become by now ubiquitous in higher education.28 Leadership studies have evolved from this context of crisis as a conscious attempt to ‘‘send students into the world with the knowledge and conviction to change the world for the better—to be good citizens and live lives of consequence.’’ 29 If leadership can be taught or, in other words, if conviction in the power of leadership can be restored, it is assumed that John Gardner’s concerns about the ‘‘social disintegration, the moral disorientation, and the spinning compass needle of our time’’ will no longer be on the horizon of expectations. According to many, the first step towards change is a curricular reform that brings back the ‘‘solid grounding of the humanities’’ in higher learning, a return, as it were, to the ‘‘original’’ role and spirit of the humanities.30 If a


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liberal education does what it is supposed to do—that is, improving the individual by enriching the mind and the spirit—then society, as a result, can only improve.31 In contrast to divorce as a figure of crisis, the prevalent figure of hope implies companionship, reunion, inclusion, combination, common ground, interdisciplinarity, balance, and so on. The figure, in other words, is that of a new marriage, a marriage that immediately recalls Martianus Capella’s foundational assemblage of the seven liberal arts, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (The Marriage of Philology and Mercury), in the very midst of the barbarian invasions. The emphasis on the humanities as a necessary grounds for leadership is, therefore, set in motion by different degrees of apocalyptic scenarios, and guided by a very pragmatic as well as optimistic approach to education.32 Hence the way out of the crisis requires not only an intensified focus on the moral and social responsibility of higher and professional education, but a complete reassessment of the function and values of the humanities in the hierarchy of knowledge. How this blissful ‘‘marriage’’ may actually work is indeed the main question facing leadership studies and its future in American institutions of higher education. It is in this context of perceived crisis and advocated reform that leadership programs have approached literature and its didactic usefulness. It is a recent incorporation and, to a certain degree, almost a working project, but its main premises are fairly clear.33 The general approach is that literature, both as a tool for critical thinking or as a source of moral reasoning or moral energy, does have an important role to play in the ethical formation of future leaders. This explains how the original leadership program designed by the Harvard Business School can present the course The Business World—Moral and Social Inquiry through Fiction as a platform to approach ‘‘the ethical and existential aspects of life and work.’’ 34 In the words of James March, Professor Emeritus of Business Management, Sociology, Political Science, and Education at Stanford University and a figure widely recognized for his leading role in the integration of literature in business courses, ‘‘the critical concerns of leadership are not technical questions of management or power, they are fundamental issues of life.’’ 35 For March, great literature not only addresses these fundamental issues of leadership, but provides an insight into them that is far superior to any research on the topic: ‘‘Look at great literature—Shakespeare’s Othello, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Tolstoy’s War and Peace—and try to learn lessons from them.’’ 36 Joe Badaracco, author of Questions of Character: Illuminating the Heart of Leadership through Literature (2006) and a key figure as well in the current trend of incorporating literature into the MBA curriculum, is unequivocal about what he considers to be the usefulness of literature. For him, literature is a universal value that can provide the ‘‘raw material’’ of universal leadership.37 What literature offers to leadership education are particular cases, examples, or

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lessons that are considered to be more ‘‘illuminating’’ or ‘‘richer and more realistic’’ than those in research articles or textbooks on leadership.38 Together with the emphasis on universality, the pragmatism of the ‘‘case studies’’ approach also explains the literary choices being made.39 Reading lists are assembled without any cultural, historical, or chronological boundaries and with a tendency to include short texts—short stories, short novels, and plays—as a way to cover a wide array of topics.40 As it seems from the examples available, the standard application of literature is also regulated by certain parameters of productivity. When Diane Coutu of the Harvard Business Review, for example, asks literary critic Harold Bloom, ‘‘Who has time for literature anymore?’’ or ‘‘Who has time to pick up a 400-page novel?’’ the questions seem far from rhetorical.41 Literary criticism and literary history are thus fully and emphatically dismissed on grounds of productivity or ethical inefficiency. The search for the ‘‘right’’ meaning of a work—the very logic, one might add, behind the philological method of the humanities—is considered to be an impractical pursuit of knowledge.42 The intense emphasis on the universality, timelessness, and, indeed, usefulness of poetic truth tacitly and strongly infer literary criticism to be the kind of irrelevant scholarship that is now set in the ‘‘ivory tower.’’ The case of Don Quixote is, to a certain extent, an exception within the general pattern, and this in turn makes the example of Stanford Business School Professor James March’s reading of Don Quixote an interesting exception that deserves the in-depth evaluation I will give it later on in this chapter. Still, even in the case of the Quixote, the main tendency of business and leadership analyses to date has been that of a short ‘‘lesson,’’ and even that of a short manual of very useful and unambiguous leadership principles for succeeding in business and life.43 With apparent optimism, Don Quixote is read and advised for reading in the world of leadership development and business management as timeless evidence that conviction and belief in one’s own hopes and dreams is the key to any achievement, any enterprise, and, of course, any progress. As a kind of slogan of this rather optimistic and individualistic lesson for leadership, one could simply recall the words of Purdue University President Martin C. Jischke in his 2004 commencement ceremony speech: ‘‘Dream the impossible dream and then make it come true.’’ 44 According to Jischke, ‘‘progress is built on impossible dreams,’’ and Don Quixote’s ‘‘lessons are as old as time.’’ 45

LINEAGES OF READING: LEADERSHIP STUDIES AND THE ‘‘ROMANTIC’’ APPROACH TO DON QUIXOTE Interestingly enough, although the dominant approach to literature in the context of leadership studies is explicitly nonliterary, most literary critics of


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Don Quixote would immediately recognize it as a natural offspring of the socalled ‘‘romantic approach’’ to Don Quixote. According to Anthony Close, around 1800 the German romantics initiated a watershed in the historical reception of Cervantes’s text that has come to be known as the romantic approach. Although its history is by now long, its main legacy, according to Close, is fairly clear: the rejection of the book as a comic parody of chivalry novels, and its subsequent interpretation as a symbolic representation of the human condition in its struggle to transcend reality. 46 As the romantic approach to Don Quixote broadly defines a tendency to read Don Quixote as a source of knowledge fully unrelated to its original context—literary, cultural, historical—it has often been dismissed as simply erroneous, subjective, or ideologically misguided. Erich Auerbach, a leading voice in the 1940s against the romantic approach, saw the association of Don Quixote with ideal greatness or heroic idealism as nothing short of a violent act of overinterpretation that became universal in spite of enduring philological criticism.47 Nowadays, the verdict is less harsh. The romantic approach is mostly understood not only as a sign of cultural contingency or ‘‘quixotic’’ dialogism between text and context or past and present, but also as a clear sign of the relevance of literary and cultural studies.48 Indeed, if the contexts of Cervantes’s texts were not meaningful at all, what we would be left with would be complete arbitrariness, not universality. A corollary to this idea is that cultural knowledge is the best guarantee against the kind of manipulations Don Quixote has been exposed to throughout its history. Certainly, there is a high dose of ambiguity that one can taste here. The deep meanings that the Romantics discovered in Don Quixote have certainly given Cervantes the cultural relevance that he has today. On the other hand, one can easily see this relevance ‘‘as having been purchased too dear,’’ as John J. Allen put it, referring precisely to a number of ideological reconstructions ‘‘in which scarcely one stone of the original structure is left upon another.’’ 49 Historically, the ‘‘most influential reader ’’ of the romantic approach is Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) who searched Don Quixote for answers to overcome the angst of fin de sicle Europe and, closer to home, the profound sense of crisis and decadence that followed Spain’s defeat in the war of 1898 (the Spanish-American War).50 For Unamuno, as much as for the other members of the so-called Generation of 1898 in Spanish literary historiography, the Quixote became a guide for the regeneration of Spain’s spiritual values. Moral degeneration and abulia—paralysis of the will to act—were considered to be the ultimate cause for the military disaster against the United States, the widespread corruption of government, the apathy of citizens, the lack of national cohesion, and the decadence of Spain’s international power. Thanks to the tremendous zeal that Unamuno infused in his reading of the Quixote, its hero became widely revered as the best representative of Spain’s core

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national values and, as such, as its best possible redeemer. In Unamuno’s case, these unifying values happened to be Catholicism, antiliberalism, and antieuropeism, In the case of his opponents—most prominently, Ame´rico Castro in his equally influential El pensamiento de Cervantes (The Thought of Cervantes) of 1925—Spain’s values as represented by Don Quixote were those of liberalism, laicism, republicanism, and all the progressive values associated with modern European culture. In either case, it was a doctrinaire reading of Don Quixote that had as much to do with history, life, and the context and circumstances of pre–Civil War Spain as it had to do with the interpretation of literature. Historically, it was Unamuno’s view of Spain’s rebirth that Francisco Franco’s military dictatorship elevated to dogma.51 In a particularly strong use of the legacy and lineage of quixotic leadership, the dictatorship sought to legitimize the military rebellion against the democratic government of Spain’s Second Republic in July 1936 and its victory in the Civil War.52 Considering this brutal history of quixotic leadership, the move since the 1940s to debunk the romantic or idealist approach to Don Quixote needs to be properly understood as a form of skeptical cynicism born in the context of fascist ideologies, great wars, and totalitarian regimes.53 For the purpose of leadership studies, it is important to stress that the ‘‘romantic’’ lineage of Don Quixote has gone in sharply different ideological directions. In fact, it has often been claimed and purportedly been reenacted by an interesting array of self-proclaimed visionary leaders and crusaders, Che Guevara and Mexico’s Subcomandante Marcos among them. In the case of Spain, from dictator Francisco Franco to socialist Jose´ Luis Rodrı´guez Zapatero—Spain’s president since 2004—there is hardly a political figure that has escaped the temptation to see his leadership image in the mirror of Don Quixote. An illustrative recent example is that of Venezuelan President Hugo Cha´vez, who used the occasion of Don Quixote’s 400th anniversary to launch a massive ‘‘Operation Dulcinea’’ destined to distribute 350,000 free copies of Cervantes’s classic to poor Venezuelans. Playing with the classical conflict of arms versus letters, Cha´vez rationale for this civic gesture was to inspire and unite the citizens of Venezuela in the fight against the United States. The motto of the campaign, ‘‘we are still oppressed by giants,’’ needs little explanation.54 His romantic approach to Don Quixote was at once idealistic and ideological. The popular expression of the romantic approach is ‘‘quixotism’’: a belief that is not substantiated by empirical reality or a supreme form of idealism and visionary power. In the realm of literature, the antagonist most often used as a contrast to the romantic idealism of Don Quixote has been Hamlet, specifically, a romantically demonized Hamlet. Basically, as the romantic approach goes, what Don Quixote would be to faith, hope, action, and companionship, Hamlet would be to reason, doubt, solitude, and unproductive


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skepticism. In his well-known essay ‘‘Hamlet and Don Quixote,’’ Ivan Turgenev applied this contrast to better illuminate his idea of popular and inspirational leadership. For him, Don Quixote is a leader because he represents faith and altruistic service.55 If Quixotes are natural ‘‘leaders of men,’’ it is because they are ‘‘essentially useful to humanity.’’ 56 Hamlet, by contrast, is ‘‘of no service to the masses.’’ 57 Hamlets are ‘‘thoughtful, discriminating . . . but useless and doomed to practical inaction.’’ 58 As for the nature of followers, Turgenev sees in Sancho Panza a representative of the ‘‘finest characteristic of the masses’’ in his quite unselfish, altruistic, or ‘‘blind’’ followership. If Quixotes represent the leaders, saviors, or redeemers of humanity, Sanchos romantically represent humanity in need and in search of salvation.59 Harry Levin approached Turgenev’s polar opposition between Hamlet and Don Quixote as a ‘‘simplistic dichotomy,’’ which has more to say about Russian nineteenth-century culture than the intentions of either Shakespeare or Cervantes.60 Harold Bloom, who could be considered the most influential representative today of the romantic approach to Don Quixote—and the most ‘‘quixotic,’’ perhaps—has also seen Shakespeare as an ‘‘illuminating analogue’’ to Cervantes.61 Asked in a Harvard Business Review interview what literary readings would he recommend to Bill Gates—the antonomasia, as it were, of American CEOs—Bloom chose and stressed the transcendence of both authors.62 Interestingly enough, Harold Bloom does not follow Turgenev in his all too easy dichotomy of leadership. What he finds, instead, is a shocking similarity: Hamlet and Don Quixote are equally reckless in their pursuit of knowledge; Shakespeare and Cervantes are, deep down, equally nihilistic.63 Although Bloom, the old cynic, avoids telling Harvard Business Review and Bill Gates his dirty little secret about the ultimate meaning of life and the ultimate irrelevance of knowledge, the fact that he evokes the traditional pairing of Shakespeare and Cervantes in the context of a business journal and to the intended audience of corporate America is good proof of the strong hold that the romantic opposition between Hamlet and Don Quixote has on the contemporary imaginary of leadership. As was the case for Turgenev, behind the fear that selfish, doubtful Hamlets are not only ‘‘numerous’’ but on the ‘‘increase,’’ and that Don Quixotes are not only scarce but about to ‘‘disappear from among us,’’ the real question is the loyalty and the strength of Sancho’s followership;64 in this case, the trust of voters and investors, and the strong perception that a fast growing cynicism is severely damaging the American way of life. As John Gardner put it, ‘‘fragmentation and divisiveness have proceeded so far in American life that we can no longer lend ourselves to any worthy common purpose.’’ 65 The renewed interest, not on Don Quixote, but on the most ‘‘romantic’’ version possible of Don Quixote— the one supposedly representing unshakable faith and conviction, and

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capable of leading by unshakable trust—can only be explained in reference to a series of apocalyptic disasters directly related to the context of contemporary American culture. Harold Bloom, for his part, plays the role of the idealistic Quixote living in the demonized world of cultural materialism. In an extreme answer to what he considers to be an extreme commodification of literature as a ‘‘useful’’ document for culture and ideology, he has become the romantic champion of the timeless Western canon. For him, as is the case for so many other critics of American higher education today, the humanities are directly responsible for the decline of the humanities. The end result of ‘‘so-called feminism, Marxism, and French fanciness’’ is a disaster that will lead to nothing but the destruction of the study of literature.66 As a cultural critic himself, Bloom has turned out to be particularly effective at demonstrating the uselessness of Gender studies, for example. Recalling a dissertation by a ‘‘young lady’’ on representations of the female breast as ‘‘the Victoria’s Secret vision of English literature,’’ he sounds both witty and incisive.67 But the anecdote is also meant to be ironic in reference to Bill Gates and the culture of corporate America. For Bloom, high literature is by definition useless and uncontaminated. When Diane Coutu, the Harvard Business Review interviewer, asks him whether there is ‘‘anything’’ literature can offer business, he directly rejects the notion that ‘‘literature will make business people more moral,’’ and confesses to be ‘‘very unhappy with any attempt to put the humanities, and literature in particular, in the service of social change.’’ 68 Quixotic idealism is becoming to the business world what the literary canon is to Bloom: an extremist form of compensation in a culture driven by materialism and increasingly perceived as excessive, demonic, or dehumanizing. The intensity that romantic quixotism has achieved in the unlikely world of business management and leadership development can be best illuminated by the example of James March and his seminal reading of Don Quixote. I refer to Passion and Discipline: Don Quixote’s Lessons for Leadership, an unconventional documentary on the theme of ‘‘quixotic’’ leadership that deserves to be analyzed in depth as the best example, to my knowledge, of the relevance that the romantic approach to Don Quixote has achieved in the context of leadership studies.69 Passion and Discipline is based on Organizational Leadership, a course that James March taught from 1980 to 1994 at Stanford Business School. Readings for the original course included Shakespeare’s Othello, George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, Tolstoy’s War and Piece, and Cervantes’s Don Quixote—in March’s view, a ‘‘primordial source of learning’’ about the major issues of leadership.70 The influence of March’s reading of Don Quixote is, in itself, an important phenomenon, indeed one that very few readers of Don Quixote could actually rival today. The pervasiveness of March’s influence in the


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social sciences has been compared to that of Miles Davis in jazz.71 In the field of management theory, he is considered a ‘‘gurus’s guru’’ whose influence, according to a Harvard Business Review survey of 2003, is more often recognized than that of Nobel laureate economists Herbert Simon, Ronald Coase, or Kenneth Arrow.72 All in all, he is revered as ‘‘a rigorous scholar and a deep source of wisdom.’’ 73 According to Stanford Business Magazine, March’s ‘‘landmark’’ course Organizational Leadership became ‘‘legendary’’ as some 300 to 400 students—approximately 100 from the Business School—took it each year.74 In documentary form, it has appeared on PBS stations across the country, as well as on cable TV, and it is readily available as a Films for the Humanities production for other courses and public showings. In this sense, James March’s views on leadership certainly qualify as a particularly ‘‘influential’’ contemporary reading of the Quixote. As evidence of March’s global reach, one needs only mention the case of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, reputed to be the premier business school of India, which has for years offered a course on corporate leadership—the actual title of the course is Leadership, Vision, Meaning and Reality—directly inspired by the example, the celebrity, and the reading list of March’s course in Stanford.75 Interestingly enough, it was the possibility of reproducing the influence of March’s ‘‘lessons’’ indefinitely that gave a university administrator, Deborah J. Stipek, dean of Stanford’s School of Education, the idea and the stamina to convince March to make the film.76 March’s indebtedness to the romantic approach to the Quixote is evident from the very beginning of the documentary, when he introduces Don Quixote as that ‘‘romantic knight’’ from la Mancha who has captured our imagination. His reading is, in fact, directly inspired by Miguel de Unamuno, whose version of the romantic approach is often regarded, in addition to being one of the most influential and idealistic, as among the most individualistic as well. 77 Unamuno’s reading of Don Quixote is a particularly anguished take on the individual quest for eternal meaning, directly influenced in turn by Kierkegaard’s idea of religious faith. Although James March has often acknowledged the influence of both Unamuno and Kierkegaard on his thought, Passion and Discipline does not mention them; instead, March’s documentary does a good job of erasing the extreme existential fin de sicle angst that inspired his forebears.78 In place of any darkness or agony in Don Quixote’s landscape, what this documentary gives us is the full sun of Spain shining on the grapes of a vineyard, the bright colors and sensuality of gypsy dancers, and the lively sound of a flamenco guitar. Granted that while March always appears fully dressed in black, more often than not he has a glass of Spanish wine in his hand and a blissful smile on his face. All in all, instead of any romantic despair, what March gives us is romantic exoticism; instead of existential angst, all the pleasures and the gusto of Mediterranean joie de

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vivre. One can hardly imagine a more charming and hedonistic package for Don Quixote’s lessons. What March does keep from Unamuno’s reading is its extreme form of idealism and individualism. March presents Don Quixote as a ‘‘teacher’’ in possession of what seems to be a very simple teaching lesson: ‘‘Yo se´ quien soy’’ (I know who I am): the last words Don Quixote says before coming back home at the end of his first sally (I, V), and, indeed, among the most quoted ones in the book. What these words mean for March becomes clear by mere repetition. ‘‘Yo se´ quien soy’’ is the logic of self that the ‘‘romantic,’’ ‘‘visionary’’ Quixote follows and teaches us to follow regardless of the consequences. This lesson, according to March, manifests in a trilogy of sine qua non leadership characteristics: passion, discipline, and joy.79 All of them come ‘‘from inside, from Quixote’s sense of himself,’’ and do not ‘‘depend in any way on expectations about the world.’’ Quixote’s legacy can hence be resumed in the dictum ‘‘Yo se´ quien soy’’ taken as a religious principle or an article of faith about one’s own identity: always be who you are, and believe in your own logic of self, however arbitrary, whatever it takes, and wherever it takes you, regardless of the consequences.80 As March sees it, it is the absence of any consequential justification for one’s actions that raises identity—the commitment to one’s identity—to the dignity of a religion.81 Organized around the three features of leadership, the film mixes scenes from different cinematic adaptations of Don Quixote, footage of iconic figures of popular culture and history who would need no introduction to an average educated audience (Lyndon B. Johnson, Bill Gates, Robert McNamara, Dennis Green, Martin Luther King, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Robert Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Mohandas Gandhi, Louis Armstrong, Laurel and Hardy, Hewlett and Packard, Carly Fiorina, etc.), and a series of interviews with his own friends and pupils about their own experiences as leaders, and the wisdom that they have gained in the process.82 This later group includes: John Gardner, founder of Common Cause; Robert Koski, CEO, Sun Hydraulics; Cory Booker, City Councilman, Newark; Jerry L. Beasley, President of Concord College, West Virginia; Anne Kreiner, a CEO famous in Denmark and the only female and only non-American of the group; and Rod Beckstro¨ m, CEO of C-ATS Software, later turned environmentalist. The pick is in itself revealing, as the group of successful business entrepreneurs is perfectly balanced by an equal number of public servants. The resulting leadership cocktail has the very democratic effect of egalite´: they all are leaders in some way or at some level. Perhaps better put, they are all followers of the romantic tradition of ‘‘quixotic’’ dreamers. The movie makes an emphatic parallelism between the famous ‘‘dream’’ speeches of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and a few memorable ‘‘dream’’ aphorisms particularly endeared to his own


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interviewees.83 One of these is Cory Booker’s ‘‘your dream is the promise of all you can become,’’ an obvious trace of the highly successful discourse of self-improvement in American culture. Although the resulting cocktail is also a clear attempt to mix reality and fiction, past and present, and the United States and the rest of the world, there is, nonetheless, an obvious imbalance between them. Aside from scenes from different movie recreations of Don Quixote, Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro (1993), and Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Betty Blue (1986), everyone appearing in documentary footage is a leader from fairly recent history, mostly American, and mostly from the very iconic 1960s. The inconsequential gospel of the self that March considers so ‘‘quixotic’’ and so vital for modern leadership seems to be not only a very American creed, but one that March, as well as John Gardner, seems to preach with no more faith than nostalgia. What March tells us through the example of Don Quixote could hence be summarized thus: (1) that leadership is a leap of faith that cannot depend on consequences and guarantees, and (2) that this leap of faith is perhaps indicative of our universal human condition, but is, most definitely, the best of American tradition, and therefore, the most American thing to do. In this respect, Passion and Discipline is a documentary as much about the relevance of Don Quixote today as it is about the relevance of the ‘‘dreaming,’’ inspired, or romantic 1960s for contemporary American culture. One could argue that March’s quixotic gospel of the self is, in its easy-toremember list of three ingredients, dangerously close to the message of a good number of self-help gurus whose recipes of individual success tend to come packaged in equally easy to remember lists of numbered commands: the ‘‘x’’ number of steps, the ‘‘x’’ number of habits, the ‘‘x’’ number of principles, the ‘‘x’’ number of rules . . . , to success, to leadership, to power, to happiness, etc. Many of the contemporary gurus preaching the gospel of the self have, together with the secret of life they claim to possess, a wealthy bank account that certainly helps them appear to be the living proof of the power of their recipe. And some are in themselves a leadership phenomenon, as they truly have, thanks to mass media, legions of devoted followers. As such, their inspirational speeches, their stories, and their mass success may speak volumes about the power of positive thinking or, for that matter, the ambivalent power of the American dream, but they have very little to say about the empowerment values of the humanities or the cathartic effect of reading great works of literature like Don Quixote. In March’s case, the power of quixotic dreaming is no less ambivalent, since it is hardly distinguishable from blind faith, childish fantasies, utopic mythologies, manic schizophrenia, or religious fanaticism. March knows this very well, and certainly insists on referring to leadership neither as a recipe for success nor as an academic discipline. In fact, he has often emphasized the futility of any pedagogical

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effort to manufacture leadership,84 and refers to it condescendingly as a ‘‘mythology’’ by no means capable of even telling the difference between a leader and a lunatic ‘‘until after the fact.’’ 85 Still, he considers it to be a ‘‘vitally important’’ mythology and makes a clear effort in this documentary to keep it alive.86 However careful March is to avoid any direct link between quixotic dreaming and leadership achievement, and however many clues he gives us about his general skepticism of leadership studies, his emphasis on joy is neither hesitant nor ambivalent. The blissful smile on his own face and those of his interviewees and the many pleasures promised by the exotic landscape of Spain—all that music, dance, women, wine, and sun—make it particularly hard to even consider the possibility of a negative outcome. There is, in other words, a significant lack of balance between the cynical content of some of March’s statements about leadership in Passion and Discipline and the wonderful images used to convey the idea that, as he puts it: ‘‘After 400 years, Quixote lives!’’ 87 And certainly, as a result of March’s reading of Don Quixote or as a simultaneous event, the truth is that Don Quixote’s lessons for leadership have already been packaged from West to East as a product that, erasing all ambivalence, promises immediate success in both life and career.88 Martin C. Jischke’s ‘‘dream the impossible dream and then make it come true’’ is a good indication of this tendency. It is in this sense that March’s reading of Don Quixote can be considered particularly influential for the discourse of leadership studies without being representative of the mainstream. His reputation, after all, is not that of a guru, but of a ‘‘gurus’s guru.’’ March’s academic reputation is serious enough to not dismiss his reading of Don Quixote as that of a snake-oil salesman. He is a poet and a very highly reputed scholar from a very reputable university. He is, in other words, as close as anyone can be to what we consider to be a humanist. How then can he celebrate such reckless and irrational quixotism? What inconsequential logic of self is he himself following? What is, indeed, the meaning of his romantic nostalgia? Unfortunately, his reading of Don Quixote avoids answering all these questions. Passion and Discipline comes purposely orphaned of his intended audience and his original context, the absence of both of which may give us the idea that there is an unquestionable sense of truth and timelessness in his message.89 The presence of a university professor among those interviewed in Passion and Discipline is perhaps the strongest trace left of that context and that audience, and it is a thread for us to read March reading Don Quixote.90 The gusto of his romanticism is that of a business professor who has fought the pervasiveness of modern consequentialist thought within the business world since the early stages of his career. 91 In the midst of the extreme commodification of higher learning, he has also defended that a university education and scholarship are ‘‘worthy of their names when they are embraced as arbitrary matters of faith, not as matters of usefulness.’’ 92 In this


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sense, March’s case recalls that of Harold Bloom: they both play with reckless gusto the role of maverick Quixotes living in the demonized world of materialism and pragmatism. The extreme idealism of March’s quixotic nonconsequentialism is but a form of extreme compensation during ‘‘a time of disappointment,’’ to put it in the words that he himself uses to refer to Cervantes’s times.93 For March, our society critically needs ‘‘more Quixote vision’’ to restore its lost vigor and balance but, as it was for Turgenev, Quixotes seem to belong to a species always in danger of extinction.94 And, as was also the case with Turgenev, the universality of this claim happens to have a very direct impact in a context that is, to say the least, completely alien to that of Cervantes: the culture of corporate America and the development of leadership studies in American higher and professional education. Within this particular ‘‘time of disappointment,’’ Passion and Discipline is, at best, a testament of James March’s own need to find a ‘‘compromised’’ solution to a very present predicament. At worst, it is a testament of his own betrayal of the alleged uselessness and reckless independence of scholarly research. After all, he does find a very good use and a very good market for Don Quixote. Undoubtedly, the current vogue of ‘‘idea practitioners’’ in the world of leadership and business management is directly linked to the current vogue of the romantic quixotic.95 The same could be said about the increasing presence of literature courses in professional education. The story that March tells us draws on not one but rather two powerful mythologies. One is the American dream; the other is the quixotic dream. One stands as a core value of the American identity; the other as a core value of humanity. One is heavily endowed with material success; the other with poetic and spiritual success. Their combination in the contemporary imaginary of leadership is indeed very attractive, as it promises fulfillment and joy in the final resolution of several dilemmas of human existence: body and soul, reason and faith, individual and society, now and always . . . . But what these two mythologies have in common is not only a sense of hope and optimism, but a problematic relationship with reality. As many would say today, what America needs to safeguard its future is not myth, but truth; not dreams, but facts; not fiction, but reality; not beautifully tailored stories, but conclusive statistics and scientific veracity. Al Gore, for example, is arguing in precisely this way to talk about global warming or the war in Iraq. But, of course, he is also telling a very compelling story for us to follow—here the happy and reckless inconsequentialists happen to be smokers who actually die of cancer—and he is far from free of the allure of romantic, quixotic leadership.96 Ironically, this is but an aspect of our quixotic or modern condition: the interaction between fiction and reality, and the possibility and, indeed, the responsibility of telling them apart.

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THE CASE OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES AND THE QUESTION OF POETIC TRUTH: (MIS)READING DON QUIXOTE WITH A PURPOSE The case of the leadership studies approach to literature in general and to the Quixote in particular makes the question of reading and ethical responsibility unavoidable. Insofar as the leadership approach to literature can be described as reading with a purpose, reading to make a difference, reading for action, or reading for practical implications, the choice of reading Don Quixote comes doubly charged with ethical responsibilities. The notion of the ultimate irrelevance of interpretation that John Jay Allen, a leading scholar of Cervantes, once pondered as a possible horizon for literary criticism in its cult of contingency and relativity is clearly absent from the discourse of leadership studies.97 To leadership studies, rather, the question of reading contingency seems both irrelevant and settled: it is the timeless value of literature that makes it so undeniably relevant to life. As I see it, this premise marks not only the very antipodes of contemporary Quixote criticism, but a significant gap as well in the logic of ethical responsibility. In this respect, perhaps the main question about leadership’s approach to Don Quixote is its tendency to read literature as if the interaction of reader and text, literature and life, or fiction and history could be fully avoided by simply stating the absolute universality of leadership and literature. And, as most reputed literary critics of Cervantes would immediately admit, one of the most important lessons of Cervantes may be lost by doing just that: approaching literature as a simple one-way affair, reading literature as if one were not fully implicated in the act of reading it. Don Quixote’s madness as much as Don Quixote’s identity are the ambivalent results of such an approach to literature as the best mirror of life, of such a confusion, in Harry Levin’s words, ‘‘between literary artifice and that real thing which is life itself.’’ 98 As E. C. Riley so succinctly put it, ‘‘the interaction of literature and life is a fundamental theme of Don Quixote.’’ 99 Whatever else he may be as a modern fictional hero, Don Quixote is a reader who cannot tell the difference anymore between life and ‘‘the most impossibly fabulous form of fiction that could be imagined.’’ 100 If Levin and Riley are right, this confusion is embarrassing not only for Don Quixote as reader—the most gullible reader in literary history—but also for all the fictional genres that were popular at the time of Cervantes, from the most romantic and allegedly entertaining (chivalric romance) to the most realistic and allegedly didactic (the picaresque novel). Inextricably related to the first question, another important issue concerning the dominant leadership approach to Don Quixote is that, even as it attempts to make Cervantes’s fiction readily applicable to contemporary life, it tends to neglect the fact that Don Quixote does also have a life: a literary


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lineage, a birthplace, and a long and very diverse posterity. Here too are, in my opinion, important lessons for leadership studies. Over 400 years of reading Don Quixote have yielded a bountiful harvest of readings that can speak volumes about readers’ creativity, cultural contingency, and the historical realities and even brutalities of quixotic fiction. Relativity, as Harry Levin once put it, does not mean relativism.101 As we have seen, to leading experts in the historical reception of Cervantes, like Anthony Close, the romantic approach to Don Quixote is emphatically not a timeless tradition that one can see seamlessly continuing from origin to present. Today, however, and apparently still unbeknownst to most Quixote experts, there is an unmistakable interest in renewing or reviving this tradition as if it were one to proudly reclaim and to which joyfully to belong. What seems more important, there is an unmistakable interest in making the revival of this tradition somehow equivalent to the very survival of the humanist tradition. It could be argued that the approach to literature as a source of timeless and universal didactic value is, in fact, a reenactment of classical Aristotelian poetics in its two basic tenets: Mimesis—the idea that poetry differs from history in its depiction of universal truth—and Catharsis—the idea that poetry produces a purging of the spirit. Interestingly enough, as Giuseppe Toffanin already pointed out in 1920, Aristotle’s Poetics and the intense neoAristotelianism of the Counter Reformation is at the very origin of the creation of Don Quixote, which, as has been said countless times, also marks the historical birth of the modern novel.102 Since the 1920s, Quixote criticism has tried to explain exactly how Don Quixote, in more ways than one, is Cervantes’s direct participation in the contemporary debate on literary theory. It has shown it to be his individual response, not only to the profound ethical questions concerning artistic Mimesis, but to all the fictional genres that happened to be popular at his time, and to the actual didactic needs of Counter Reformation Spain. In many respects, Cervantes’s formula for the novel— the new realist novel or the new quixotic fiction—is considered to be his genuine contribution to a debate that can only be properly understood considering the fact that, as the prologue of Don Quixote clearly states, Aristotle had no clear authority over any of the modern literary genres that were popular at Cervantes’s time, including, very prominently, the very novel that he was creating.103 Considering that literary critics have given Cervantes’s commitment to the principles of truth in fiction sharply opposed interpretations— from total respect to didacticism and Counter Reformation values, to the most rebellious questioning of authority—the parodic and ironic openness of Don Quixote may very well be its most important ethical lesson. To many of his critics, Cervantes’s focus on the active interaction of texts and readers, fiction and life, amounts to be a severe blow to the extreme dogmatism of the Counter Reformation and, in this sense, is proof of Cervantes’s defiant place

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in the humanist tradition of the early Renaissance: the tradition of the dignitas homini, a tradition that is predicated on free will, choice, and responsibility. Literary historiography has given credit to Cervantes’s uniqueness by pulling him conspicuously out of the context of the Counter Reformation and the company of his very contemporaries; by trying to understand, in other words, ‘‘that he was in so many ways something of an outsider.’’ 104 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Imperial Spain was mostly defined by dogma, intolerance, violence, genocide, exile, poverty, and deeply rooted double standards regarding spirituality and social prestige. Cervantes was a humanist—a committed humanist according to most critics—when humanism was not simply out of vogue in Spain, but mostly out of the question. To keep alive the tradition of the studia humanitatis and the dignitas homini in 1605 was perhaps an act of individual heroism and proof of genius and wisdom, but also a significant attempt to confront at once his own nostalgia and his own cynicism.105

LEADERSHIP STUDIES AND THE RELEVANCE OF DON QUIXOTE: NOSTALGIA, CYNICISM, AND AMBIVALENCE The contemporary nostalgia for visionary leadership represents a fundamental question for leadership studies. In its extreme reaction to anything that can represent cynicism—considered unhealthy, unproductive, nihilistic, hopeless, and doomed—there is a danger that needs to be very carefully pondered. March’s ‘‘I know who I am’’ is a very good example of the dangers of an indirect dogmatic reading and, indeed, the relevance of keeping alive the humanities in its most basic method of returning to the text. For once, March avoids quoting Don Quixote’s statement in full, which says: ‘‘Yo se´ quien soy y se´ que puedo ser . . .’’ (I know who I am and I know I can be . . .).106 Be-ers know who they are and their stories hold no surprises. Don Quixote, unlike Amad’s of Gaul, is constantly surprised by a reality that does not seem to be functioning as properly as it does in the fiction he loves to read. According to Spanish novelist Antonio Munõz Molina: ‘‘Becoming, not being is what the novel is all about. And that is why we regard Don Quixote as the first fictional hero.’’ 107 As the exact opposite of James March, Munõz Molina considers that Don Quixote is relevant nowadays because it tells us to confront all the mantras of identity of our own time—sexual, cultural, national, religious . . . —that keep promising us comfort, contentment, and success. For him, if this ‘‘is a time for be-ers, not becomers,’’ Don Quixote must be ‘‘relevant, especially to those who are not willing to abide to any fixed laws of identity’’ or ‘‘proudly proclaim what we already are.’’ 108 Don Quixote deserves to be at the very center of the canon of leadership studies not just because Cervantes is a major artistic leader, which is true,


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and definitely not so that we can show Don Quixote as the exemplary ‘‘leader,’’ the exemplary ‘‘positive thinker,’’ or the exemplary ‘‘idea practitioner.’’ The main reasons, as I see them, are others: nostalgia, cynicism, and ambivalence. At the heart of Renaissance humanism lies a question about the nature and values of the human and about the power of learning and education as agents of change, progress, freedom, happiness, and perfection. For many, the Renaissance was mainly a time of crisis and of transition to what we now call modernity, a time of conflict and change that made possible the very debate on change, history, and progress.109 Leadership studies represents a renewed interest in proving that the liberal arts education—the old tradition of the studia humanitatis—continues to have a transforming role in our present life and in the shape of our future—the old tradition of the dignitas homini. As such, the Renaissance should rightly appear in the field of leadership studies as the origin of an ongoing tradition and as a continued source of knowledge and inspiration. But it could also be considered, from the more cynical point of view of postmodernity, as a nostalgic or romantic search for the ideal ‘‘human’’ or the ideal ‘‘individual’’ and, in this sense, as a reaction against history, culture, discourse, ideology, and context. As we know, the Renaissance has also been deemed responsible for an eternal, universal, or absolutist definition of the human that, ironically, happens to be Western, white, male, and Judeo-Christian, a definition that is key to the exercise of much violence, much injustice, and much ‘‘inhumanity.’’ The legacy of the Renaissance is then a very ambivalent tradition to which to belong. And leadership studies will have to ultimately prove, in the selection and the interpretation of its canon, the meaning of its own nostalgia.

NOTES These pages are, in part, my personal expression of gratitude and nostalgia for the inspiring humanity and humanities of Kenneth Ruscio, the new president of Washington and Lee University and former dean of the University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Leadership Studies whose example I have often pondered while writing these pages. If it were not for Dr. Ruscio, I would have never even considered the relevance of Don Quixote for leadership studies. My gratitude also extends to Joanne Ciulla, whose invitation to write these pages has given me the opportunity to find the vitality of Don Quixote in a context as unexpected and unfamiliar to me as that of leadership studies. 1. Throughout this chapter, the presence or absence of italics in the name of Don Quixote is meant to distinguish between book (Don Quixote) and character (Don Quixote). 2. The poll was conducted in May 2002 and it was reported worldwide. As reported in The Guardian, the poll of some 100 of the world’s leading authors from 54 countries was organized by the Norwegian Nobel Institute. Don Quixote, with more than

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50 percent of the votes, was a clear runaway winner. ‘‘Don Quixote is the World’s Best Book Say the World’s Top Authors,’’ Guardian Unlimited, May 8, 2002, Book news, http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,711688,00.html 3. Salman Rushdie, ‘‘Quixote at 400: A Tribute,’’ Pen America: A Journal for Writers and Readers, no. 7, World Voices (2005): 137. 4. As translated by Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on ‘‘Don Quixote,’’ ed. Fredson Bowers, foreword by Guy Davenport (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), 7. 5. As translated by Harold Bloom in ‘‘Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote,’’ in How to Read and Why (New York: Scribner, 2000), 145. The original can be found in Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho (Life of Don Quixote and Sancho), originally published in 1905. 6. Harold Bloom, ‘‘Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,’’ introduction to Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, trans. Edith Grossman (New York: Ecco, 2003), xxxiv. 7. Ibid., 7. 8. Don Quixote has been considered a Christ-like figure by many, including Miguel de Unamuno, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Graham Green. By the same token, in an almost Borgesian twist, Jesus too has been read as a ‘‘quixotic’’ figure. Illustrative is the example of Pope Benedict XVI who, while still Cardinal Ratzinger, used the ‘‘Gospel’’ of Don Quixote in the epilogue to his Principles of Catholic Theology: ‘‘What a noble foolishness Don Quixote chooses as his vocation: ‘To be pure in his thoughts, modest in his words, sincere in his actions, patient in adversity, merciful toward those in need and, finally, a crusader for truth even if the defense of it should cost him his life.’ ’’ Benedict, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 392. 9. Matei Calinescu, Rereading (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 78. 10. Alter chose ‘‘The Inexhaustible Genre’’ as the title for the conclusion of Partial Magic: The Novel as a Self-conscious Genre (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975). The first chapter of the book, ‘‘The Mirror of Knighthood and the World of Mirrors’’ is Alter’s influential analysis of Don Quixote as the origin of metafiction. Interestingly enough, the last author that Alter analyzes as belonging in the same metafictional or ‘‘quixotic’’ tradition is Vladimir Nabokov. 11. Bloom, trans., ‘‘Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote,’’ 150. 12. Bloom, ‘‘Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,’’ xxi. 13. Diana de Armas Wilson, ‘‘Cervantes and the Night Visitors: Dream Work in the Cave of Montesinos,’’ in Quixotic Desire: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Cervantes, ed. Ruth Anthony El Saffar and Diana de Armas Wilson (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 71. 14. ‘‘The Quixotic Principle: Cervantes and Other Novelists,’’ in The Interpretation of Narrative: Theory and Practice, ed. Morton Bloomfield, Harvard English Studies, 1, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 57. Levin’s contributions also include ‘‘Don Quixote and Moby Dick’’ and ‘‘The Example of Cervantes,’’ both of them included in Contexts of Criticism, 2nd ed. (1957; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), 79–109. For a bibliographic panorama on the topic of Cervantes’s literary influence, see J. B. Avalle-Arce and E. C. Riley’s seminal anthology Suma cervantina (London: Tamesis, 1973), 440–441.


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15. Levin, ‘‘The Quixotic Principle,’’ 45. 16. Ibid., xxvii. 17. Hillis J. Miller, Reading Narrative, Oklahoma Project for Discourse and Theory, v. 18 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), 3–4. 18. ‘‘A common approach is to set the text against one’s interpretation of it and then identify as ironic those passages which run counter to the interpretation.’’ John J. Allen, ‘‘Don Quixote,’’ Hero or Fool?; Part II, University of Florida Humanities Monographs, no. 46 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1979), 41. 19. Aside from Harry Levin, among the most important studies in this respect are the following: Erich Auerbach, ‘‘The Enchanted Dulcinea,’’ in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard Trask (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953; New York: Anchor Books, 1957; first published in 1946), 293–315; John J. Allen, Don Quixote: Hero or Fool? (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1969); P. E. Russell, ‘‘Don Quixote as a Funny Book,’’ Modern Language Review 64 (1969): 312–326; Anthony Close, The Romantic Approach to ‘‘Don Quixote’’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); Jose´ Montero Reguera, El Quijote y la cr’tica contemporańea, Biblioteca de Estudios Cervantinos (Alcala´ de Henares: Centro de Estudios Cervantinos, 1996); Jose´ Montero Reguera, El Quijote durante cuatro siglos: lecturas y lectores, Coleccioń ‘‘Acceso al saber,’’ 3 (Valladolid: Secretariado de Publicaciones e Intercambio Editorial, Universidad de Valladolid, 2005). 20. ‘‘In his multiplicity—continues Atwood—is the secret of his inmortality.’’ Margaret Atwood, ‘‘Quixote at 400: A Tribute,’’ Pen America: A Journal for Writers and Readers, no. 7, World Voices (2005): 143. 21. Anthony Close’s contribution to the recent Cambridge History of Spanish Literature concludes thus: ‘‘Since (Quijote criticism) has traditionally taken its cue from novelists, philosophers, artists, and aestheticians, it is doubtless awaiting a new trend-setting ‘-ism’ to give it a fresh impulse forward. As we have seen, Don Quijote and its readers have never failed to respond to that kind of prompting.’’ Anthony Close, ‘‘Miguel de Cervantes,’’ in Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, ed. David T. Gies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 221. 22. In an interview with Martha Lagage, ‘‘Why Leaders Need Great Books,’’ Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, June 18, 2001, http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/2327 .html 23. ‘‘My judgment is restored, free and clear of the dark shadows of ignorance imposed on it by my grievous and constant reading of detestable books of chivalry. I now recognize their absurdities and deceptions, and my sole regret is that this realization has come so late it does not leave me time to compensate by reading other books that can be a light to the soul.’’ (II, LXXIV, 935). All quotations are from Edith Grossman’s translation of Don Quixote (New York: Ecco, 2003). 24. From his inaugural address as president of Washington and Lee University in October 2006. Go to http://inauguration.wlu.edu, and, for the video, to http:// mswms1.wlu.edu/RuscioInaug.wmv 25. The argument is that society has been seriously shortchanged by ‘‘ivory tower’’ scholarship. See, for example, Warren Bennis and James O’Toole, ‘‘How Business Schools Lost Their Way,’’ Harvard Business Review 83, no. 5 (May 2005): 96–104.

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26. Harvard President Derek C. Bok has been a leading and influential voice against the moral vacuum of higher education. Of particular interest are the following: Beyond the Ivory Tower: Social Responsibilities of the Modern University (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982); Higher Learning (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), and Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). See also Peter Smith, The Quiet Crisis: How Higher Education is Failing America (Boston: Anker Publishing Co., 2004). 27. Indeed, the urgency of leadership is often correlated not to one but to many ominous futures. According to John Gardner, ‘‘we are faced with immensely threatening problems—terrorism, AIDS, drugs, depletion of the ozone layer, the threat of nuclear conflict, toxic waste, the real possibility of economic disaster. Even moderately informed citizens could extend the list. Yet on none of the items listed does our response acknowledge the manifest urgency of the problem.’’ On Leadership (New York: The Free Press, 1990), xii. 28. Thomas R. Piper, Mary C. Gentile, and Sharon Daloz Parks, Can Ethics Be Taught? Perspectives, Challenges, and Approaches at Harvard Business School (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1993), 10. In the words of Kenneth Ruscio: ‘‘it would be worth thinking how best to prepare students for a world in which most problems require ethical insight and moral reasoning, as well as technical and analytical skills.’’ Available at http://inauguration.wlu.edu, and, for the video, http://mswms1.wlu.edu/ RuscioInaug.wmv 29. I quote from the main Web page of the University of Richmond Jepson School of Leadership Studies, founded in 1992 as the first degree granting School of Leadership studies in the United States. Available at http://jepson.richmond.edu/ 30. Following Warren Bennis and James O’Toole: ‘‘Traditionally, business schools have lacked offerings in the humanities. That is a serious shortcoming. As teachers of leadership, we doubt that our topic can be understood properly without solid grounding in the humanities.’’ Bennis and O’Toole, ‘‘How Business Schools Lost Their Way,’’ 104. 31. Kenneth Ruscio directly relates higher education to the well-being of democracy: ‘‘I am not an alarmist about the state of democracy . . .. The opportunity of higher education, indeed our obligation, is to model a democratic culture of mutual respect and trust.’’ Available at http://inauguration.wlu.edu, and, for the video, http:// mswms1.wlu.edu/RuscioInaug.wmv 32. This is John Gardner on the subject: ‘‘Many dismiss the subject with the confident assertion that ‘leaders are born, not made.’ Nonsense! Most of what leaders have that enables them to lead is learned. Leadership is not a mysterious activity.’’ Gardner, On Leadership, 15. See also J. Thomas Wren, ‘‘Teaching Leadership: The Art of the Possible,’’ Journal of Leadership Studies 1 (1994): 73–93, and the already mentioned Piper, Gentile, and Daloz Parks, Can Ethics Be Taught?, Perspectives, Challenges, and Approaches at Harvard Business School. 33. For the history of leadership studies as an emergent discipline and the development of a higher education curriculum, see Ronald E. Riggio, Joanne B. Ciulla, and Georgia Sorenson, ‘‘Leadership Education at the Undergraduate Level: A Liberal Arts


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Approach to Leadership Development,’’ in The Future of Leadership Development, ed. Susan E. Murphy and Ronald E. Riggio (Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003), 223–236. 34. Thomas R. Piper, ‘‘A program to integrate leadership, ethics and corporate responsibility into management education,’’ in Piper, Gentile, and Daloz Parks, Can Ethics Be Taught? 144. As rationale for the course, Piper tells us that ‘‘Fiction is employed as an instrument of social and cultural observation and a source of moral energy’’ (144–145). In relation to this particular course, see also Pamela Troyer, ‘‘Ethics in the MBA Curriculum (Part II),’’ HBS Bulletin (February 1992): 26–3. 35. I transcribe March’s words from his documentary on the topic of quixotic leadership. Steven Schecter and James G. March, Passion and Discipline ‘‘Don Quixote’’ ’s Lessons for Leadership (Princeton: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 2003). 36. I quote from the online transcription of the Q&A period that followed the first public showing in 2003 of March’s documentary. Available at www.wisdomportal .com/Stanford/JamesMarch.html 37. Joseph Badaracco Jr. is sufficiently clear on this point: ‘‘The basic challenges of leaders appear so widely perhaps even universally, because they reflect two fundamental, enduring aspects of leadership. One is the humanity of leaders—the hopes and fears, traits and instincts of the human nature we all share. The other is the unchanging agenda of leadership, in all times and places’’ (6). In Questions of Character: Illuminating the Heart of Leadership through Literature (Boston: Harvard Business School, 2006). Badaracco, a professor of Business Ethics at Harvard Business School has taught for over 10 years an ‘‘unusual MBA course’’ based on these assumptions (5). In an NPR interview about the book, Badaracco adds: ‘‘I think that the basic thing literature does is give students some very compelling raw material to think about their own lives, their goals, how they work with other people.’’ Weekend Edition Saturday, NPR, May 6, 2006, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5388057 38. As Badaracco puts it: ‘‘Think of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. You could learn as much about leadership from that play as you would from reading any business book or academic journal.’’ In Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Diane Coutu, ‘‘Leadership in Literature: A Conversation with Business Ethicist Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.,’’ Harvard Business Review 84, no. 3 (March 2006): 48. Warren Bennis and James O’Toole emphasize the leading example of James March at Stanford and his use of ‘‘imaginative literature to exemplify and explain the behaviour of people in business organizations in a way that was richer and more realistic than any journal article or textbook.’’ Bennis and O’Toole, ‘‘How Business Schools Lost Their Way,’’ 104. In the introduction to James March and Thierry Weil’s On Leadership, we can also read the following statement: ‘‘The fundamental issues of leadership—the complications involved in becoming, being, confronting, and evaluating leaders—are not unique to leadership. They are echoes of critical issues of life more generally. As a result, they are characteristically illuminated more by great literature than by modern essays on research and leadership.’’ James G. March and Thierry Weil, On Leadership (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 1. 39. The approach to literature as a ‘‘case study’’ is the direct influence of law and business schools practice. The Olsson Center at University of Virginia’s Darden

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Business School, for example, presents the course Business Ethics Through Literature as ‘‘a Second Year elective that addresses the definition of success in business, race, gender, the role of culture, the privileged place of the executive, and new understandings or models of human beings. The course is taught Socratically with fiction, both novels and short stories, as case studies.’’ Available at http://www.darden.edu/html/ standard.aspx?menu_id=35&styleid=3&id=600 40. Badaracco’s cases in Questions of Character: Illuminating the Heart of Leadership through Literature are the following: Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman; Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart; Allan Gurganus’s story ‘‘Blessed Assurance’’; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Love of the Last Tycoon; Joseph Conrad’s story ‘‘The Secret Sharer’’; Louis Auchincloss’s novel I Come as a Thief; Robert Bolt’s play Man for All Seasons; and Sophocles’s play Antigone. In terms of multiplicity, it is a very uneven mix of contemporary English works and one Greek classic. 41. Harold Bloom and Diane Coutu. ‘‘A Reading List for Bill Gates—and You. A Conversation with Literary Critic Harold Bloom,’’ Harvard Business Review 79, no. 5 (May 2001): 63. 42. Joseph Badaracco says something very powerful to this effect in reference to his course The Moral Leader, from which Questions of Character evolved: ‘‘this is not a course in literary criticism, and students aren’t looking for the ‘right’ interpretation of these works.’’ In Questions of Character, 5. He repeats the same idea in his conversation to Diane Coutu: ‘‘I have found that many business people associate literary discussions with abstruse academic talk and Freudian imagery. But this wasn’t a class in literary criticism, and I wasn’t looking for the ‘right’ interpretation.’’ In ‘‘Leadership in Literature,’’ 48. Warren Bennis and James O’Toole are also unequivocal in their pragmatic approval of literature and their parallel refutation of literary studies as a field of knowledge fully unnecessary for business students. When they single out the example of James March and his influential course at Stanford, they do it by making clear that ‘‘he emphatically was not teaching a literature course.’’ Ibid., 104. 43. See, for example: Michael K. Green, ‘‘Don Quixote’’ Teaching Notes, Hartwick Classic Leadership Cases (Oneonta, NY: Hartwick Humanities in Management Institute, 2001); Luis Cremades, ‘‘Don Quijote’’ para triunfar: guıá praćtica para emprendedores, l’deres y directivos (Don Quixote to Triumph: a Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs, Leaders, and Executives) MR Praćticos (Madrid: Ediciones Martıńez Roca; and Pablo Molina. ‘‘IT Leadership Principles from Don Quixote,’’ EDUCAUSE Review (May–June 2005): 8–9. 44. I am using the title that Jischke gave to his inspirational speech. Although Jischke grants that Don Quixote was ultimately unsuccessful in his quest, he quotes the famous song from Man of la Mancha—to him, ‘‘among the most soul-stirring ever written’’—and advises the students to continue the legacy of quixotic dreamers and transformational leaders: ‘‘You are the ones who will carry the seemingly impossible dreams of today into the realities of tomorrow. Your dreams will power this exciting 21st century . . .. I believe in the promise of tomorrow because I believe in the beauty of your dreams.’’ Available at http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html3month/ 2004/040515.SP.Jischke.commence.html 45. Ibid.


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46. The substance of this approach to Don Quixote, according to Close, can be summarized thus: ‘‘a) the idealization of the hero and the denial of the novel’s satiric purpose; b) the belief that the novel is symbolical . . . about the human’s spirit relation to reality.’’ The Romantic Approach to ‘‘Don Quixote’’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 1. 47. ‘‘There are probably few lovers of literature who do not associate the concept of ideal greatness with Don Quixote. It may be absurd, fantastic, grotesque; but it is still ideal, unconditional, heroic. It is especially since the Romantic period that this conception has become almost universal, and it withstands all attempts on the part of philological criticism to show that Cervantes intention was not to produce such an impression.’’ ‘‘The Enchanted Dulcinea,’’ in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard Trask (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953; New York: Anchor Books, 1957; first published in 1946), 302. Auerbach based his interpretation on a single passage from Don Quixote (II, 10): the moment when Sancho tricks the gentleman by making him believe that an ugly peasant woman on a donkey is Dulcinea enchanted. According to Auerbach, ‘‘to find anything serious, or a concealed deeper meaning in this scene, one must violently over interpret it.’’ Auerbach, ‘‘The Enchanted Dulcinea,’’ 303. 48. Close himself dismissed it as ‘‘misguided’’ and ‘‘subjective’’ for being so unconcerned with the original reception of Cervantes ‘‘as a comic artist—satirist, ironist, parodist, or whatever—.’’ Close, The Romantic Approach to ‘‘Don Quixote,’’ 1–2. More recently, Close has toned down his assessment to stress only on the ‘‘incongruity’’ between original and subsequent receptions of the book. See his ‘‘Miguel de Cervantes,’’ in The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, 203. 49. Allen, Don Quixote, Hero or Fool? Part II, 36. 50. ‘‘The most perfect and (with Meneńdez Pidal) the most influential,’’ says Miguel Herrero. In ‘‘Dulcinea and her Critics,’’ Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America 2, no. 1 (1982): 25. 51. Following Miguel Herrero: ‘‘Dulcinea, as the personification of Don Quijote’s dream, represented the great ideal of virginal Spain, the country which through unparalleled generosity and utter disregard for material gain ruined itself defending selflessly the true Catholic faith, serving the Church with missionary zeal in remote lands and inclement climates, oblivious to danger and hardship. Don Quijote, in short, was the incarnation of Spain, and his virtues were hers. Dulcinea, of course, was the object and source of the love that guided its arms in innumerable adventures. The romantic approach became the official position of Spanish culture through the Restoration (especially so with the Generation of ’98) and, of course, achieved the status of dogma in post-civil war Spain.’’ Ibid., 25. For a full account of Unamuno’s views of the Quixote, see Close’s The Romantic Approach (134–158). 52. I have analyzed the purpose of political legitimization of the Francoist reading of Don Quixote in ‘‘Secreta Palinodia: La ‘Contrautopıá’ de Jose´ Antonio Maravall como descargo de conciencia,’’ Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 78, no. 4 (2001): 504–516. 53. Well known is the story of Erich Auerbach, who wrote Mimesis in Istanbul between 1942 and 1945, while in exile from Nazi Germany.

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54. ‘‘Free Quixotes Big Pull in Caracas,’’ BBC News, April 24, 2005. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4478007.stm 55. ‘‘Let us begin with Don Quixote. What does the character of Don Quixote convey to us? First of all, faith; faith in something eternal, in something immutable, in truth— in short, in that truth which exists outside of an individual . . . , and accessible only through long constancy in service and devotion . . . . What does the character of Hamlet represent? Preeminently, introspection and egoism, and therefore a complete absence of faith . . . . He is an skeptic, constantly preoccupied with himself.’’ ‘‘Hamlet and Don Quixote,’’ trans. William A. Drake, in The Anatomy of ‘‘Don Quixote,’’ ed. M. J. Bernadete and Angel Flores (Ithaca, NY: Dragon Press, 1932; New York: Kennikat Press, 1969), 100–102. 56. Ibid., 112. 57. Ibid., 107. 58. Ibid., 112. 59. ‘‘He thrice abandons country, home, wife, and daughter, to follow this lunatic. He follows him everywhere, submits to all manners of hardships and affronts, is faithful to him to his very death, believes in him, is proud of him, and sobs on his knees at the bedside of his dying master. His devotion cannot be explained by the expectation of reward or any personal advantage . . . . It originates in what is perhaps the finest characteristic of the masses, in, if we may so express ourselves, their capacity to abandoning themselves to a happy and honest blindness in their devotion to a cause . . . . This is a characteristic of tremendous and universal importance.’’ Ibid., 107–108. 60. ‘‘However this simplistic dichotomy may deviate from the intentions of either Shakespeare or Cervantes, it could be related to the physiognomies of Russian literature . . . . In the broad typology of Russian nineteenth century culture, the so-called Westerners—like Turgenev—were the Hamlets, while the Slavophils were the Quixotes—especially Dostoevsky, who found Cervantes a recurrent source of inspiration.’’ In Bloomfield, ed., ‘‘The Quixotic Principle,’’ 56. As stressed by Turgenev, the polar opposition between Hamlets and Quixotes was not a Russian matter, but the essence of human nature: ‘‘It seems to me that all humanity belongs to one or the other of these two types.’’ Turgenev, ‘‘Hamlet and Don Quixote,’’ trans. William A. Drake, in The Anatomy of ‘‘Don Quixote,’’ ed. Bernadete and Flores, 99. 61. Bloom, ‘‘Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,’’ xxii. 62. ‘‘Well, I have never met Bill Gates, and I’m not likely ever to do so. So at the risk of sounding too predictable, I would have to start by recommending the works of William Shakespeare . . . . Shakespeare’s only possible rival in imaginative literature of the past four centuries is Miguel de Cervantes, who wrote the classic, Don Quixote. Cervantes remains the best of all novelists, just as Shakespeare remains the best of all dramatists.’’ Harold Bloom and Diane Coutu, ‘‘A Reading List for Bill Gates—and You. A conversation with literary critic Harold Bloom,’’ Harvard Business Review 79, no. 5 (May 2001): 64. 63. According to Bloom, the Knight and Hamlet represent forms of knowing that are ‘‘reckless beyond belief.’’ Sancho and Falstaff, on the other hand, represent a ‘‘delighted’’ form of ‘‘being.’’ ‘‘Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,’’ xxxv.


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64. Ibid., 99 and 118. Turgenev ultimately defends the need and the usefulness of Hamlets, but repeats the idea that the lack of proportion between Hamlets and Quixotes is the sign of the degeneration of a ‘‘troubled epoch.’’ Turgenev. ‘‘Hamlet and Don Quixote,’’ 119. 65. March and Weil, On Leadership, xii. 66. Ibid., 65. 67. Ibid., 65. 68. Ibid., 65. 69. See note 35. 70. March and Weil, On Leadership, xi. On Leadership is a clear reference to the late John Gardner’s influential book of the same title. In a way that many readers of Don Quixote will find amusing and cannot possibly be unintended, On Leadership is based, according to March, on his own course notes as interpreted originally in French by Thierry Weil and later translated into English by Matthew Clark (xii). For reasons of accuracy, I have chosen to focus, whenever possible, on direct statements by March. 71. James G. March and Diane Coutu, ‘‘Ideas as Art: A Conversation with James March,’’ Harvard Business Review 84, no. 10 (October 2006): 82. 72. In fact, only Peter Drucker was considered more influential. For the complete rank of gurus’ gurus, see Laurence Prusak and Thomas H. Davenport, ‘‘Who Are the Gurus’ Gurus?’’ Harvard Business Review 81, no. 12 (December 2003): 14–16. 73. March and Coutu, ‘‘Ideas as Art,’’ 82. 74. Janet Zich, ‘‘Don Quixote’s Lessons for Leadership,’’ Stanford Business Magazine, May 2003. Available at http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0305/ leadership.shtml 75. See ‘‘Literary Influences Combine in Indian Institute of Management,’’ Financial Times, February 5, 1999, Business Line. The chronology of the course can be found at http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/~manikuti/smkcourses.htm 76. As is clear from the introductory remarks to the presentation of the film in February 2003, Stipek’s role is as important as March’s sense of gratitude to Stanford University. In his words: ‘‘This is a rare institution. Stanford University sustains our imagination. This film is a valentine for Stanford.’’ Available at www.wisdomportal .com/Stanford/JamesMarch.html 77. The core of Unamuno’s interpretation, according to Close, is the ‘‘idea of the hero as a man of Faith, Poetry, the Ideal.’’ The Romantic Approach, 156. 78. In the introduction to On Leadership, March singles out Unamuno together with Kierkegaard as one of those ‘‘great geniuses’’ of philosophy whose insight is particularly valuable to the appreciation of leadership (6). Not coincidentally, Kierkegaard happens to be a main influence on Unamuno’s reading of Don Quixote. March has often acknowledged Kierkegaard as a main influence on his scholarly career. See, for example, March and Coutu, ‘‘Ideas as Art: A Conversation with James March,’’ 83–89; and ‘‘A scholar Quest,’’ Stanford Business School Magazine 64, no. 4 (June 1996). Available at http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/community/bmag/sbsm0696/ascholar.htm 79. ‘‘We follow Don Quixote, not because we think he’s a model leader, but for the light he has on three vital issues of modern Leadership and modern life. First, the role

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of imagination and fantasy; second, the sources of persistence and commitment; and third, the possibility of Joy.’’ Ibid. 80. ‘‘Don Quixote’s legacy . . . is a moral message about creating a life that ennobles the human spirit, a life of commitment that does not depend on consequences. Quixote shows that life and leadership require passion and discipline, being able to say ‘Yo se´ quien soy’ (I know who I am). After 400 years, Quixote lives!’’ Ibid. 81. Clearly, it is an existential religion based in Kant, Kierkegaard, and Unamuno. In ‘‘A Scholar Quest’’ March says: ‘‘Søren Kierkegaard said that any religion that could be justified by its consequences was hardly a religion.’’ See also March and Coutu, ‘‘Ideas as Art’’ (85). 82. Among the leadership figures from documentary footage, the only unfamiliar leader to an American audience—and the only one actually explained by March— would be General Gutie´rrez Mellado, whose courage during the frustrated 1981 coup d’e´tat by Lieutenant-Colonel Tejero made him become, together with King Juan Carlos, a hero of Spain’s transition to democracy. 83. The featured ones are Martin Luther King’s ‘‘I have a dream,’’ and Bobby Kennedy quoting George Bernard Shaw: ‘‘Some men see things as they are, and say ‘Why?’ I dream of things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’ ’’ 84. ‘‘I doubt that ‘leadership’ is a useful concept for serious scholarship. The idea of leadership is imposed on our interpretation of history by our human myths, or by the way we think that history is supposed to be described. As a result, the fact that people talk about leaders and attribute importance to them is neither surprising nor informative. Although there is good work on several aspects of asymmetric relations in life, broad assertions about leadership are more characteristic of amateurs than of professionals. Unless and until a link to significant scholarship can be made, the thinking on leadership will produce more articles in popular journals than in professional ones, more homilies and tautologies than powerful ideas.’’ In March and Coutu, ‘‘Ideas as Art,’’ 85. See also March’s statements in the preface of On Leadership, where he refers to his skepticism of leadership studies as a ‘‘tolerant’’ form of inquiry (xi). 85. In Passion and Discipline, March tells us: ‘‘We portrayed a world in which visionaries turn out to be right. Such stories are not typical of the history of imagination but they are vitally important to leadership and, even more, to our mythology of leadership.’’ In the Q&A session after the first showing of the film in 2003, he gives this answer to the question of how to tell a leader from a lunatic: ‘‘You can’t tell the difference until after the fact.’’ 86. See previous note. 87. Ibid. 88. See notes 43 and 75. 89. In the Q&A session referred to in note 85, March warns: ‘‘Don’t ask who is the intended audience. This is a rare institution. Stanford University sustains our imagination. This film is a valentine for Stanford.’’ 90. In the same Q&A session, Jerry L. Beasley, president of Concord College, says: ‘‘I’m not a leader. I’m a disciple of Jim March. As President of Concord College, I’m a living experience of Jim’s ideas.’’


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91. In 1996, March wrote: ‘‘Modern portrayals of human action are overwhelmingly in a calculative and consequentialist tradition . . . . It is no surprise that schools of applied economics (or business) teach such a consequentialist theology as a sacred doctrine. The opposite of this tradition is Don Quixote: a second grand tradition for understanding, motivating, and justifying action. This tradition sees action based not on anticipation or consequences but on attempts to fulfill the obligations of personal and social identities and senses of self . . . . This second vision has become somewhat obscured in contemporary life, and in particularly, in the halls of business schools.’’ ‘‘A Scholar Quest.’’ 92. Again from ‘‘A Scholar Quest’’: ‘‘A university is only incidentally a market. It is more essentially a temple—a temple dedicated to knowledge and a human spirit of inquiry. It is a place where learning and scholarship are revered, not primarily for what they contribute to personal or social well-being but for the vision of humanity that they symbolize, sustain, and pass on. Søren Kierkegaard said that any religion that could be justified by its consequences was hardly a religion. We can say a similar thing about university education and scholarship. They only become truly worthy of their names when they are embraced as arbitrary matters of faith, not as matters of usefulness. Higher education is a vision, not a calculation. It is a commitment, not a choice. Students are not customers; they are acolytes. Teaching is not a job; it is a sacrament. Research is not an investment; it is a testament.’’ 93. From Passion and Discipline. 94. In the Q&A session at Stanford University referred to in note 85, he is fairly clear about the fading nature of Don Quixote: ‘‘If a society is all Quixote, then we have to teach a different method. But as it is, this society needs more Quixote vision.’’ 95. See Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak with H. James Wilson, What’s the Big Idea? Creating and Capitalizing on the Best Management Thinking (Boston: HBS Press, 2003). 96. In the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Gore tells us the story of his sister, who died of lung cancer, as evidence of what he considers to be a much graver disease in contemporary American culture: the avoidance of reality. In An Inconvenient Truth, a Global Warning, presented by Al Gore, directed by Davis Guggenheim, produced by Lawrence Bender and Laurie David (Hollywood: Paramount, 2006). Talking about his book The Assault on Reason, Al Gore said in an interview on NPR: ‘‘I don’t think it’s naive or quixotic to believe that the truth still matters. I have heard millions of people around this country in one way or another ask the same question that I ask myself. What is it that’s gone basically wrong in the way America is operating? This book is my effort to . . . say exactly what it is and how we can fix it.’’ Al Gore, interview by Michele Norris, All Things Considered, NPR, May 25, 2007. Available at http:// www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10440121 97. ‘‘Our respective accounts of how things are have a dismaying relativity to them, a relativity that one cannot read Don Quixote without acknowledging. But the relativity is never total for Cervantes, nor can it be for us. . . . There is something vital at stake here and I, for one, cannot be comfortable knowing that an important and influential chunk of our theoretical vanguard can only be tolerated, forgiven, simply because we are all of us irrelevant to real life.’’ In ‘‘Generational Conflicts within Hispanism: Notes

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from the Comedia Wars,’’ in Cervantes and His Postmodern Constituencies, ed. Anne J. Cruz and Carroll B. Johnson (New York: Garland, 1999), 76–77. 98. Levin, ‘‘The Example of Cervantes,’’ in Contexts of Criticism, 2nd ed. (1957; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), 81. 99. ‘‘Literature and Life in Don Quixote,’’ in Cervantes; a Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Morton Bloomfield, Twentieth century views (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall, 1969), 123. 100. Riley, Suma cervantina, 125. 101. Preface to Levin, Contexts of Criticism, x. 102. See Giuseppe Toffanin, La fine dell’ umanesimo (Milano: Fratelli Bocca, 1920). Harry Levin, who called Cervantes the ‘‘exemplary’’ novelist, added: ‘‘It is a truism, of course, that he sets the example for all other novelists to follow.’’ Levin, ‘‘The Quixotic Principle,’’ 79. To Harold Bloom, Don Quixote ‘‘stands forever as the birth of the novel out of the prose romance, and is still the best of all novels.’’ In ‘‘Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,’’ xxiii. 103. ‘‘Besides, if I understand it correctly, this book of yours has no need for any of the things you say it lacks, because all of it is an invective against books of chivalry, which Aristotle never thought of, and St Basil never mentioned, and Cicero never saw, and whose unbelievable absurdities do not enter into the calculations of factual truth . . . .’’ (I, Prologue, 8). 104. E. C. Riley, ‘‘Cervantes and the Cynics (El licenciado Vidriera and El coloquio de los perros),’’ Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 53 (1976): 198. 105. To enter any deeper into the related questions of nostalgia and cynicism in Cervantes is basically tantamount to opening Pandora’s box. Among the many insightful analyses and interpretations, E. C. Riley’s previously mentioned ‘‘Cervantes and the Cynics’’ stands, in my view, as one of the best. 106. ‘‘ ‘I know who I am,’ replied Don Quixote, ‘and I know I can be not only those I have mentioned but the Twelve Peers of France as well, and even all the nine paragons of Fame, for my deeds will surpass all those they performed, together or singly’ ’’ (I, V, 43). 107. Antonio Munõz Molina, ‘‘Quixote at 400: A Tribute,’’ Pen America: A Journal for Writers and Readers, no. 7, World Voices: 140–142. Munõz Molina continues his argument thus: ‘‘That is why the heroes of so many modern novels are liars, deceivers, fugitives, impersonators, impostors, vocational becomers, perpetually unsatisfied . . . , forever trying not to be what other people have agreed or decided they are but something else, somebody else’’ (140). 108. Ibid., 141. 109. I am referring very generally to post-Burckhardtian views on the Renaissance.

3 Against the Heroic: Gilgamesh and His City MICHAEL HARVEY

Study the brickwork, study the fortification; climb the great ancient staircase to the terrace; study how it is made; from the terrace see the planted and fallow fields, the ponds and orchards. This is Uruk, the city of Gilgamesh. . .1

When the Gilgamesh epic was rediscovered in November 1872—‘‘I am the first man to read that after more than two thousand years of oblivion,’’ cried its translator, the heroically self-educated Londoner George Smith, leaping up from the Babylonian tablets before him in the British Museum and, according to one recollection, stripping off his clothes in frantic ecstasy 2,3 —what immediately struck readers with wonder were the text’s astonishing echoes of the Biblical story of the flood: the account by an old man of how, with a god’s assistance, he built an ark, filled it with animals, and survived the deluge that obliterated his city.4 In the decades after George Smith’s electric discovery, as more cuneiform fragments were pieced together and as more versions of the story were discovered from different ancient Near Eastern cultures, the flood story came to be seen as a ‘‘digression,’’ not the central story.5 Critical attention shifted to the figure of Gilgamesh himself, the hero-king in search of immortality. Rivkah Scha¨ rf-Kluger, for instance, sees Gilgamesh as an archetype, a Excerpts from Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse by David Ferry. Copyright © 1992 by David Ferry. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, LLC.

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‘‘modern ancient hero’’ struggling to make sense of his mortality.6 The epic’s most influential recent student, Jeffrey Tigay, approvingly quotes the Cambridge classics scholar G. S. Kirk that it ‘‘exemplifies through a single legendary figure, the various attitudes to death that humans tend to adopt.’’ 7 In recent years scholars have sensibly started paying attention to a long neglected aspect of the story, its treatment of gender relations and of women in particular—for instance, the figure of Shamhat, the temple prostitute who tames the wild man Enkidu; or Ishtar, the highly sexualized goddess whose advances Gilgamesh rejects; or Siduri, the tavern keeper he meets in the wilderness, who guides him on his way. 8 Sex, erotic power, and gender identity—as well as friendship and love—are central elements of the poem; perceiving this helps recenter our reading, so that the poem becomes much more than the story of a solitary, supermasculine hero-archetype.9 All of these ways of making sense of the story—the city-destroying flood, the hero’s search for immortality, gender, and sex—provide useful perspectives. Indeed, the epic of Gilgamesh has a stolidly unheroic hero who serves to connect these perspectives, as well as the story’s people—men and women, kings and commoners, dead and living. That ‘‘hero’’ is the city. Uruk, the city of Gilgamesh, with its assertion of the good life within the city walls, and its patient insistence on community as the enduring measure of human things is, from the opening to the closing lines, the thematic heart of the poem. As we shall see, even seeming digressions like the story of Utnapishtim, the ancient survivor of the ruined city of Shuruppak, serve to develop the thematic importance of the city as the preserver and teacher of human understanding and civility. (It is something more than idle coincidence that three cities—third-millennium BCE Uruk, seventh-century BCE Nineveh, and nineteenth-century London, each in its day the world’s most populous city—are responsible for bringing forth, preserving, and rediscovering the epic of Gilgamesh, the story of how a city tamed and taught its ruler.10 *** To read Gilgamesh is to enter a world at once ancient and modern, magic and real. When we read it, we feel both very old and newly risen on the earth, seeing with fresh eyes our own world and our own lives: the everyday magic of life and death, friendship and loss, terrible grief and painfully gained knowledge—self-knowledge, but also knowledge of others and of the fragile but vital threads that weave our lives together. The story explores fundamental questions about leadership that scholars—and all of us, to some degree— wrestle with. I want to draw attention, in particular, to four questions the poem poses about leadership. First, it gives us a vivid portrait of a strong, fierce, indomitable leader—‘‘the perfect, the terror’’—but no sooner does the poem set up this image than it undermines it, by asking, But what about the

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followers? Second, the poem explores the loneliness of heroic leadership, asking if the heroic ideal is not a trap for individuals and communities. Against the heroic, the poem argues for the transforming power of friendship, love, and empathy that can turn a hero into something even more precious: a man. Third, the poem suggests that the deepest and most enduring kind of leadership is not conquest but discovery, and that the leader’s most difficult journey is the one he must undertake to discover his own heart. And, finally, the fourth question the poem poses about leadership concerns this inward journey of discovery. The poem suggests that this almost Socratic selfexamination is not its own end, its own telos, but is embedded in a social and indeed a civic identity, and actually contributes to and strengthens the life of the community. The city, in short, is the only immortal hero of the poem, and Gilgamesh’s greatest accomplishment is to sustain his city and to recognize himself in it. Let us see how the poem explores these four questions—about followers, heroes, the quest, and the city. The poem begins with a description of Gilgamesh as a journeyer, a discoverer, a sufferer, and a possessor of ‘‘secret’’ knowledge:

THE STORY of him who knew the most of all men know; who made the journey; heartbroken; reconciled; who knew the way things were before the Flood, the secret things, the mystery: who went to the end of the earth, and over; who returned, and wrote the story on a tablet of stone.11

Immediately establishing Gilgamesh as having a special claim to experience and understanding, the poem turns to his actions as a city builder: He built Uruk. He built the keeping place of Anu and Ishtar. The outer wall shines in the sun like brightest copper; the inner wall is beyond the imagining of kings. Study the brickwork, study the fortification; climb the great ancient staircase to the terrace; study how it is made; from the terrace see the planted and fallow fields, the ponds and orchards.12

These lines merge past and present, linking what Gilgamesh wrought with a present-tense address bidding the reader or listener to experience and ‘‘study’’ the city’s extent. First Gilgamesh is a discoverer, then a builder. Now the third early portrayal of Gilgamesh follows, as a powerful, overwhelming physical force:

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Leadership and the Humanities the Wild Ox, son of Lugulbanda, son of the Lady Wildcow Ninsun, Gilgamesh the vanguard and the rear guard of the army, Shadow of Darkness over the enemy field, the Web, the Flood that rises to wash away the walls of alien cities, Gilgamesh the strongest one of all, the perfect, the terror. . . .13

Prefiguring Utnapishtim’s story of the flood at the end of the epic, Gilgamesh is likened to the deluge that destroys cities. Now Gilgamesh’s three faces—discoverer, builder, and master of force— are brought together in a portrayal of a godlike maker: It is he who opened passes through the mountains; and he who dug deep wells on the mountainsides; who measured the world; and sought out Utnapishtim beyond the world; it is he who restored the shrines; two-thirds a god, one-third a man, the king.14

Such power, however, comes at a high price. Gilgamesh’s people pay dearly for his mastery: There was no withstanding the aura or power of the Wild Ox Gilgamesh. Neither the father’s son nor the wife of the noble; neither the mother’s daughter nor the warrior’s bride was safe. The old men said: ‘‘Is this the wise shepherd of the people? Is this the wise shepherd, protector of the people?’’15

So the people ask the gods for protection against their own king. Tigay, the epic’s most celebrated scholar, calls this a ‘‘stock pattern’’ of oppression, complaint, and divine response often appearing in ancient Near Eastern texts:16 The gods of heaven listened to their complaint. ‘‘Aruru is the maker of this king. Neither the father’s son nor the wife of the noble is safe in Uruk; neither the mother’s daughter nor the warrior’s bride is safe. The old men say: ‘Is this the shepherd of the people? Is this the wise shepherd, protector of the people? There is no withstanding the desire of the Wild Ox.’ ’’17

The poem, thus, introduces a hero as a leader only to question that image almost immediately, by asking, What about the followers? ***

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The second question the poem poses is about the loneliness and isolation of the heroic leader. The people complain about Gilgamesh because he does not consider them, and does not treat them, as moral equals. He sees his kingdom as his personal property, to use as he wishes. So how do the gods decide to solve this problem? By giving Gilgamesh, who towers over ordinary people, an equal. They create Enkidu, ‘‘the stormy-hearted other.’’ 18 The gods go to the goddess Aruru: ‘‘You made this man. Now create another. Create his double and let the two contend. Let stormy heart contend with stormy heart that peace may come to Uruk once again.’’ 19

The story of Enkidu is astonishing. Once created, he lives on the grasslands, with the wild animals. A hunter spies him in the fields and reports the discovery to Gilgamesh. The plan to snare Enkidu is simple: He is lured by sex and beer, the temple prostitute Shamhat (‘‘who showed him the things a woman knows how to do’’), and seven jugs of beer that, the poem says, make Enkidu ‘‘suddenly joyful.’’ 20 Captivated by the luxuries of city life, Enkidu remains outside Uruk for a time. But eventually he comes to the city, angered by the jus primae noctis—Gilgamesh’s custom of raping the bride as his contribution to the marriage ceremony: Enkidu stood, guardian on the threshold of the marital chamber, to block the way of the king, the aura and power of the Wild Ox Gilgamesh, who was coming to the chamber to take the bride. Stormy heart struggled with stormy heart as Gilgamesh met Enkidu in his rage. At the marital threshold they wrestled, bulls contending; the doorposts shook and shattered; the wrestling staggered, wild bulls locked-horned and staggering staggered wrestling through the city streets; the city walls and lintels shuddered and swayed, the gates of the city trembled as Gilgamesh, the strongest of all, the terror, wrestled the wild man Enkidu to his knees. And then the rage of Gilgamesh subsided.21

Enkidu’s anger is worth remarking on: here in his natural, unschooled reaction is a suggestion of a sense of natural ethics, that ordinary people have some reasonable expectation to live their lives undisturbed by arbitrary power.

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The contest with Enkidu is a first turning point for Gilgamesh. Matched in strength for the first time in his life, he now has, also for the first time, a friend: Then Enkidu and Gilgamesh embraced, and kissed, and took each other by the hand.22

In a remarkable passage, Gilgamesh takes Enkidu to meet his mother, the goddess Wild-Cow Ninsun (represented in the poem as a human queen living in Uruk). The mother’s perceptive grasp of Enkidu’s lonely childhood creates a scene of charged emotional intimacy. (The cuneiform text here, Tablet II, is highly damaged and David Ferry’s generally excellent translation falters, so we turn to a version of A. R. George’s authoritative translation.) Ninsun speaks to the two men: ‘‘Enkidu possesses no [kith or kin.] Shaggy hair hanging loose . . . he was born in the wild and [has] no [brother.]’’ Standing there, Enkidu heard [what she said,] and thinking it over, he sat [down weeping.] His eyes brimmed with [tears,] his arms fell limp, [his] strength [ebbed away.] They took hold of each other and . . . , they [linked] their hands like. . . .23

Gilgamesh asks Enkidu why he weeps: ‘‘Why, my friend, [did your eyes] brim [with tears,] your arms fall limp, [your strength ebb away?]’’ Said Enkidu to him, [to Gilgamesh:] ‘‘My friend, my heart was made to ache . . .’’ ‘‘Through sobbing [my legs do] tremble, terror has entered my heart.’’24

Intimacy makes friendship possible, but it also brings the experience of intense self-awareness, wonderfully felt by Enkidu as ‘‘terror.’’ The poem suggests that understanding others must begin with an understanding of oneself. For Enkidu, the ‘‘wild man’’ who grew up with beasts, this dawning of feeling self-knowledge is another critical developmental step, after his discovery of the joy of prolonged physical intimacy (not just brief coupling) with Shamhat the temple prostitute. As if to gird themselves against such uncomfortable feelings by turning to what they know, the two friends decide to venture into the fearsome cedar

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forest. There, they will counter Enkidu’s ‘‘terror’’ by taking on and defeating the ‘‘terror of the people’’ that lurks there—the monster Huwawa:25 Huwawa’s breath is fire; his roar is the floodwater; his breath is death.26

The two men visit the armorers to obtain weapons and tell Ninsun of their quest. Making an offering to the sun-god Shamash, Gilgamesh’s mother cries, ‘‘Why have you given my son a restless heart? No one has ever undergone the journey that he will undergo.’’ 27

Ninsun’s last act before the young men venture into the forest is to formally adopt Enkidu as her son: ‘‘Though not my son, here I adopt you son.’’ 28 Gilgamesh and Enkidu enter the terrible cedar forest. Again, the text here (Tablet V) is quite damaged, but Ferry’s conjectural translation (faithful to the extant fragments) captures the spirit of how the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu heartens them: ‘‘Two people, companions,’’ they tell each other, ‘‘they can prevail against the terror.’’ 29 Working together and encouraging each other, the two strong men manage to kill Huwawa. At this point the poem reads like a buddy movie, or like a scene from the classic Western novel Shane, with the farmer Joe Starrett and the cowboy Shane straining their muscles, fighting the bad guys, and glorying in their manly strength together. Back in Uruk, the cleaned-up Gilgamesh catches the attention of the goddess Ishtar, who now finds him irresistible. But all of his erotic energy is sublimated into his friendship with Enkidu, and he dismisses Ishtar contemptuously: ‘‘You are the fire that goes out. . . . ... You are the house that falls down. You are the shoe that pinches the foot of the wearer.’’ 30

The enraged goddess sends the bull of heaven to destroy Gilgamesh. But he and Enkidu, fighting together, overcome even this monster. Boisterously triumphant, Gilgamesh, to dip into modern idiom, ‘‘parties like a rockstar’’: Gilgamesh spoke a word to the serving girls [of his palace:] ‘‘Who is the finest among men? Who the most glorious of fellows?’’ ‘‘Gilgamesh is the finest among men!

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Leadership and the Humanities [Gilgamesh the most] glorious of fellows!’’ *** Gilgamesh made merry in his palace.31

As skillfully as any movie, however, the scene of revels cuts to an ominous dream of Enkidu’s: ‘‘Why is it that the gods are meeting in council?’’ The gods, now alarmed by the two friends’ sheer power, cut them short by killing Enkidu, and so they send sickness upon him: And so it was that Enkidu fell sick. Gilgamesh looked at him and weeping said: ‘‘Why am I left to live while my brother dies? Why should he die and I be spared to live?’’ 32

Enkidu’s death scene occupies all of Tablet VII of the Babylonian text. At first Enkidu dreams and despairs and throws curses at those who brought him into civilization, including the hunter who found him and Shamhat, the temple harlot who tamed him. Reproached by the god Shamash, who reminds him of the good things that the prostitute has let him experience— bread, beer, clothing, and sex—Enkidu relents, and blesses Shamhat instead: ‘‘May [governors] and noblemen love you, may he [that is one league (distant)], slap his thigh! May he that is two leagues (distant) shake out his hair, may no soldier [be slow] to undo his belt for you! May he [give you] obsidian, lapis lazuli and gold, multiple-ear-[rings] shall be your gift!’’ 33

Gilgamesh tries to hearten his dying friend: ‘‘Do not forget how we, two people together, prevailed against the terror.’’ 34

But it is no help, and Enkidu dies: ‘‘Gilgamesh heard the death rattle.’’35 *** Enkidu’s death plunges Gilgamesh into grief, a new emotion for him. It also introduces the poem’s third great question about leadership: What is the leader’s most difficult journey? Gilgamesh’s earlier journey had been into the cedar forest, where he and Enkidu killed the fearful Huwawa. (The poem’s first translator, George Smith, interpreting as he discovered new fragments, incorrectly believed that this clash in the forest was the poem’s central episode and constituted a metaphoric overthrow of a tyrant.)36 But now Gilgamesh has no interest in hunting monsters. He undertakes a new journey, to

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find the secret of immortality. This quest, which takes up the rest of the poem, proves far more difficult and consequential than the episode in the cedar forest. And it will end, apparently, in failure or, at best, a lesson in humility even for kings. Gilgamesh sets out to find a man named Utnapishtim, by means of whom he might find out how death could be avoided.37

Who is Utnapishtim? He is a precursor of the Old Testament’s Noah—a survivor, the only man still alive from the ancient city, Shuruppak, that was destroyed by a flood. This was the part of the story that first attracted headlines in the 1870s. To find Utnapishtim, Gilgamesh treks to the eastern mountains. His first act reminds us of the old Gilgamesh: he kills several lions blocking his way through a mountain pass. After this, he is done fighting. At each stage of his journey he encounters beings—some human and some not—with whom he talks, and from whom he learns. He finds strange creatures guarding the mountain—two scorpion beings, male and female, who guard a pass through which the sun travels at night. They tell him that no mortal has ever come through this path, and that no mortal can do so. But they allow him to pass through. After a long passage of darkness and terror, he comes out the other side and finds himself in a lovely garden at the edge of the ocean. Here he meets Siduri, ‘‘an ale-wife who lived by the sea-shore.’’ 38 At first she is frightened by this strange, hairy-bodied, martial man; she bars her gate and retreats to the roof of her tavern. Gilgamesh threatens to smash her gate in if she tries to keep him out. But then, in a striking change of tone, he tells her about Enkidu, ‘‘my friend, whom I love so deeply.’’ 39 She is struck by his suffering and helps him on his way. The pattern continues with Ursha`nabi the boatman, who takes Gilgamesh across the ‘‘waters of death,’’ 40 and it continues when they reach the far shore, where an old man stands waiting. The old man—Utnapishtim himself, though Gilgamesh does not know it yet—cannot understand why a hero so mighty and celebrated would look so sad: ‘‘[Why are] your cheeks [hollow, your face] sunken, [your mood] wretched, [your features] wasted? (Why) is there sorrow in [your heart,] [and your face like] one who has traveled a distant road? [Why is it your face is burnt] by frost and sunshine, and [you roam the wild] got up like a lion?’’ 41 ‘‘I look like one whose grief lives in his heart,’’ Gilgamesh answers, ‘‘because of the death of Enkidu the companion.’’ 42

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Utnapishtim, still unrecognized, speaks to Gilgamesh about grief and mortality. His words link nature and human life, especially civic life, and emphasize the transience of all things: How long does a building stand before it falls? How long does a contract last? How long will brothers share the inheritance before they quarrel? How long does hatred, for that matter, last? Time after time the river has risen and flooded. The insect leaves the cocoon to live but a minute. How long is the eye able to look at the sun? From the very beginning nothing at all has lasted. See how the dead and the sleeping resemble each other. Seen together, they are the image of death.43

Hearing these words, Gilgamesh realizes that he has reached his goal— Utnapishtim. Now the old man tells Gilgamesh his story: the warning, the ark, the flood, the gods’ shock that he had lived, Enlil’s judgment that Utnapishtim and his wife become immortal and live apart from mortals. Utnapishtim sets Gilgamesh a test, to stay awake for one week, and promises the secret of immortality if he can do it. But Gilgamesh cannot. He falls asleep, and his quest suddenly is at an end. Solemn, stunned, he sets out on his return to his city. All that he has gained, besides the journey itself, are Utnapishtim’s words, in effect handed down from the ancient lost city of Shurrupak. This is what Gilgamesh’s quest to find immortality really gives him: a sense of the fragility of human things, and the recognition that all men and women, from the mightiest to the humblest, share a common human identity. Both live, both will die, and both wrest meaning from the slender margin of life. *** The contemplation of death brings us to the poem’s fourth and final question about leadership: What is the leader’s legacy? The leader’s quest, and his discoveries, turn out not be ends in themselves. They are embedded in a civic identity—the city or community that the leader serves as well as leads. As he is leaving, however, it appears he will take something tangible after all. Utnapishtim’s wife urges her husband to give Gilgamesh something to recompense some of his suffering, and the old man yields up one more secret of immortality: a plant that grows beneath the water—‘‘How-the-Old-ManOnce-Again-Becomes-a-Young-Man.’’ 44 (Today’s version of the plant is found in a variety of pharmaceuticals and cosmetic procedures.) Gilgamesh dives into the water and plucks the plant from the river bottom. But on his journey back to the city with the boatman Ursha`nabi a serpent steals it away:

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he sat down weeping by the pool of water. He took Ursha`nabi by the hand and said: ‘‘What shall I do? The journey has gone for nothing. For whom has my heart’s blood been spent? For whom? For the serpent who has taken away the plant. I descended into the waters to find the plant and what I found was a sign telling me to abandon the journey and what it was I sought for.’’ 45

Thus, when Gilgamesh at last returns to his city, he comes empty-handed. This quiet ending has seemed anticlimactic to many of the poem’s readers. But it is actually integral to the story’s theme—quite similar in form and function to how J. R. R. Tolkien closes the ‘‘Lord of the Rings’’ trilogy, with Sam Gamgee’s quiet return to the Shire: He drew a deep breath. ‘‘Well, I’m back, he said.’’ The End46

When Gilgamesh returns to his own city, a calm descends upon him. The city seems to restore him to a sense of meaning and purpose. In the poem’s closing lines, he tells his boatman, Ursha`nabi, to regard the city: ‘‘Study the brickwork, study the fortification; climb the great ancient staircase to the terrace; study how it is made; from the terrace see the planted and fallow fields, the ponds and orchards. One league is the inner city, another league is orchards; still another the fields beyond; over there is the precinct of the temple. Three leagues and the temple precinct of Ishtar measure Uruk, the city of Gilgamesh.’’ 47

These are the words that close the poem, uttered by Gilgamesh to his boatman, Ursha`nabi. But it may be recalled that we have heard these very lines before—in the poem’s opening lines: Study the brickwork, study the fortification; climb the great ancient staircase to the terrace; study how it is made; from the terrace see the planted and fallow fields, the ponds and orchards. This is Uruk, the city of Gilgamesh. . . .48

The poem’s structure is a great circle. Its first lines ‘‘repeat’’ Gilgamesh’s closing lines. They distill what he will learn (and teach) about himself, life, and

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leadership. And what is that? That leadership is, ultimately, not about heroics, or conquest, or mastery, but about the city. Ironically, and against all expectation, the quest succeeds. Gilgamesh does find life beyond his own life—where he started, in the city of Uruk. It is through this city that he built, made strong, and sustains that he will be remembered. But yet Uruk is a city like Utnapishtim’s lost Shuruppak that eventually, beyond the poem’s boundaries, is lost. But when George Smith and other explorers follow their own quest and recover Gilgamesh, they also recover a memory of his city. Poetry, like all art, may allow leaders—and more importantly the communities they serve—to live forever. But, of course, that depends on the contingencies of history: what is remembered, what is lost, what is recovered. It also depends on us, readers and listeners. By reading and exploring the stories of leadership, we play our own active role. We breathe life into long-forgotten or scarcely remembered—but perhaps not quite dead—men and women.

NOTES 1. Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse. Translated by David Ferry (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1992), 3. Most quotations from the poem are from this inspired translation (exceptions are noted). 2. John Maier, ed., Gilgamesh: A Reader (Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1997). 3. E. A. Wallis Budge, The Rise and Progress of Assyriology (London: Martin Hopkinson, 1925), 152–153; quoted in David Damrosch, The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh (New York: Henry Holt, 2006), 11–12. 4. For instance, the New York Times reported Smith’s discovery as ‘‘The Deluge: Discovery and Promulgation of the Chaldean History of the Flood’’ (December 20, 1872). Available at http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf ?res=9902E2DB163 BEF34BC4851DFB4678389669FDE. This early account reports Smith’s original, mistaken reconstruction of Gilgamesh’s name as ‘‘Izdubar.’’ The Babylonian tablets from Nineveh that Smith translated are now known as the ‘‘standard version’’ of the epic. They represent a late and highly polished version of the story, which in various forms stretches back to the third millennium BCE. The tablets are 12 in number, though the great majority of scholars see only the first 11 tablets as integral to the epic, and see the twelfth is a later accretion. (See A. R. George, ‘‘Tablet XII: What, When, and Why,’’ in The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, ed. A. R. George, 2 vols. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), Vol. 1, 47–54. 5. John Maier, ‘‘Most Commentators Consider the Flood Story in Gilgamesh a Digression,’’ in Gilgamesh: A Reader, ed. Maier, 25. 6. Rivkah Scha¨rf-Kluger, The Archetypal Significance of Gilgamesh: A Modern Ancient Hero (Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daimon, 1991).

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7. G. S. Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 144–145; quoted in Jeffrey H. Tigay, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 7. 8. Notable gender-sensitive readings include Rivkah Harris, ‘‘Images of Women in the Gilgamesh Epic,’’ chap. 7 of Gender and Aging in Mesopotamia: The Gilgamesh Epic and Other Ancient Literature (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), 119–128; and Tikva Frymer-Kensy, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (Old Tappan, NJ: Free Press, 1991). 9. See, for instance, Benjamin Foster, ‘‘Gilgamesh: Sex, Love, and the Ascent of Knowledge,’’ in Love and Death in the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope, ed. John H. Marks and Robert M. Good (New Haven: Four Quarters, 1987); reprinted in John Maier, ed., Gilgamesh: A Reader (Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1997), 63–78. 10. Uruk: Richard McCormick Adams, Heartland of Cities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 71; J. N. Postgate, Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History (London: Routledge, 1992), 112. Nineveh: Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census (Lewiston, NY: St. David’s University Press, 1987). David Damrosch tells the whole remarkable story in The Buried Book. 11. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 3. 12. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 3. 13. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 3–4. 14. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 4. 15. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 4. 16. Tigay, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Myth, 180. 17. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 4–5. 18. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 5. 19. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 5. 20. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 12. 21. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 14–15. 22. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 15. 23. The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian, trans. Andrew George (London: Penguin Books, 1999), 17–18. Roman text in square brackets indicates editorial textual restorations with high certainty; italic text in square brackets indicates restorations that are conjectural or not certain. 24. The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian, trans. George, 18. One phrase—‘‘my heart was made to ache’’—is taken from George’s full critical edition, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, Vol. 1, 565. 25. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Vol. 1, 571. 26. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 16. 27. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 19–20. 28. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 20. 29. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 26. Compare George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Vol. 1, 605–607: ‘‘[on] one, one alone [. . .] / [Two] garments, however, [. . . ,] / [though]

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it is a glacis slope [. . .] two [. . .] / Two triplets [. . .] / a three-ply rope [is not easily broken.] 30. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 30. 31. The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian, trans. George, 54. 32. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 37–38. 33. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Vol. 1, 643. 34. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 43. 35. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 43. 36. Damrosch, The Buried Book, 60. 37. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 48. 38. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Vol. 1, 679. 39. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Vol. 1, 681. 40. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 61. 41. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Vol. 1, 691. 42. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 62–63. 43. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 64. Unfortunately the translator’s next two lines, among his most lovely and powerful—‘‘The simple man and the ruler resemble each other. / The face of one will darken like that of the other’’—are a poetic invention, not supported by any text, though they are certainly within the spirit of the passage. 44. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 79. 45. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 81. 46. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (New York: Ballantine Books, 1965), 385. 47. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 81–82. 48. Gilgamesh, trans. Ferry, 3.

REFERENCES Translations The Epic of Gilgamesh. Translated by Danny P. Jackson. Wauconda, IL: BolchazyCarducci Publishers, 1997. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Translated by N. K. Sandars. London: Penguin Books, 2006. Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse. Translated by David Ferry. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1992. The Epic of Gilgamesh: An Old Babylonian Version. Translated by Morris Jastrow and Albert T. Clay. San Diego: The Book Tree, 2003 [Yale University Press, 1920]. The Epic of Gilgamesh: A Norton Critical Edition. Translated by Benjamin R. Foster. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian. Translated by Andrew George. London: Penguin Books, 1999. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Translated by Stephanie Dalley. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Secondary texts Abusch, Tzvi. ‘‘The Development and Meaning of the Epic of Gilgamesh: An Interpretive Essay.’’ Journal of the American Oriental Society 121, no. 4 (October–December, 2001): 614–622.

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Adams, Richard McCormick. Heartland of Cities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Beye, Charles Rowan Beye. Ancient Epic Poetry: Homer, Apollonius, Virgil. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1993. Bloom, Allan. Love and Friendship. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. Chandler, Tertius. Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census. Lewiston, NY: St. David’s University Press, 1987. Damrosch, David. The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh. New York: Henry Holt, 2006. Frymer-Kensy, Tikva. In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. Old Tappan, NJ: Free Press, 1991. George, Andrew. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts. 2 vols. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. George, Andrew. ‘‘Introduction.’’ The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian. Translated by Andrew George. London: Penguin Books, 1999. Gonzalo Rubio, J. ‘‘Gilgamesh or the Anguish over Death.’’ Journal of Near Eastern Studies 57, no. 2 (April 1998): 148–50. Harris, Rivka. ‘‘Images of Women in the Gilgamesh Epic.’’ Chap. 7 of Gender and Aging in Mesopotamia: The Gilgamesh Epic and Other Ancient Literature, 119–128. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003. Held, George F. ‘‘Parallels Between the Gilgamesh Epic and Plato’s Symposium.’’ Journal of Near Eastern Studies 42, no. 2 (April 1983): 133–141. Maier, John, ed. Gilgamesh: A Reader. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1997. Postgate, J. N. Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History. London: Routledge, 1992. Scha¨rf-Kluger, Rivkah. The Archetypal Significance of Gilgamesh: A Modern Ancient Hero. Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daimon, 1991. Tigay, Jeffrey H. The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Return of the King. New York: Ballantine Books, 1965. Vulpe, Nicola. ‘‘Irony and the Unity of the Gilgamesh Epic.’’ Journal of Near Eastern Studies 53, no. 4 (October 1994): 275–283. Wolff, Hope Nash. ‘‘Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Heroic Life.’’ Journal of the American Oriental Society 89, no. 2 (April–June 1969): 392–398.


PART II

WHAT REAL LEADERS TELL US ABOUT LEADERSHIP


4 Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, and Alternative Accounts of Lee’s Surrender at Appomattox GEORGE R. GOETHALS

On the afternoon of April 9, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln waited anxiously for word from the battlefront. It was Palm Sunday, and there was no news of General Ulysses S. Grant’s continuing skirmishes with Robert E. Lee’s forces near Appomattox, Virginia. If Grant could finally capture Lee’s army, the four-year Civil War would be very nearly over. But Lee had escaped destruction before, and the outcome was by no means certain. Just as the day was coming to an end, fretful officials at the war department received the following telegram: Headquarters Appomattox C. H., Va., April 9th, 1865, 4:30 P.M. Honorable E. M. Stanton Secretary of War, Washington General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia this afternoon on terms proposed by myself. The accompanying additional correspondence will show the terms fully. U. S. Grant, Lieut.-General

Needless to say, Lincoln was greatly relieved. Celebrations in the nation’s capital began immediately.

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Historians and biographers writing about Grant and the end of the Civil War have discussed two features of this telegram. One is its understatement: ‘‘the day’s outcome produced a curious flatness in Grant. He sent the most expressionless of victory messages’’; ‘‘there was a curious restraint in Grant’s tepid victory message passed on to Washington’’; ‘‘No brag, no bluster, no stirring words . . . just a simple statement succinctly summarizing the day’s events.’’ 1 The second is that Grant needed to be reminded to send it at all: ‘‘Porter asked Grant if he did not think the news of the surrender was worth divulging to the War Department. Grant confessed, without embarrassment, that he had forgotten all about it’’; ‘‘He had not gone far before someone asked if he did not consider the news of Lee’s surrender worth passing on to the War Department.’’; ‘‘It was left to someone else to remark that perhaps it would be a good idea to notify the authorities at Washington what had happened.’’ 2 Grant himself, in Volume II of Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, simply wrote, ‘‘After Lee’s departure I telegraphed to Washington as follows: . . .’’ 3 Not only have different authors characterized the writing of the telegram and the message itself in different ways, they have also varied greatly in what they have inferred about Grant’s frame of mind on this occasion, exactly how he behaved when reminded to wire, and what his thoughts and actions reveal about his personal qualities. And, of course, other writers have not characterized or even quoted the telegram, or mentioned that Grant needed to be reminded to send it. These different treatments of a small matter that took place on an immensely important day in U.S. history illustrate how our understanding of that history, and the principal actors in its unfolding, are influenced by the interpretation that different writers put on such matters. It is somewhat troubling that as we try to understand leaders and leadership we are confronted with the problem that our knowledge of central historical events is highly subject to the differing perspectives of various scholars. What can we know? How can we know it? This chapter considers these questions by examining the implications of a particular variation on the general problem of differing historical perspectives. That is, how do we weigh autobiographical accounts of events by the actors themselves? Is there something distinctive about these accounts, or are they best thought of as just one more rendering of history, to be compared on an equal footing with treatments by other writers? We will approach these questions by considering one of the most famous autobiographies in American history, the aforementioned Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. Its treatment of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox is fascinating in its own right, but it also stands in interesting comparison to those of other biographers, of Lee as well as Grant, and of various Civil War historians.

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In considering these accounts the overall aim of the chapter is to address two sets of questions. First, what can we learn about what Grant thought, felt, and did on that historic day, and what can we learn more generally about Grant as a leader and about leadership itself? Second, in our efforts to learn these things, what challenges are posed by the existence of so many different accounts of what took place at Appomattox? We will proceed as follows. First, Grant’s Memoirs will be described briefly. Second, we will compare several aspects of his account of meeting Lee at Appomattox with other accounts. Third, we will do our best to address the questions above about Grant and about the problems of learning about Grant. Finally, we will discuss the implications of our efforts.

PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF U. S. GRANT Ulysses S. Grant was born in 1822, graduated from West Point in 1843, and fought in the Mexican War in 1846 and 1847. After serving in the peacetime army until 1854, he rejoined his wife and four children and tried unsuccessfully to make a living in several independent business ventures. In 1860 he became a clerk in his father’s store in Galena, Illinois, where he was supervised by his two younger brothers. The next year the Civil War broke out and Grant rejoined the army as a colonel. Three years later he was head of all Union military forces, and in another four years he was elected president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. By the summer of 1884 Grant faced financial ruin and impending death from throat cancer. He was persuaded to write his memoirs to provide financial security for his family. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) arranged to publish the memoirs (and, in the same year, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) with his own publishing firm. Grant wrote the two-volume, 275,000 word memoirs in less than a year, while enduring extreme pain during the final months of his illness. He died on July 23, 1885, a few days after finishing the final editing. Since their publication Personal Memoirs have been regarded as a masterpiece of autobiographical military history. (They also secured his family’s financial future, earning nearly $500,000 in royalties.) For example, twentieth-century biographer William McFeely notes that Grant’s ‘‘force informed the work of other bold writers including Gertrude Stein and Sherwood Anderson.’’ McFeely also quotes from one of Gore Vidal’s ‘‘brilliantly iconoclastic essays’’: ‘‘it simply is not possible to read Grant’s memoirs without realizing that the author is a man of first-rate intelligence.’’ 4 The writing is direct, clear, fast-moving narrative. It is modest but not humble. The author shows great respect for his opponents, especially Lee. The day after the surrender at Appomattox,

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Leadership and the Humanities I thought I would like to see General Lee again; so next morning I rode out beyond our lines toward his headquarters. . . . Lee soon mounted his horse, seeing who it was, and met me. We had there between the lines, sitting on horseback, a very pleasant conversation of over half an hour. . . . I then suggested to General Lee that there was not a man in the Confederacy whose influence with the soldiery and the whole people was as great as his, and that if he would now advise the surrender of all the armies I had no doubt that his advice would be followed with alacrity. But Lee said, he could not do that without consulting the President [Confederate president, Jefferson Davis] first. I knew there was no use to urge him to do anything against his ideas of what was right.5

The Surrender at Appomattox Following victories in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi during the first three years of the war, most notably at Vicksburg in 1863, Grant became head of all Union armies. He came east, and starting in May 1864 engaged Robert E. Lee in a series of battles that ended in the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, the next month. The siege lasted until the spring of 1865 when, on April 2, Lee abandoned Petersburg and the Confederate government abandoned the nearby capital at Richmond. Lee’s army tried to escape to join forces with those of General Joseph Johnston. Grant’s and Lee’s armies raced west, battling along the way. On April 7 Grant started an exchange of messages with Lee suggesting that Lee surrender so as to avoid further bloodshed. After a final failed attempt to break away from surrounding Union forces at dawn on April 9, Lee agreed to meet Grant later that day to discuss terms of surrender. The meeting took place at the home of Wilmer McLean in the small town of Appomattox Court House. For this chapter we have primarily considered treatments of the meeting at Appomattox by the following authors in volumes published in the years noted: Douglas Southall Freeman, 1935, in his classic four-volume biography, R. E. Lee; MacKinlay Kantor, 1950, in a book for juveniles, Lee and Grant at Appomattox; Bruce Catton, 1969, in his second volume on Grant’s Civil War leadership, Grant Takes Command; Shelby Foote, 1974, in the third of his monumental three-volume The Civil War: A Narrative; William McFeely, 1981, in his Pulitzer Prize winning Grant: A Biography; Brooks Simpson, 2000, in Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822–1865, the first of two expected volumes; Jean Edward Smith, 2001, in Grant, today widely considered the best single volume biography of Grant; and Charles Bowery, 2005, in his military and management-oriented book, Lee & Grant: Profiles in Leadership from the Battlefields of Virginia.6 These treatments are compared with Grant’s own account in his memoirs. Relevant to such comparisons is a widely discussed paper in social psychology by Edward E. Jones and Richard E. Nisbett, ‘‘The actor and the


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observer: divergent perceptions of causality.’’ 7 Jones and Nisbett argue that actors tend to attribute their behavior to external causes—objects, people, and events in the environment. They see their behavior as appropriate responses to what surrounds them. Observers of another person’s behavior tend to attribute that behavior to internal causes, that is, personal qualities of the actor. The divergent perspectives are illustrated, for example, when an individual laughing during a movie attributes his or her laughter to the quality of the film while an observer of the person’s laughter attributes it to the individual’s good sense of humor. Jones and Nisbett argue while particular attributions are influenced by many factors, there is a pervasive tendency for actors and observers to lean toward external versus internal explanations, respectively. They specifically contend that biographers generally attribute their subjects’ behavior to personal qualities, while autobiographers attribute their behavior to situations or external contingencies. As we consider the treatments of Grant at Appomattox, we will keep this attributional divergence in mind. However, we must note that all recent treatments of Appomattox are influenced to some extent by Grant’s Personal Memoirs. Thus in this case biographers sometimes adopt the external perspective of the autobiographer. There are a number of specific incidents at Appomattox about which different authors have written. We will consider four: Grant’s migraine headache; Grant getting lost when Lee tried finally to arrange the surrender meeting; Grant’s mud-spattered appearance; and the dynamics of the meeting itself, especially Grant acceding to Lee’s request to permit cavalry and artillery soldiers to keep their horses.

The Headache Grant suffered a severe migraine on the night before and the day of the surrender meeting. He describes it in some detail. On the 8th I had followed the Army of the Potomac in the rear of Lee. I was suffering very severely with a sick headache, and stopped at a farmhouse on the road some distance in rear of the main body of the army. I spent the night in bathing my feet in hot water and mustard and putting mustard plasters on my wrist and the back part of my neck, hoping to be cured by morning.

A few sentences later he writes of the next day: ‘‘I proceeded at an early hour in the morning, still suffering with the headache, to get to the head of the column.’’ Shortly thereafter, when he received a message from Lee finally agreeing to meet to discuss surrender, he writes: ‘‘When the officer reached me I was still suffering from the headache; but the instant I saw the contents of the note I was cured.’’ 8

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Grant does not make any explicit attributions about the cause of his headache but implicitly attributes relief to Lee’s decision to surrender. Even more implicit is the attribution that his headache was caused by uncertainty and tension about what Lee would do. Some other writers treat the matter as did Grant. Bruce Catton: ‘‘his headache left him altogether the moment he read Lee’s last letter.’’ 9 Charles Bowery: ‘‘When he received Lee’s dispatch asking for a meeting to discuss the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, the headache magically disappeared.’’ 10 Brooks Simpson is more explicit about the tension and uncertainty linked to the headache: ‘‘If the promise of finishing the job in the morning pleased Grant, the notion that Lee would not surrender until compelled to do so suggested that finishing the job might be bloody work. Grant’s head continued to ache.’’ 11 Jean Edward Smith goes further. He suggests that more than the hoped for but still uncertain surrender was at work. In addition, Grant was characteristically troubled by such symptoms at such times: ‘‘Grant, who was sometimes beset by psychosomatic ailments leading up to major events, was suffering from a severe migraine.’’ 12 Thus Smith places the headache into a more complete picture of Grant’s psychological makeup.

Grant Gets Lost Another aspect of the surrender day is treated in a more varied way by different writers. The meeting was actually delayed for several critical hours because Grant could not be found. Lee contributed greatly to the confusion. On the 8th Grant wrote to Lee, outlining the terms of surrender: ‘‘there is but one condition I would insist upon, namely: that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms . . . until properly exchanged.’’ 13 In response Lee wrote Grant proposing to meet the next morning, not to discuss surrendering his army, but rather an overall political settlement to the war. But then at dawn on that next morning, as noted above, Lee ordered a final attack on Union forces in an effort to escape. At about the same hour as Lee’s attack, Grant responded to Lee’s message with one saying that he could not discuss political terms—only the surrender of Lee’s army. Several hours later Lee finally realized the hopelessness of his position and, in response to Grant’s most recent note, wrote the headache-relieving message: I received your note of this morning on the picket-line whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your proposal of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army. I now request an interview in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday for that purpose.14


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Unfortunately for Lee, Grant had taken Lee’s previous message proposing to discuss a political settlement as a sign that Lee meant to keep fighting (which Lee did), and that he must do the same. Thus he pushed forward to get to the front. But then he had to take a detour. In Personal Memoirs he explained: ‘‘to go direct I would have to pass through Lee’s army . . . I had therefore to move south in order to get upon a road coming up from another direction.’’ 15 Thus Grant was for a time out of communication with some of his staff. Almost no one knew where he was. Grant’s explanation for taking the detour makes an attribution to obvious external contingencies: he could not ride through Lee’s army. But not all writers accept so simple an explanation. For starters, we note that some writers do not mention that Grant was hard to find. MacKinlay Kantor does note the fact, without explaining it: ‘‘The trouble with the whole thing was that General Grant was hard to find. He was on a different road from the one where some of his subordinates thought him to be.’’ 16 Shelby Foote mentions the problem and essentially repeats Grant’s attribution: Grant ‘‘had to make a wide detour to avoid running into Confederate’’ forces.17 However, Foote does mention a further consideration. Grant was annoyed that Lee’s penultimate message suggested that he meant to fight on, and Grant did not think it important to wait around for further word. He needed to move forward, as best, and as fast, as he could. The wild card in discussing these excruciating hours is William McFeely. One would expect that with hopes so high for an affirmative message from Lee, he would have alerted officers to his whereabouts at every imaginable point. Instead, finding one road blocked, he went off with Rawlins, Porter, and Babcock to look for another, without leaving word of his destination. Perhaps there was a curious want of confidence at a moment when none but Grant could imagine such a thing; perhaps he dreaded still another rebuff by Lee . . . he . . . put himself out of touch with his own generals—and with Lee.18

McFeely also notes that Grant had made himself hard to find on other occasions, though he does not attribute those events to lack of confidence. But the implication is that there is something about Grant that causes him to separate himself from others at critical moments. McFeely’s treatment is important in a number of respects. Published in 1981, it was the first major biography of Grant in several decades, and it stood alone as a major study for almost 20 years. Because it stood alone for so long, and because it won the Pulitzer Prize, McFeely’s biography was the received wisdom until only recently. Furthermore, McFeely’s overall perspective is more negative than most all of the subsequent treatments of Grant. Although he treats Grant’s overall behavior at Appomattox quite favorably (‘‘From the moment Lee’s note arrived, Grant was in perfect command of himself, and

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from then on every move of the day was a quiet triumph played out with consummate skill’’),19 his global impression of Grant is best revealed in his Introduction: He wrote that Grant is a curious choice for the subject of a biography if the writer is not an admirer of warfare and is not inordinately fascinated by political corruption. . . . No amount of revision is going to change the way men died at Cold Harbor, the fact that men in the Whiskey Ring stole money, and the broken hopes of black Americans in Clinton, Mississippi, in 1875. . . . I am convinced that Grant had no organic, artistic, or intellectual specialness. He did have limited but by no means inconsequential talents to apply to whatever truly engaged his attention. The only problem was that until he was nearly forty, no job he liked had come his way—and so he became general and president because he could find nothing better to do.20

As we turn below to the matter of Grant’s appearance at the surrender meeting, we will see again that McFeely treats the Appomattox surrender differently from most other writers. And again, he ascribes Grant’s behavior to somewhat negative personal qualities.

Grant’s Appearance It has become part of the Appomattox folklore that Lee looked resplendent and that Grant looked, basically, like a slob. One of his aides wrote ‘‘Grant, covered in mud in an old faded uniform, looked like a fly on a shoulder of beef.’’ 21 Lee ‘‘wore a bright new uniform, with a sash and a jeweled sword, looking every part the patrician he was.’’ 22 In his memoirs Grant mentions the matter twice. When I had left camp that morning I had not expected so soon the result that was then taking place, and consequently was in rough garb. I . . . wore a soldier’s blouse for a coat, with the shoulder straps of my rank to indicate to the army who I was.’’ Two paragraphs later he writes: ‘‘In my rough traveling suit, the uniform of a private with the straps of a lieutenant-general, I must have contrasted very strangely with a man so handsomely dressed, six feet high and of faultless form. But this was not a matter that I thought of until afterwards.23

Most authors make the same attribution that Grant does. His baggage train had been delayed two nights before and he was moving fast to keep up with Lee. For example, Smith writes: ‘‘He had left all of his baggage behind on that night ride to Sheridan and was still wearing the mud-splattered uniform in which he started out.’’ 24 However, McFeely suggests that the matter is more complicated, and that Grant’s appearance is intentional, not accidental, and, like getting lost, is attributable to Grant’s want of confidence, rather than the exigencies of travel during combat. Furthermore, he characterizes Grant’s


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claim about not expecting to meet Lee so soon as a ‘‘disingenuous apology.’’ 25 In making this case McFeely cites several passages in Personal Memoirs where Grant mentions having left his uniform and baggage behind on other occasions. The key to his argument is a quote where Grant mentions being teased by a young boy for wearing his West Point uniform shortly after he graduated from the military academy: ‘‘The conceit was knocked out of me . . . by circumstances . . . which gave me a distaste for military uniform that I never recovered from.’’ 26 McFeely argues that Grant could have rearranged the Appomattox meeting if it were not going to be conducted exactly as he wanted it to be. He had wanted to be away from headquarters when called to talk to Lee; he had wanted to ride straight in from the field. His attire had been chosen as long ago as the day the little boy mocked the fancy-dress uniform of the West Point graduate; the worn clothing gave him the same sense of confidence that the elegant uniform gave Lee.27

McFeely is not the only writer who makes an internal attribution. Charles Bowery does as well, but he only suggests that Grant’s dress was in keeping with his character: The patrician Lee looked every inch the general in his immaculate dress uniform and sword, but Grant looked, if anything, like a common soldier. . . . Instead of a sword, Grant carried field glasses. He was, as always, all business. The way the two men dressed reflected perfectly their contrasting styles.28

The Meeting When Grant met Lee in the small parlor of Wilmer McLean’s home in Appomattox, there were nearly a dozen aides present. Most were Grant’s. Lee’s sole attendant was Colonel Charles Marshall, grandnephew of Chief Justice John Marshall. Nearly all of those present wrote accounts of the meeting. There was little disagreement about what was said. And subsequent writings all agree as to the sensitivity, generosity, and wisdom of Grant’s actions. In contrast, there is more variation in reports about what each man was thinking and feeling. And there are diverging attributions about why Grant acted as he did. While there is widespread consensus that this was Grant’s finest hour, there is some disagreement about whether his actions that day reflected a deep and genuine magnanimity or whether he simply rose to the occasion at that moment. Somewhat overlooked in the many treatments of the meeting are Lee’s actions and demeanor, and how both men effectively negotiated the details of the surrender. After the final exchanges of notes established that Grant and Lee would meet, Charles Marshall selected the McLean house as the venue. Lee arrived at around 1:00 PM accompanied by both Marshall and Grant’s aide, Orville

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Babcock. The three waited silently for about a half hour until Grant rode up, and entered the room with several staff members. Grant wrote: We greeted each other, and after shaking hands took our seats. . . . What General Lee’s feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassable face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one [of] the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.29

For a time Grant and Lee discussed old times, particularly meeting each other briefly during the Mexican War: ‘‘Our conversation grew so pleasant that I almost forgot the object of our meeting.’’ Lee refocused the discussion and asked Grant for the terms he would propose for the surrender of his army. Grant replied that they were the same as stated in his written messages: ‘‘I said that I meant merely that his army should lay down their arms, not to take them up again during the continuance of the war.’’ After falling off again into ‘‘matters foreign to the subject which had brought us together,’’ Lee suggested ‘‘that the terms . . . ought to be written out. I called to General Parker . . . for writing materials, and commenced writing.’’ 30 Grant remarked ‘‘When I put my pen to paper I did not know the first word that I should make use of in writing the terms. I only knew what was in my mind, and I wished to express it clearly, so that there would be no mistaking it.’’ 31 There are two remarkable aspects of the terms that have been discussed differently by various writers. After Grant put in writing the stipulation that the men of Lee’s army should lay down their arms and related equipment, he then concluded: This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside. Very respectfully, U. S. Grant Lt.-Gen.32

With these words Grant allowed the officers to keep equipment that would ordinarily have been surrendered. More extraordinary, especially given his refusal the day before to discuss any political issue, Grant essentially issued amnesty to all the men in Lee’s army, including most importantly, Lee


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himself. There certainly were many members of the federal Congress who thought that Lee, President Jefferson Davis, and other Confederate leaders should be tried for treason and hanged. What accounts for Grant’s actions? Before addressing these issues, one other fascinating and consequential aspect of the meeting must be described. Since it involves a great deal of nonverbal behavior, it is somewhat difficult to convey. Indeed it has been described in slightly but importantly different ways by different writers. In describing it here, we will use documented words from their exchange, but add our own sense of the emotions that accompanied them, based on the various accounts in the works we have been discussing. We will also treat their significance for ending the Civil War. Finally, we will take the liberty of trying to capture the sense of the moment as a scene from a play, with stage directions, starting where Grant finishes writing the words above. -------Grant rises from the small table at which he wrote the surrender terms, crosses the room, and places the order book in Lee’s hands. Grant (gently): fully?

Will you read this, General Lee, and see if it covers the matter

Lee places the book on the table before him, takes out his glasses, and polishes them carefully, one lens at a time. He crosses his legs, puts on the glasses, and reads slowly without expression. Finally, Lee (somewhat more warmly than heretofore): effect on my army.

This will have a very happy

Grant: Unless you have some suggestions to make in regard to the form in which I have stated the terms, I will have a copy made in ink and sign it. Lee (hesitating): There is one thing I would like to mention. The cavalrymen and artillerists own their own horses in our army. I would like to understand whether these men will be able to retain their horses. Grant (flatly, gazing squarely at Lee): do not allow this.

You will find that the terms as written

Lee (slowly rereading the terms, regretfully): That is clear.

No, I see the terms do not allow it.

Grant (pausing, musing aloud): Well, the subject is quite new to me. Of course I did not know that any private soldiers owned their animals, but I think this will be the last battle of the war—I sincerely hope so—and I take it that most of the men in the ranks are small farmers, and it is doubtful whether they will be able to put in a crop to carry themselves and their families through the next winter without the aid of the horses they are now riding. I will arrange it this

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way. I will not change the terms as now written, but I will instruct the officers I shall appoint to receive the paroles to let all the men who claim to own a horse or mule take the animals home with them to work their farms. Lee (relieved and appreciative): This will have the best possible effect upon the men. It will be very gratifying, and will do much toward conciliating our people. -------Thus Lee, who had very little bargaining leverage to begin with, succeeded in making a good deal better. Like the differences in appearance between Grant and Lee, their exchange about horses has become part of American folklore. In 1962 President John F. Kennedy made a witty reference to it. Kennedy had responded furiously and forcefully when the head of the United States Steel Corporation, Roger Blough, announced a large increase in steel prices. Kennedy felt this action violated a carefully negotiated labor contract his administration helped hammer out with the steel workers union. Under great pressure, Blough rescinded the increase. Kennedy wanted to maintain cordial relations with Blough and invited him for a meeting at the White House. When an aide asked how the meeting had gone, Kennedy remarked that he had let him keep his horses for the spring plowing. As noted above, these exchanges have been both described and explained very differently by the authors considered in this chapter. There is consensus that Grant was sensitive and wise in being so generous. By acting as he did, he ensured that Lee moved toward reconciliation himself. Both commanders’ examples of good will were followed quickly by most men in their respective armies and by many people outside those forces. But the reasons that Grant behaved so magnanimously have been treated very differently. These treatments reflect different authors’ mind-sets about Grant and Lee, as well, it seems, as their ‘‘worldviews,’’ or core beliefs, implicit or explicit, about causality and human nature.33 Grant himself merely describes the exchange with Lee. After writing ‘‘Lee remarked again that this would have a happy effect,’’ he simply continues. ‘‘He [Lee] then sat down and wrote out the following letter:. . .’’34 Douglas Southall Freeman picks up at the moment after Lee says, ‘‘No, I see the terms do not allow it; that is clear’’: Grant read his opponent’s wish, and, with the fine consideration that prevailed throughout the conversation—one of the noblest of his qualities, and one of the surest evidences of his greatness—he did not humiliate Lee by forcing him to make a direct plea for a modification of terms that were generous.35

Writing in 1935 from Richmond, Virginia, Freeman is, of course, extremely generous in all that he writes about his subject in his four-volume R. E. Lee.


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More generally Freeman takes a benign view of the people he writes about, with notable exceptions such as Lee’s subordinate general James Longstreet. Thus it is in keeping with Freeman’s overall view of the world that Grant had greatness. It took a great man to defeat Lee, and then to treat him so generously. Charles Bowery, writing 70 years later, shares Freeman’s sunny perspective on both Lee and Grant: ‘‘The exchange that then occurred reminded everyone present of the greatness of these two men. . . . Grant’s magnanimity and Lee’s concern for his men touched all of those present.’’ 36 Both authors attribute Grant’s behavior to fundamental, and highly admirable, personal dispositions. Jean Edward Smith and Bruce Catton have a more complex explanation. Grant’s behavior reflected not only his own personal qualities but also those of Abraham Lincoln. When Grant wrote that he ‘‘did not know the first word that I should make use of in writing the terms. I only knew what was in my mind,’’ it seems clear that very much on his mind was the recent meeting he had with Lincoln at Grant’s headquarters at City Point, just east of Petersburg. Lincoln conveyed his general thought that the terms of reunion should be as generous as possible to arrive at a stable, just peace at the earliest possible moment. His approach was ‘‘Let ’em up easy.’’ These authors argue that Grant was following Lincoln’s approach in departing from the ‘‘Unconditional Surrender’’ Grant of 1862 at Fort Donelson, the Grant that Lee feared might imprison him. Smith summarizes the ‘‘Lincoln plus Grant’’ attribution as follows: ‘‘Writing rapidly, he brought the war in Virginia to a close with less than 200 well-chosen words, reflecting the charity that Lincoln desired and his own innate generosity.’’ 37 Catton makes a similar assessment. Grant’s powers today were limited: he was allowed to do no more than fix the terms on which Lee’s army was to be surrendered. Yet in the final sentence of his letter [where Grant wrote that the men would be allowed to return home, ‘‘not to be disturbed by U.S. authority’’] he reached far beyond this limitation, taking everything that Lincoln felt and everything that he himself felt about the necessity to make a peace that would include no reprisals.38

Shelby Foote’s treatment is similar to the Smith/Catton Grant/Lincoln account but with a twist, adding a reason why Grant may have permitted soldiers to take their horses home: ‘‘Then Grant relented. Perhaps recalling his own years of hardscrabble farming near St. Louis before the war—or Lincoln’s remark at City Point—. . . he relieved Lee of the humiliation of having to plead for the modification of terms already generous.’’ 39 There is a third explanation of Grant’s generosity that focuses on an external cause, Lee’s sword. This goes as follows: seeing Lee’s sword, Grant suppressed a wish to take it, as Lee most likely expected he would. Having

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suppressed that personal wish, Grant expanded a momentary generous impulse to include under it other officers. MacKinlay Cantor: ‘‘momentarily the general stopped writing. His glance was resting, not on the proud hurt face of his defeated enemy, but on the beautiful sword at Lee’s side.’’ 40 Brooks Simpson expands this description: he outlined in simple language the process by which the officers and men . . . would stack their arms and record their paroles. That done, he paused and pondered what to write next. For a moment he looked at Lee, his eyes coming to rest on that beautiful sword. There was no reason, he decided, to humiliate Lee by asking the Confederate general to hand over that ceremonial side arm as a trophy of war. Nor was there any need to deprive officers of their side arms, horses, or baggage.41

Both imply that Grant was spurred to generosity by seeing Lee’s sword. It is possible that the sword account was prompted by the way Grant discussed it in his memoirs. The much talked of surrendering of Lee’s sword and my handing it back, this and much more that has been said about it, is the purest romance. The word sword or side arms was not mentioned by either of us until I wrote it in the terms. There was no premeditation, and it did not occur to me until the moment I wrote it down.42

Thus Grant mentions the sword but then says it had nothing to do with his generous terms. Perhaps in denying that the sword had any impact, Grant stirred the suspicion that it did. Sometimes what authors do not say is as interesting as what they do. William McFeely discussed in some detail an essentially psychological explanation—Grant’s lack of confidence—for two rather minor pieces of the Appomattox story, Grant’s getting lost and Grant’s appearance. However, after saying that Grant attained ‘‘perfect command of himself’’ after reading Lee’s final note, McFeely is quite spare in his account of Grant’s writing the terms of surrender and the subsequent exchange about letting the cavalrymen and artillerists keep their horses. When Grant is behaving ‘‘with consummate skill,’’ little is made of it. But McFeely explores in more detail the awkward elements in Grant’s behavior at Appomattox.

The Surrender I have asserted that the final exchange between Lee and Grant concerning horses and side arms was consequential and set a model for both armies, as well as others in both the Union and the Confederacy. Lee himself remarked that Grant’s generosity would ‘‘do much toward conciliating our people.’’ The tone that was set on that occasion played out three days later during a


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formal surrender that Grant had insisted upon. The Union officer in charge of the ceremony was future Medal of Honor winner, future president of Bowdoin College, and future governor of Maine, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. His Confederate counterpart was General John B. Gordon, future governor of Georgia, the man to whom Lee had assigned the final breakout attempt at dawn on April 9. As the proceedings began, Chamberlain was inspired by the sight of the Confederate columns moving toward him to surrender their arms. He suddenly gave the order for the Union soldiers on either side of the long lines moving past them to ‘‘carry arms,’’ a sign of respect. Chamberlain wrote, At the sound of the machine-like snap of arms, General Gordon started . . . then wheeled his horse, facing me, touching him gently with the spur so that the animal slightly reared, and, as he wheeled, horse and rider made one motion, the horse’s head swung down with a graceful bow, and General Gordon dropped his sword-point to his toe in salutation.

The sign of respect was returned. Chamberlain continued: ‘‘On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word, nor whisper or vain-glorying, nor motion of man . . . but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead.’’ 43 (Chamberlain’s eloquence, of course, inspired the title for Bruce Catton’s 1954 Pulitzer Prize winning A Stillness at Appomattox.) Thus the magnanimity of Grant’s comportment radiated through the ranks of both armies and beyond.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS We have considered how Ulysses S. Grant wrote about the surrender at Appomattox in his own memoirs, and how a number of other writers have characterized and explained the same events. The other writers include three Grant biographers, McFeely, Simpson, and Smith; two civil war historians, Catton and Foote; a Lee biographer, Freeman; the author of a book for juveniles, Kantor; and a management specialist from the military, Bowery. The authors remark upon different details of the surrender day, describe them somewhat differently, and make in some cases quite divergent attributions for Grant’s behavior. They quite clearly vary in their overall opinion of Grant, though they all believe that his actions in the crucial moments of his meeting with Lee were both generous and wise. The differences in their global understanding of Grant color their descriptions and attributions. Further, though this is our own much more subjective reading, their assumptions about human nature and causality in general also flavor their writing. The points on which there is most divergence concern Grant’s disappearance, his dress, and his magnanimity. Regarding Grant’s being lost for several

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hours, those who even mention it generally go along with Grant’s own explanation, that he was simply reacting to the external circumstances. He could not ride through Lee’s forces. Foote adds that he did not think waiting on Lee was in order since Lee had indicated an unwillingness to surrender. McFeely proposes a unique explanation: Grant absented himself on similar momentous occasions so as to regain confidence. Regarding Grant’s dress and appearance at McLean’s house, most writers endorse Grant’s own explanation that in the race of the two armies, his baggage had been lost. Once again McFeely differs. He explicitly dismisses Grant’s explanation as ‘‘disingenuous’’ and again links Grant’s behavior to a childhood humiliation and a compensatory attempt to gain confidence. Bowery also notes the impact of the childhood humiliation. The events at the actual meeting between Grant and Lee on the day of the surrender are the most fully treated. All accounts characterize Grant’s actions as both magnanimous and wise. Grant himself makes no attempts to explain them. He simply narrates Lee’s behavior and his own. Others have put forth a range of explanations. The simplest (Freeman and Bowery) is that Grant’s personal generosity and greatness were at work. The more complicated version (Catton and Smith) is that Grant’s own magnanimity combined with Lincoln’s wishes, themselves due at least in part to Lincoln’s own magnanimity, paved the way for Grant’s generous behavior. Other explanations include the notion that Grant’s difficult early career contributed to his actions (Foote) and that Grant’s suppressed wish for Lee’s sword led him to be generous (Kantor and Simpson). McFeely, who speculated about the earlier elements in the story, does not at all characterize or explain Grant’s behavior in the meeting. He does resume characterizing Grant’s behavior, as noted at the beginning of this chapter, in describing the ‘‘flatness’’ in ‘‘the most expressionless of victory messages.’’ What does all of this mean? First, it is notable that there is support for the Jones and Nisbett theory of actor/observer divergences in attribution. Implicitly or explicitly Grant consistently explains his behavior as the natural and reasonable thing to have done in the particular situation. Some of the writers cited here endorse Grant’s explanations, and others make attributions to various personal characteristics. Assuming that the descriptive and attributional divergences we see in this case are part and parcel of many historical accounts of people and events, we must be guarded about any sense of knowledge and understanding we have of leaders, and therefore leadership. But readers, like writers, form their own views, probably whether they want to or not. We know from the psychological literature that our conclusions about people are informed by what the culture teaches us, and those conclusions take hold automatically, without our awareness. We can at least be aware of the fact that there is quite literally a ‘‘received wisdom’’ that inhabits


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our perceptions and evaluations, and that it is probably a good idea to consciously consider and think critically about what we have perhaps unconsciously come to believe. Despite whatever efforts we might make to be open- and fair-minded, it is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, not to make our own attributions, to draw our own onclusions. As noted above, it is an automatic process. But we can at least do so with our eyes wide open—as much as possible—both to the biases transmitted from others and to the ones developed on our own. With these caveats we hope it is appropriate to relate our own construction of Grant’s behavior at Appomattox, the quality of his Memoirs, and his overall leadership. Certainly Grant’s behavior at Appomattox was generous. There is no divergence among authors on this point. There are differences in explaining the causes of his generosity, but not the generosity itself. Our concern is that Grant’s generosity is a behavior that psychologist Fritz Heider would say ‘‘engulfs the field.’’ 44 It is so powerfully salient that neither other aspects of Grant’s behavior nor nonobvious causes of his generosity get much attention. It seems to us that Grant’s generosity ‘‘engulfs’’ or overshadows a more basic quality of Grant’s personality—his intelligence. Like Lincoln, Grant’s goal was first to crush the rebellion, but then construct a peace that would get the South back on its feet and back to work as quickly as possible. This demanded extremely fine-tuned measures of firmness and flexibility. At the crucial moment when Lee asked whether artillerists and cavalrymen could keep their horses, Grant’s immediate response was no. He quickly reversed field, not because he felt sorry for Lee or saw a ceremonial sword or because of strong impulses toward generosity. Rather, he was smart enough to realize that it was the best way to achieve the goal of a stable peace. Certainly Lee wanted such a peace as much as Grant, but both those above (Jefferson Davis) and below him (many Confederate officers) were pushing hard for a continuation of the war, most likely through endless guerilla fighting. Grant’s wise concession made it easy for Lee: ‘‘I will arrange it this way . . .’’ Lee was induced to feel gratitude and relief, which forged in him a commitment ‘‘toward conciliating our people.’’ Importantly, that commitment soon led Lee to accept the presidency of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia (now Washington and Lee University), providing for the South a vivid example of peaceful, constructive reengagement in normal life. We also hope that the quotes from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant have given the reader a sense of their direct, forceful modesty, and thus that of Grant himself. Grant was not generally regarded as much of a speaker or conversationalist. He is regarded as a clear, fluid writer. When he was commanding general, one of his subordinates, George Meade, commented, ‘‘There is one striking thing about Grant’s orders: no matter how hurriedly he may

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write them on the field, no one ever had the slightest doubt as to their meaning, or ever had to read them over a second time to understand them.’’ 45 This same clarity appears in Grant’s statement of the surrender terms to Lee: ‘‘each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority.’’ Likewise, Grant’s presidential rhetoric is notable for its directness and clarity. What can be said about Grant’s overall leadership, and what of that overall picture can be drawn from the preceding discussion? Of course, Grant led in two quite different domains, as commanding general and as U.S. President. In a 2006 volume in a ‘‘Great Generals Series,’’ which includes books on Eisenhower, Patton, Stonewall Jackson, and MacArthur, series editor General Wesley Clark writes, ‘‘Grant was the general whose strategic brilliance, tactical acumen, and courage won the Civil War for the Union’’; and ‘‘Above all, Grant had the unique combination of almost instinctive common sense in battle and strategic vision . . . to . . . which every program of military leadership development ultimately aims. . . .’’ 46 This appraisal has emerged as the consensus view of military historians since J. F. C. Fuller’s 1929 The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant first made such an assessment.47 No such consensus exists about Grant’s presidential leadership. In recent ‘‘greatness’’ ratings Grant has risen from one of the two or three worst presidents to some position above the bottom ten. One recent article (seriously) suggested he should be regarded as our greatest president.48 Grant accomplished much of what he wanted in foreign and economic affairs but suffered serious defeats in efforts at reform, protecting Native Americans, and, most importantly, Reconstruction. But what is most remembered about his two administrations are various scandals. None involved him personally, but several involved people close to him. Can the qualities that produced Personal Memoirs and Lee’s surrender at Appomattox also be seen in Grant’s overall military and political leadership? I think they can. Wesley Clark points to Grant’s strategic vision and brilliance. Grant was highly intelligent and generally had well-grounded good judgment. Grant also had a coolness under pressure (in combat and in politics) that was remarkable, and that enabled him to use his intelligence and good judgment under the most trying and dangerous circumstances. Clark notes his ‘‘common sense in battle.’’ One of his officers, amazed that Grant seemed to be unperturbed by shells exploding all around him, said ‘‘Ulysses don’t scare worth a damn.’’ 49 Grant also had a raw force and drive. It was by no means flamboyant, but his energy and capacity to do things forcefully and quickly are notable. Writing in 1962, the critic and commentator Edmund Wilson argued that qualities of cool confidence and great energy marked Personal Memoirs.


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This capacity for inspiring confidence, this impression Grant gave of reserves of force comes through in the Personal Memoirs without pose or premeditation. Grant faltered a little in the later chapters . . . when his suffering blurs the text; but in general the writing of the Memoirs is perfect in concision and clearness, in its propriety and purity of language. Every word that Grant writes has its purpose, yet everything is understated. These literary qualities, so unobtrusive, are evidence of a natural fineness of character, mind and taste; and the Memoirs also convey the dynamic force and definiteness of his personality . . . the narrative seems to move with the increasing momentum that the soldier must have felt in the field.50

In addition to intelligence, common sense, and inspiring drive, in Personal Memoirs and in his meeting with Lee, Grant manifested an unusual trust in other people. If it were not for that, Lee and Grant might never have concluded the Appomattox surrender. They both had subordinates who mistrusted the other and opposed their meeting. However, Lee was reassured that Grant would be lenient by his ‘‘old war horse,’’ General James ‘‘Pete’’ Longstreet, who had been a groomsman in Grant’s wedding. Grant had no one to reassure him. On the contrary, on the morning of the surrender, Generals Meade and Sheridan strongly urged Grant to finish the destruction of Lee’s army rather than negotiate a surrender. Bruce Catton writes ‘‘If any general ever had the killer instinct it was Phil Sheridan.’’ 51 But Catton continued, ‘‘Grant wanted a victory that could be turned into a lasting peace, and Sheridan did not have the recipe for it.’’ 52 In the event, the wisdom of Grant’s decision to meet Lee would be tested by whether or not Lee used the ceasefire to try to escape. The memoirs state: I was conducted to where Sheridan was located with his troops drawn up in line of battle facing the Confederate army near by. They were very much excited, and expressed their view that this was all a ruse to enable the Confederates to get away. . . . and they would whip the rebels in five minutes if I would only let them go in. But I had no doubt about the good faith of Lee, and pretty soon was conducted to where he was. I found him at the house of Mr. McLean with Colonel Marshall . . . awaiting my arrival.53

Suffice it to say that Grant’s faith in others served him well on April 9, 1865. It did not serve him well at several junctures prior to the Civil War, on many instances during his presidency, and, most poignantly perhaps, when he trusted others with his finances just prior to commencing Personal Memoirs. In addition to Grant’s highly trusting disposition, there is another more elusive and dissonant quality, related perhaps to his faith in others, that contributed to some of the disappointments of his life prior to the Civil War, his presidency, and his business endeavors toward the end of his life. As recent biographer Josiah Bunting notes, there is an occasional ‘‘torpor’’ that overtook Grant at times.54 He could be surprisingly passive. This quality stands

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in great contrast to the determination, drive, and force he manifested consistently during the war, inconsistently as president, and once again in finishing Personal Memoirs days before his death. In sum, there is a consistency to the direct, grounded, intelligent, and generous prose in Personal Memoirs. Those qualities also governed Grant’s actions at Appomattox. Others have painted and explained those actions in different ways. Like the actors described in Jones and Nisbett’s theory of actor/ observer divergences in attribution, Grant simply saw them as the right thing to do under the circumstances.

NOTES The author gratefully acknowledges the research assistance and insight of independent study student Cara J. Scmidt. 1. William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), 220; Jay Winik, April 1865: The Month That Saved America (New York: Harper Collins, 2001), 191; Brooks D. Simpson, Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822–1865 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), 436. 2. Bruce Catton, Grant Takes Command (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), 468; Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume 3 (New York: Random House, 1974), 950; Simpson, Ulysses S. Grant, 436. 3. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. (Cambridge, MA: Second DeCapo Press edition, 2001), 559. (Original publication, New York: Charles W. Webster, 1885, 1886, two volumes.) 4. William S. McFeely, ‘‘Introduction to the First DeCapo Edition,’’ Memoirs (Cambridge, MA: DeCapo Press, 1982), xix. 5. Grant, Personal Memoirs, 559. 6. Douglas Southall Freeman, R. E. Lee: A Biography, Vol. 4 (New York: Scribners, 1935); MacKinlay Kantor, Grant and Lee at Appomattox (New York: Random House, 1950); Catton, Grant Takes Command; Foote, The Civil War; McFeely, Grant; Simpson, Ulysses S. Grant; Jean Edward Smith, Grant (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001); Charles Bowery, Lee & Grant: Profiles in Leadership from the Battlefields of Virginia (New York: AMACOM, 2005). 7. Edward E. Jones and Richard E. Nisbett, ‘‘The Actor and the Observer: Divergent Perceptions of Causality,’’ in Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior, ed. E. E. Jones, D. E. Kanouse, H. H. Kelley, R. E. Nisbett, S. Valins, and B. Weiner (Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press, 1972). 8. Grant, Personal Memoirs, 552–554. 9. Catton, Grant Takes Command, 462. 10. Bowery, Lee & Grant, 212. 11. Simpson, Ulysses S. Grant, 431. 12. Smith, Grant, 401. 13. Grant, Personal Memoirs, 551. 14. Ibid., 554.


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15. Ibid., 553. 16. Kantor, Lee and Grant at Appomattox, 83. 17. Foote, The Civil War, 938. 18. McFeely, Grant, 218. 19. Ibid., 218. 20. Ibid., xi. 21. Catton, Grant Takes Command, 464. 22. Ibid., 464. 23. Grant, Personal Memoirs, 555–556. 24. Smith, Grant, 398. 25. McFeely, Grant, 219. 26. Grant, Personal Memoirs, 17. 27. McFeely, Grant, 219. 28. Bowery, Lee & Grant, 213. 29. Grant, Personal Memoirs, 555–556. 30. Ibid., 556. 31. Ibid., 557. 32. Ibid., 557. 33. James David Barber, The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1992). 34. Grant, Personal Memoirs, 558. 35. Freeman, R. E. Lee, 139. 36. Bowery, Lee & Grant, 213. 37. Smith, Grant, 405. 38. Catton, Grant Takes Command, 465. 39. Foote, The Civil War, 948. 40. Kantor, Lee and Grant at Appomattox, 123. 41. Simpson, Ulysses S. Grant, 434. 42. Grant, Personal Memoirs, 558. 43. Winik, April 1865, 197. 44. Fritz Heider, The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations (New York: Wiley, 1958). 45. Mark Perry, Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship that Changed America (New York: Random House, 2004), 234. 46. Wesley K. Clark, ‘‘Forward’’ to John Mosier, Grant (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), xi. 47. J. F. C. Fuller, The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant (London: J. Murray, 1929). 48. Nathan Newman, ‘‘Ulysses Grant: Our Greatest President.’’ Available at http:// tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2006/07/04/ulysses_grant_our_greatest_pre/ 49. John Keegan, The Mask of Command (New York: Viking, 1987). 50. Perry, Grant and Twain, 234–235. 51. Catton, Grant Takes Command, 462. 52. Ibid., 463. 53. Grant, Personal Memoirs, 554. 54. Josiah Bunting III, Ulysses S. Grant (New York: Henry Holt, 2004), 153.

5 Ressentiment as a Political Passion RUTH CAPRILES

Fair is foul, and foul is fair. —Macbeth: (I.1) There are moments, historical experiences, when events seem driven by irrational forces or hidden wills that upset all values, emotions, and daily life, when the ‘‘Beast’’ 1 comes out and seems to be winning the round of our own destiny. Such has been the experience in Venezuela, with the rise of Hugo Cha´vez to power by democratic vote in 1998.2 The impression we have of a befallen phenomenon is due to our historical experience. Venezuelans have lived in a setting like the Garden of Eden from the beginning of historical time. It was, and still is, a land of abundance and multiple riches; a wonderful climate and beautiful, wild, nature; and an untamed but reliable provider. People of mixed races and colors were, or were always recorded as, ‘‘of good disposition,’’ even through times of tyranny and fratricidal wars during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. In 1958, the people ousted the last dictator of the twentieth century and embarked in the experiment of an open society and democratic government —a project that resulted in 40 years of relative political stability and social and economic growth. Venezuela was among the ‘‘Democracies on the way to Development’’ and one of the very few countries in Latin America that did not suffer from the military intervention in politics during those years. Such sustained and positive growth in the 1970s led Venezuela into debt to finance gigantic modernization projects that were far from its capacities to handle, skyrocketing its international obligations in part because the international banking and financial conditions had changed suddenly.

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Economic and social conditions changed in the 1980s; some experts spoke of scarce resources and the need to make changes in ways of spending. Since then, the ‘‘adjustment packages’’ and the pressure from the International Monetary Fund were imposed while all indicators of progress and modernity fell. The old tropical diseases became renewed endemics; education rates decreased and poverty grew geometrically, multiplied by indiscriminate immigration. Meanwhile the new international ‘‘epidemics,’’ inflation, debt, unemployment, and growth of a third sector economy, battered the country. The economic adjustment brought rejection from the people, and the ruling elites were unable to be firm and sustain neoliberal measures within populist regimes. Although they backed off from the adjustments, the political parties in government lost their constituency. Corruption and incapacity of the ruling elites were blamed for the failure of the country’s development. By 1990, public opinion signaled the desire for a change in the political system, maybe as an easy answer to the real change needed in the economic dimension. A social uprising on February 27, 1989, and two coups in 1992 (February and November) show malaise enough to have warned the establishment. That is how a lieutenant from the army came to be noticed through a failed coup d’e´tat in 1992. His name is Hugo Cha´vez. He emerged as a self-styled leader of the poor, a messiah to heal all evils of inequality and injustice. For many, he meant a change, a slap in the face of politicians. For the opposition, he meant a menace to democracy and an open society. In eight years of government, with the intent to stay in power for life, and despite strong opposition, he has now managed to curb all resistance. After Cha´vez’s first inflammatory speeches as a candidate in 1998, and later as elected president, Venezuelans experienced a sudden change in their ‘‘social mood.’’ It seemed as if one day the easygoing disposition of Venezuelan citizens disappeared and was replaced by ressentiment. It spread from Cha´vez’s words and deeds to his admirers and detractors. By such a contagious process, Cha´vez took Venezuela from the promising path of decentralization and empowerment of the people back to the worst state-controlled economy, polity, and society ever experienced in this country. How could this happen? How could Cha´vez induce Venezuelans to voluntarily give up their freedom and democracy? And perhaps more importantly: What can we learn from the attraction/repulsion bond Cha´ vez has with his followers and opposition? One answer may come from the way Cha´vez cultivated and manipulated ressentiment in his followers. In this chapter I will use literature and philosophy to explore the phenomenon of ressentiment; then I will briefly apply the model derived from that exploration to the case of Hugo Cha´vez to show how a leader uses it to gain and retain power.

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RESSENTIMENT IN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE An outright definition of ‘‘ressentiment’’ will ease our plunge into the cluster of meanings attached to that emotion and word. It will explain why this chapter uses the French spelling of the word. Both Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Scheler use the French word ‘‘ressentiment’’ to refer to a kind of brooding emotion. Scheler says that Nietzche has made it a term of art with no equivalent in German language:3 In the natural meaning of the French word I detect two elements. First, ressentiment is the repeated experiencing and reliving of a particular emotional response reaction against someone else. The continual reliving of the emotion sinks it more deeply into the center of the personality, but concomitantly removes it from the person’s zone of action and expression. It is not a mere intellectual recollection of the emotion and of the events to which it responded—it is a re-experiencing of the emotion itself, a renewal of the original feeling. Secondly, the word implies that the quality of this emotion is negative, i.e. that it contains a movement of hostility.

Friedrich Nietzsche Ressentiment enters Nietzsche’s moral theory, in The Genealogy of Morals, as a corollary of his postulates on ‘‘Good and Evil; Good and Bad.’’ 4 He defines ‘‘good’’ and ‘‘bad’’ as words appropriated by the superior ‘‘race’’ to designate itself; he equates good to the noble (‘‘the powerful,’’ ‘‘the masters,’’ ‘‘the commanders’’) and conversely equates ‘‘bad’’ to the common man, the plebeian, the weak, the poor.5 Nietzsche does not imply that the masters are good and the plebeians are bad; what he says is that the distinction good or evil is made by conquerors or rulers and emerges from their feelings of superiority. Rulers create values and enforce them as a ‘‘triumphal affirmation of themselves.’’ 6 They transform thus the political concept of mastery into a spiritual concept of moral value. Morality, then, is born out of a power relationship. Ressentiment subverts that order, devaluates the aristocratic values and ‘‘itself becomes creative and engenders values.’’ 7 But the new values are different from the aristocratic values because they are not affirmative nor active but negative and passive or reactive: While all noble morality grows out of a triumphant self-affirmation, slave morality from the start says ‘‘No’’ to what is ‘‘outside,’’ ‘‘other,’’ ‘‘a non-self.’’ And this ‘‘No’’ is its creative act. This transformation of the glance which confers value— this necessary projection towards what is outer instead of back onto itself—that is inherent in ressentiment. In order to arise, slave morality always requires first an opposing world, a world outside itself. Psychologically speaking, it needs external stimuli in order to act at all. Its action is basically reaction.8


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The catalyzing agent of that inversion is the hatred and impotency of the weak: As is well known, priests are the most evil of enemies—but why? Because they are the most impotent. From their powerlessness, their hate grows into something immense and terrifying, to the most spiritual and most poisonous manifestations.9

From that hatred emerges the ‘‘slave revolt’’ in morality, and ressentiment comes out as a forceful agent in history. It is not the weak, though, who end up dominating over the strong, active people throughout written history. The resented are not the plebeian, the poor, common people who accept their destiny. Ressentiment emerges from the split in the higher ‘‘caste’’ and the inversion of aristocratic values accomplished by those who abandon (or maybe are not fit for) war. As to the origin of ressentiment, Nietzsche points to the accounts of psychologists.10 In my view, only here can we find the true physiological cause of resentment, revenge, and things related to them, in a longing for some anaesthetic against pain through one’s emotions.11

In sum, for Nietzsche, ressentiment results from superiority and domination.

Max Scheler Scheler builds upon Nietzsche’s theory of ressentiment even though he disagrees with Nietzsche’s application of it to history. Scheler aims to ‘‘penetrate more deeply into the unit of experience designated by the term.’’ 12 He describes the phenomenon as a progression of feeling: Ressentiment is a self-poisoning of the mind which has quite definite causes and consequences. It is a lasting mental attitude, caused by the systematic repression of certain emotions and affects which, as such, are normal components of human nature. Their repression leads to the constant tendency to indulge in certain kinds of value delusions and corresponding value judgments. The emotions and affects primarily concerned are revenge, hatred, malice, envy, the impulse to detract, and spite. Thirst for revenge is the most important source of ressentiment.13

We have then an operational definition. Ressentiment is a disease of the mind and a mental attitude. There is also some kind of progression into the emotion or different levels of those reactive emotions. It is always preceded by an attack or an injury. Yet it must be clearly distinguished from the impulse for reprisals or self-defense. . . .

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Leadership and the Humanities There is a progression of feeling which starts with revenge and runs via rancour, envy, an impulse to detract all the way to spite, coming close to ressentiment.14

Scheler takes an interesting turn from Nietzsche’s approach. For him ressentiment is a dynamic term with a sociological dimension: the manner in which ressentiment originates in individuals or groups, and the intensity it reaches, is due primarily to hereditary factors and secondarily to social structure. Let us note, however, that the social structure itself is determined by the hereditary character and the value experience of the ruling human type. Since ressentiment can never emerge without the mediation of a particular form of impotence, it is always one of the phenomena of ‘‘declining life.’’ But in addition to these general preconditions, there are some types of ressentiment which are grounded in certain typically recurrent ‘‘situations’’ and whose emergence is therefore largely independent of individual temperament. It would be foolish to assert that every individual in these ‘‘situations’’ is necessarily gripped by ressentiment. I do say, however, that by virtue of their formal character itself—and quite apart from the character of the individual concerned—these ‘‘situations’’ are charged with the danger of ressentiment.15

Scheler even posits a law: There follows the important sociological law that this psychological dynamite will spread with the discrepancy between the political, constitutional, or traditional status of a group and its factual power.16

The collective phenomenon unfolds in several phases: First there is the repression of the original impulse to get back at the person who has injured or oppressed an individual or group; then the emotion is detached from any particular reason or any particular individual and it turns into a negative attitude towards certain traits and qualities no matter in whom they are found (i.e., class hatred) resulting in an inversion or falsification of collective values; then it is directed against any other person’s and group’s very essence and being.17 When the repression is complete, the result is a general negativism—a sudden, violent, seemingly unsystematic and unfounded rejection of things, situations, or natural objects whose loose connections with the original cause of the hatred can only be discovered by a complicated analysis.18

‘‘The slave revolt’’ and the installation of the ‘‘false’’ set of values in place of the ‘‘true’’ values mark the victory of ressentiment. The new ‘‘true’’ values— poverty, suffering, illness, and death—replace power, health, beauty, freedom, and independence.

Manuel Garcıá Pelayo This Spanish Venezuelan political scientist addresses the issue of ressentiment from a political perspective. He draws a distinction between


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ressentiment as a psychological trait (‘‘a constant revival of a humiliation’’) and ressentiment as a historical agent. The historical agent permeates ideas and institutions with an inversion of values that destroys old values and social arrangements, institutions, and groups of actors. This is a useful distinction because both Scheler and Nietzsche place ressentiment in the individual (be it physical or psychological), yet both apply the concept to collective behaviors and processes. Garcıá Pelayo focuses on the political content of ressentiment, which is contingent on the political position of the resented and in the cultural process of incubation. Ressentiment then is about power, violence, domination, and leadership. That is probably what Nietzsche meant when he spoke of the ‘‘slave revolt’’ being a whole group’s reaction of the weak to the domination by the supermen. For Garcıá Pelayo, the first precondition for ressentiment to emerge is impotence to satisfy revenge or envy. The second is the pretension of equality by a class of people who are in a position of inferiority.

Gregorio Maranõń Maranõń takes a psychological approach to ressentiment that seems to corroborate Garcıá Pelayo’s emphasis on the importance of the individual who is in a position of influence. He defines resentment as ‘‘a passion; a passion of the animus which may lead to sin and, sometimes, to madness or crime.’’ 19 He also separates the ‘‘cause’’ of resentment from the original aggression or offense given: ‘‘It does not depend on the quality of the aggression but on the individual who receives it.’’ Maranõń wants to understand the resented person by understanding the kinds of people who are prone to resentment. The resented is always someone without generosity. Without doubt, the contrary passion to ressentiment is generosity, which we must not confuse with the capacity to forgive.20

Forgiveness is a virtue and can be granted by a moral imperative, but generosity is a passion born from understanding—as only one who loves can know.21 The resented person is ill-fitted to love and, thereby, a person of mediocre moral quality. It is not simple evil. The bad man is only a criminal . . . The resented is not necessarily a bad person; he can even be good if life is favorable. It is only in face of injustice and adversity when he becomes resented. 22

Maranõń points to the same characteristics of resentment and the resented person we have found in all authors: the long incubation time of resentment between the offense and the revenge, or the ‘‘poor in spirit,’’ who accepts adversity, and the intelligent person, who believes he deserves more than what he gets and becomes resented.23

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William Shakespeare Shakespeare is the master writer on human strong passions. Several of his characters express ressentiment. Shylock is the classic figure of group ressentiment. He is impotent but powerful, conniving, and revengeful for an offense committed at the beginning of time and reenacted over and over through centuries. The individual reenactment of an ancient grudge is best expressed in one of Shylock’s parliaments. Notice the impossibility to forgive that may be the reason for the ‘‘incurable disease.’’ I hate him for he is a Christian, But more for that in low simplicity He lends out money gratis and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice. If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. He hates our sacred nation, and he rails . . .Cursed be my tribe, If I forgive him!24

The conjunction of the individual, the sociological, and the political contents in ressentiment is wonderfully revealed in that first meeting of Antonio and Shylock: Shylock: Signior Antonio, many a time and oft In the Rialto you have rated me About my moneys and my usances: Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, And all for use of that which is mine own. Well then, it now appears you need my help: ... What should I say to you? Should I not say ‘Hath a dog money? is it possible A cur can lend three thousand ducats?’. . . 25

The grudge is between different values of different cultures. Antonio squanders and ‘‘lends out money gratis’’; he spits and despises Shylock who finds a blessing in thrift and usury. ‘‘Sufferance is the badge’’ of a whole tribe over time, breeding ressentiment in their hearts.


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The power relation is thus revealed. Antonio belongs to the dominant culture; he is a prosperous honorable merchant, fair, loved, and moved by love. Shylock remonstrates alone in the shadow of tribal disgrace; he is depicted as mean and ugly, chased and hated; but he has some leverage over the other: he has the money the ‘‘good men’’ need. Shakespeare also depicts ressentiment in the Moor, Aaron, in Titus Andronicus. He pronounces that cry full of agony of reaction to racism: ’Zounds, ye whore! is black so base a hue?26

The character Aaron helps us appreciate the difference between revenge and ressentiment when one compares his motives to Tamora’s, Queen of the Goths. Although both are captives of the Romans, Tamora is driven by revenge towards Titus and the Romans for the execution of her son. She pleaded as a mother and as a valid enemy of Rome, yet she did not obtain mercy or justice (in accordance to the custom to spare royal blood except in battle) so she is full of hate and seeks revenge. Aaron’s motives are different. He was himself captive or servant to the Queen, although he has risen to be her lover and master. Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts! I will be bright, and shine in pearl and gold, To wait upon this new-made empress. To wait, said I? To wanton with this queen. . .27

Aaron is in reality the main character of the play; he is the leader in the action and the plot unravels by his agency. Titus and Tamora end up being his victims. He expresses well the cluster of feelings that contribute to the emotion we have called ressentiment: Madam, though Venus govern your desires, Saturn is dominator over mine: What signifies my deadly-standing eye, My silence and my cloudy melancholy, My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls Even as an adder when she doth unroll To do some fatal execution? No, madam, these are no venereal signs: Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.

Here we see the process of value inversion by ‘‘the art of slander’’:

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Leadership and the Humanities Some devil whisper curses in mine ear, And prompt me, that my tongue may utter forth The venomous malice of my swelling heart!28

And the superb, dramatic effect of a passion that can never be satisfied, nor quenched: Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did Would I perform, if I might have my will; If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul.29

Ayn Rand This author is worth reviewing because her novel Atlas Shrugged is a treatise on ressentiment. According to Rand, the novel was meant to develop her philosophy of ‘‘Objectivism.’’ Her philosophical penchant affects the literary quality of the novel. It flattens the personalities of the characters who keep on repeating the same postulates that do not really amount to a complete philosophical system. Nevertheless, it catches the reader in such a way that even today Rand awakens admiration among the young and is a model for the entrepreneurial spirit. The plot of the novel is set in a future United States, whose economy and society is collapsing as a result of the political domination of the resented and their installation of a set of values that submit the rich and enterprising innovators to the common good and the welfare of the poor and the weak. It is the battle between individualism and collectivism with an optimistic final victory of the individual mind and his ‘‘motive power’’ that moves society: the power of the human mind and will to conquer and create. In response to the inversion and imposition of a set of values that are contrary to the logic of reason and to the excellence of human action and creativity, a group of heroes, prima movers, decide to go on strike. They cease to contribute to the ideas and values of collectivism and social welfare sustained and dictated by the resented. In Rand, as in Nietzsche, human beings are of two kinds: 1. The heroes are warriors, entrepreneurs, innovators, creators, who have feelings such as envy, jealousy, anger, sadness, but of a pure kind different from base emotions such as pity, revenge, ressentiment, and they strive forward into the infinite process of excellence and happiness. Heroes are wise in an existential sense, and they reach happiness by the continuous practice of excellence or action based on moral principles.


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2. The looters are moved by envy, spite, ressentiment. They are incapable of sustaining themselves or society without the action of the heroes and are too lazy to do the job the best way possible. They argue collectivism out of mediocrity and lack of the motivation, reason, and the spiritual conviction of creative men who move the world. The looters have inverted values and continuously proclaim the priority of the ‘‘common good’’ over the individual greed.

Atlas Shrugged is supposed to stage the battle of reason versus passion, which is the battle of individualism versus collectivism, or good versus evil. But notice the catch in this particular eternal battle. In Rand’s battle, passion is in one side only: evil’s part. The heroes in Rand do not have passions; they have feelings, so pure and genuine that they are both enjoyed and controlled by their superior rationality. As Nietzsche’s ‘‘priests caste,’’ Rand’s villains are mediocre, impotent, and revengeful; their purpose is to get power and, to achieve it, they invert values, transmute a political concept into a spiritual concept, and convert revenge in a spiritual act. Such transmutation is expressed by the humble, but sharp, wife of Taggart to one of the looters: All of you welfare preachers—it’s not unearned money that you are after. You want handouts, but of a different kind . . . it is the spirit that you want to loot . . . the unearned in spirit.30

Rand’s characters need not explain among equals their motives or behavior. It is unnecessary because each one is equally intelligent and shares the same principles, logic, and thoughts. Heroes do not need to convince the looters of their false code of morals. Heroes know humanitarian love, love of mankind, public welfare, altruism, collectivism, pity, compassion, and generosity are part of an inverted code of morals and do not even try to convince others; they just act and show them what excellence is. Like Scheler, Rand relates ressentiment to a vacuum, a feeling of nothingness. Nevertheless, Scheler would not agree with Rand’s moral code. Whereas for Nietzsche and Rand, value lies in action, in the merit acquired by one’s own effort, and both blame the resented for holding values in themselves: love of humanity, brother compassion, people’s welfare.

Honore´ de Balzac Balzac’s Human Comedy is a tableau showing the smallness and meanness of human beings; their different reactions to inequality and injustice in eighteenth century bourgeois French society. There are no heroes in that tableau; even winners are losers and all actors are victims one way or another. This is not naı¨ve optimistic fiction, as Rand’s. This novel offers a bleak albeit humorous look at society. It is ironic that in defense of individualism, Rand

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draws two types of shallow, uniform characters, whereas Balzac’s characters present a rich tapestry of psychological distinctions. The resented are less powerful in Balzac than in Rand, maybe because for him evil or perversity is a characteristic of society, not a quality of individuals. He does not even use the word in the ‘‘French sense,’’ as understood by Nietzsche and Scheler. It is ironic that Balzac uses the English meaning of the word—the verb ‘‘to resent’’—and does not refer to the kind of emotion we have been discussing. Balzac uses ‘‘resentment’’ to describe a simple feeling or reaction to an immediate stimulus, such as someone saying: ‘‘I resent your words’’ or ‘‘I resent your indifference.’’ Notwithstanding such lack of explicit conceptualization of the emotion in relation to the word, ressentiment is behind many of his characters. One of the most striking examples is Lisbeth Fischer or ‘‘la cousine Bette’’ from the novel of the same name. ‘‘La cousine Bette’’ is another type of the resented person that has sort of a passive ressentiment, the kind that derives more from envy than from revenge. It is not the looter-resented person but the parasite-resented person: the one who does not do evil with her inverted values but simply sits back to enjoy the roundabouts of life and history that allow you to see the corpse of thy enemy pass by your window. Bette is the audience in the eternal battle of vice and virtue, a malicious aid to evil’s round. She gave up all idea of rivalry and comparison with her cousin after feeling her great superiority; but envy still lurked in her heart, like a plague-germ that may hatch and devastate a city if the fatal bale of wool is opened in which it is concealed.31 In 1837, after living for twenty-seven years, half maintained by the Hulots and her Uncle Fischer, Cousin Betty, resigned to being nobody, allowed herself to be treated so. She herself refused to appear at any grand dinners, preferring the family party, where she held her own and was spared all slights to her pride.32

In his initial description of his main character, Balzac outlines the basic traits we have seen in ressentiment: a situation of inferiority or grievance. Bette is ugly and poor. She relies on the benevolence of her beautiful and good cousin and the benevolence of Baron Hulot. She slanders the people who have the values she blames for her inferiority or offense. This leads to a diminishing of desired and unattainable value, the negation of value itself, and insatiable revenge. Lisbeth Fischer, though the daughter of the eldest of the three brothers, was five years younger than Madame Hulot; she was far from being as handsome as her cousin, and had been desperately jealous of Adeline. Jealousy was the fundamental passion of this character, marked by eccentricities. . .33 Gifted with a cunning which had become unfathomable, as it always does in those whose celibacy is genuine, with the originality and sharpness with which


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she clothed her ideas, in any other position she would have been formidable. Full of spite, she was capable of bringing discord into the most united family.34

Her eccentricities were her expression of the inversion of values. She stressed her lack of beauty by mocking herself and by wearing dresses especially redesigned to be outmoded and make her look like an old maid. She lived off charity and rejected the support offered by Baron Hulot to open her own embroidery atelier and his attempts to find her a husband. As in the tale of the fox and the grapes, interpreted by Scheler and Pelayo, her initial step in the process of ressentiment was to invert her values and behave as if beauty, independent wealth, marriage, and social prestige were not important to her, as if her lack of all those qualities made her happiness.

V. S. Naipaul Ressentiment and colonialism are the main characters in the IndianTrinidadian novelist V. S. Naipaul’s writing. Most of his books are mirrors on the detritus of colonialism. They seem to say to the conquerors, ‘‘Hey, here is what you brought about.’’ But they also serve as a mirror to the weak, to serfs, slaves, and people of the South—‘‘Hey, here is the face of your ressentiment.’’ Naipaul’s bleakest book, Guerrillas (1980), offers insight into ressentiment. In the novel, all characters are mean, resented, lost in either denial or a hopeless quest for vengeance of a primeval injustice and harm. They live in a ‘‘place at the end of the world, a place that had exhausted its possibilities.’’ 35 Among them, Jimmy epitomizes South American defeated left. He is the Muslim, dark Chinese, Trinitarian, leader of a ‘‘Thrushcross Grange, People’s Commune, for the land and the Revolution,’’ a project supported by politicians and financed by corporations because he is considered ‘‘The only man that stands between them and the revolution.’’ A bogus project: ‘‘Everybody is pretending that something exists that doesn’t exist.’’ 36 The fictional truth is that Jimmy is not really a leader, the grange is not ‘‘communal,’’ productive of crops for the people, or revolutionary. It is not even a refuge for guerrillas, which are extinct by that time and were only a diffuse menace. Thrushcross Grange is barely a space in the jungle where a few derelicts stay in a kind of non-being and no-story, but end up killing for no reason at all. Nothing happens in the novel. It epitomizes the triviality of evil, the banality of power and leadership with no echo, no mirror. Naipaul writes: ‘‘He’s like the others. He’s looking for someone to lead.’’ 37 Naipaul offers a different perspective on ressentiment. In Nietzsche and Rand, emotion is the key motivation in the long battle for power, an important battle between two opposite strategies of cultural survival:

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individualism, creation, and love versus collectivism, destruction, and rancor. In Nieztsche, Rand, and Scheler, history shows us epochs when ressentiment has dominated the world, times when the supercreative man prevailed. Naipaul’s view is much darker. In Naipaul’s world ressentiment is human nature and cultural reality. There is no hope for construction or bettering. There is no battle. ‘‘There is nothing for me there.’’ Naipaul teaches us that there is no gratification in ressentiment.

RESSENTIMENT AND THE PROCESS OF POLITICAL PASSION Through the literature reviewed, one can discern a ‘‘shadow’’ of meanings of ressentiment, a cluster concept, shared by all authors. All authors, starting with Nietzsche, found ressentiment a major political force driving societies. From the previous schema we can see its collective character: It causes a collective inversion of values; is caused or motivated by social situations of impotence, inequality or inferiority; is conditioned by relational qualities as a lack of social opportunities or ‘‘class’’ consciousness; and has important social effects. But what kind of ‘‘force’’ are we talking about? At the individual psychological level, we can posit ressentiment as a motive of behavior; but those categories are not good to explain collective behaviors and processes. Scheler’s words are pointed towards this question: ‘‘Quite independently of the characters and experiences of individuals, a potent charge of ressentiment is here accumulated by the very structure of society.’’ 38 Ressentiment is not only an individual motive but also a social condition that places a high probability that an individual will be resented or will resent. He talks of ‘‘lasting situations which are felt to be injurious but beyond one’s control.’’ 39 There is accumulation of grievances and long lasting unfair situations, but he does not understand those as causes but as preconditions. How do individual emotions aggregate and explode suddenly into a ‘‘slave revolt’’? It is not an easy question. The answer may lie in leadership and political passion. Passion is the moment when emotions, not reason, take over the control of behavior, be it individual or collective. Passion answers to the question ‘‘when?’’ not to ‘‘what?’’ Regarding collective behavior, we can say that a passion controls collective, groups or mob, behavior when it does not follow the usual, rational proceedings in that society or when it does not pursue the social goals chosen by public choice or posited social goals. Let us start by discerning several ways ressentiment becomes a political passion. a. A power relation: Having impotence and disadvantage at its origin, its activation implies getting power. Scheler depicts ressentiment as a power

1.1

R is Repression of emotion

1.2

R implies, causes, provokes, is the source of An inversion of values

1.3

R is provoked by, caused by, motivated by Impotence in face of aggression Incapacity Inequality Inferiority

1.4

R is conditioned by Unattainability of positive values Inacceptance of ranks among pairs Pretensions of equality Weakness of the dominant consciousness Decrease of dominant’s right to lead

1.5

R has signs or effects No gratification of revenge or envy Incurable disease Important social effects Domination by blackmail or looting

1.6

R is a phenomenology Aggression Repression Incubation Redirection to diffuse or collective universe Revolt Substitution of previous value code Investing value code with the new ruler’s power

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b.

c.

d.

e.

Leadership and the Humanities process from an aggression through revolt until the substitution of value codes. And as Maranõń and Garcıá Pelayo noticed, when the resented are in positions of power, they will have tremendous effect in historical events. A total process: As it is directed to a diffuse other, it becomes a reaction against the whole of society in a battle for ultimate material and spiritual power. An inversion or inversions of values: What comes out of the ‘‘black box’’ of the ressentiment process is in sum an inversion of values and/or a recurrent battle among values: A double inversion should recover original values or create new ones that will be inverted again ad infinitum. A historical ‘‘disease’’: Its incurability and pervading character, emphasized by Nietzsche and accepted by all authors, allows it to become an extended social characteristic, passed over through generations. ‘‘Cursed be my tribe, if I forgive him,’’ exclaims Shylock. The way people react to an aggression or an inferior position in life is certainly an individual and psychological question, but both the aggression and the inferior position are social conditions. Ressentiment lurks behind many socialist parties and the rancor that some public functionaries and terrorists have against entrepreneurs and capitalists. Osama Bin Laden’s terrorism and Cha´vez’s revolution are all but the same expression of the ‘‘concept of political superiority’’ of ressentiment. A leadership relationship: Ressentiment needs voices to express the inverted values and attract followers into ‘‘the slave revolt.’’ Ressentiment that seems to start as a shared social emotion becomes a collective passion through the leader-follower relationship. Leadership is a double mirror relationship. Leaders become so when there are followers to empower them and to reflect their ideas, goals, passions, and wishes. The regard of followers allows people to be leaders and to see themselves as such. Equally, leaders empower followers and give them the assurance they need to overcome impotency and initiate revolt. Ressentiment becomes a social passion when that double reflection takes place between leader and followers. Nietzsche’s priests, Scheler’s humanitarians, and Rand’s looters are people who have emerged from impotence, people who have become potent or feel and believe they can do it. The real resented characters are always losers: Cousine Bette, Jimmy, Aaron, even Rand’s looters when they are defeated. According to Rand, looters are not potent but suck the strength of doers. The resented may win, but if they cannot surmount their ressentiment they will be defeated again and die like cousine Bette, surrounded by the love of the ‘‘superior’’ group. Max Weber’s type of charismatic leader40 applies to this kind of leadership that relies on emotions, not institutions. If it wants to last, it must convert itself into a rational institutional authority. Institutionalization may depend on conditions of several kinds but rational leadership is paramount. In the time span of the polity, it may have to do with the capacity of leaders to distribute with a certain amount of equity and social justice or with their blindness and deafness regarding the demands of followers. The qualities of the leaders, their sincerity and expertise in the leading, their language and their actions, are important factors. But it will also depend on the followers who


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can choose to go out of the realm of ressentiment. So, to overcome ressentiment we need good leaders, it is true, but we also need good followers to choose the right leader and empower him or her. f. A revolution of expectations: Another social condition for ressentiment to emerge has to do with inequality, social permeability, and the ‘‘revolution of expectations.’’ We have seen that to become resented there has to be some comparison (be it in beauty, richness, power, force, honor, or fame), but the uneven situation must be felt as unjust, unnatural, unjustified, or undesired. It is the pretending to be as lucky as the other, the desire itself to be other than oneself, that allows such emotion to emerge. So, for ressentiment to become a social or political drive there has to be some situation where there is social difference in a society and people not only want to be other but could be so. The slave revolt is an upturn of the accepted status and roles in society. Maranõń says the opposite of ressentiment is generosity. I would rather think the opposite of ressentiment is contentment in one’s own place in society. Inequality then is a ‘‘cause’’ of ressentiment inasmuch as it depends on the expectations. To be second and happy requires the acceptance of the proper place and the other’s excellence. If you are unhappy with inequality, you expect more of yourself than you can get or are willing to strive for.

APPLICATION OF THE MODEL The application of the model does not assume that ressentiment is a characteristic for the whole of Venezuelan society. This study distinguishes particular individuals or groups that suffer from ressentiment. We also need to distinguish between ‘‘being,’’ ‘‘acting,’’ ‘‘using,’’ etc. It is one thing to be resented, another to resent, and another to use ressentiment’s symbols or behaviors as tools to conquer or dominate. In December 1994, a few months after being pardoned and released from prison by the interim president, Rafael Caldera, Cha´vez went to Cuba and laid out his plans to start a revolution in Venezuela. One line of strategy was expressed thus in his speech at the University of Havana: ‘‘This year (referring to 1995, electoral year) we aspire, with the Bolivarian Movement, the Bolivarian National Front, to polarize Venezuela.’’ 41 Since then, in increasingly inflammatory speeches, he has deepened the polar division of Venezuelan citizens between ‘‘poor-rich,’’ ‘‘black-white,’’ ‘‘exploited-exploiters.’’ By August 2007, a polling agency explained the recovery of 10 percent of his lost popularity between May 2007 and July 2007 this way: ‘‘He keeps on fueling the polarized social schema to interpret all conflicts and confrontations in terms of ‘poor-rich,’ ‘black-white,’ ‘exploited-exploiters.’ ’’ Before Cha´vez, this was not so. Venezuelans were of ‘‘good disposition,’’ socially and politically intermingling in a ‘‘good note’’ 42 all colors of skin, creeds, customs, and behaviors. Inclusion set the social atmosphere in

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Venezuela 1966–2000. After Cha´vez, that changed. Anger, hate, and envy arose, as if dormant emotions had arisen from a long-forgotten time; an old grudge against someone redirected towards society. Venezuela has been divided in two: evil and good people. Bad people are the ‘‘oligarchs’’ or ‘‘lackeys of imperialism.’’ The president raised an old flag of the egalitarian, extreme federalists who in 1860 cried: ‘‘Death to all white and oligarchs!’’ These terms have a wide range of meanings in presidential speech, but mainly refer to those who oppose the new creed, mostly people who believe in a pluralistic society, in competition and merit, and in a free market. These are considered wrong values; for pursuing them some are menaced daily and subject to intimidation by an all-powerful state. Reducing the revolutionary quest to a ‘‘poor-rich’’ issue suggests that the dominant repressed emotion leading the Venezuelan process is envy. There is anger, yes, and desire for revenge from the extreme left leaders for their old political disadvantage, but the message for the people is this: ‘‘You should have what others have’’ not to prosper but to stay poor. Cha´vez made this explicit. While he has never promised to make all Venezuelans rich, he has specifically told them that they have to be equally poor, Cuba being an example of what is called ‘‘The Sea of Happiness.’’ An example will suffice to prove the point. In a recent invasion of a sugar cane farm by a group organized under the front of a ‘‘cooperative of the people,’’ an invader asked the wife of the owner: How many years have you been here? 50 years, she answered, working this land with our own hands. Well, you know what? Now it is our turn.

The invaders were not workers of the farm, which could make them desire revenge from an unjust patron. Like Rand’s looters, it is a diffuse claim for equality without having to work for it. The invaders destroyed the crops and, when told by the displaced owner to take advantage of that crop, which meant not only money but 1,200,000 kilograms of sugar for Venezuelan consumers, they answered: ‘‘No, we are going to make conucos43 for the people.’’ Two months later, while invaders had been condoned and even encouraged by the authorities, the army stormed into the farm to rescue a person held in kidnapping by the ‘‘cooperativists.’’ The inversion of values has been systematic. The rise of poverty to the level of virtue is a typical example. Cha´vez said that theft and murder are justified when people are hungry, so now delinquents rob and assault in the name of the revolution. Freedom, a cherished value to Venezuelans, is now rendered meekly to the will of the president along with democratic values such as plurality of political parties and autonomy of institutions. Suffice another anecdote:


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On entering a subway [car], a middle-aged woman chided me by asking: Do you have a police record? No, I answered, amazed ‘‘Ja . . . , she replied, then you will never be a Minister nor get a job in this administration. To get a job these days you need to be a thief or a murderer.’’

She kept on asking everyone around her the same question, adding in every instance: ‘‘Every thing my parents taught me to be wrong, now is good; and what was good is bad. Corruption, stealing, killing is what the government teaches.’’ She was not crazy nor hysterical. She was decently dressed and spoke so coherently that, during the 30 minutes ride, people around her ended coinciding with her and expressing similar ideas.

Venezuela was ripe for ressentiment when Cha´vez became president. It was largely fueled by poverty but also by the inferior position of the extreme left after the first democratic governments defeated the guerrillas in the 1960s.44 The left was excluded from the party system in 1960. After 1967 they began to be included, 45 and by 1969 an armistice, ‘‘pacification policy,’’ invited all guerrillas left in hiding to join the political system. They entered electoral processes, won seats in Congress, enjoyed pivotal power, got appointments to the executive, and were even financed by majority parties during 30 years of democracy. They were part of the establishment but apparently suffered from the poor ‘‘cousin Bette’’ syndrome. Only after Cha´vez came into power did people realize that the extreme left had subverted the army. One guerrilla leader named Douglas Bravo never surrendered and was free to do as he pleased. He had stayed in hiding and, unencumbered by police and immigration, came back one day and dedicated himself to recruiting officers in the army to his cause. One of those officers was Hugo Cha´vez with whom Bravo collaborated in the 1992 coup. Like Bravo, Cha´ vez was also pardoned by President Caldera. By 1992, there were at least three subversive groups working towards a coup d’e´tat. Two of them were within the military, and one of them included civilians from the legal left parties, eminent politicians, the former president, and intellectuals. So we can say that in Venezuela, the revolt of the resented was not brought about by the ‘‘slaves’’ or the dominated classes but by a weaker fraction of the ruling class: the leaders of the extreme left. They were later joined by the extreme right who were repulsed by the surging of a new phenomenon in politics called ‘‘civil society.’’ The conditions for ressentiment to arise, as stated by the model, were also present in Venezuela since 1990. Modernization and the extension of democracy produced a revolution of expectations in third world countries. For rich

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oil-producing countries such as Venezuela, high expectations started in the 1960s and 1970s but were cut short in the 1980s and fell dramatically in the 1990s. The UN document, ‘‘The Millennium Development Goals: A Latin American and Caribbean Perspective,’’46 expresses the question succinctly: The pivotal theme of this report is the question of inequality. Despite the major strides made in relation to a number of social issues, the Latin American and Caribbean region still has the dubious distinction of being the most inequitable region in the world.47 The optimism that prevailed at the start of the 1990s gave way to disillusionment with the outcomes of the reforms undertaken during that period.48

Venezuelans, who were accustomed to easy wealth and open society, were unhappy with the economic restrictions and the corruption of leaders. A situation of diminished expectations, due to global economic conditions and also by the inefficiency and corruption of the leaders, was the broth from which ressentiment awakened. The parties’ ‘‘right to lead’’ plummeted in 10 years, and their diminished capacity to satisfy voters led to obtuse decisions. For example, a Christian-democratic party chose a former ‘‘Miss Venezuela’’ to run against Cha´vez because of her popularity. Cha´vez easily won the election. It is worth noting, also, that a considerable number of professionals, 49 who had some space to try to influence public opinion, shared and spread discontent, revealing the ‘‘weakness of the dominant consciousness,’’ a condition typical of ressentiment. For many of them this weakness felt like shame. Some were ashamed of their dominant position and having things that others do not have such as higher education, a family, and a job. Cha´vez’s revolution invoked slogans and heroes from the Independence Wars (1810–1829), the Federal War (1858–1863), and the guerrilla war (1960– 1970). His heroes are first, the father of the land, Simoń Bolı´var, to symbolize liberation from a foreign power. The second is Ezequiel Zamora, an unmerciful rebel, extreme federalist at around 1846–1860. And third is ‘‘Maisanta’’ or Pedro Pe´rez Delgado, an extreme, and somewhat obscure, rebel of the early twentieth century who happens to be an ancestor of Cha´vez. The use of symbols, heroic ancestors, and death vows is quite common in history. What is special here is the importance that Cha´vez gives to old warriors and battles to symbolize the continuity of his war, as he likes to call it. It is a war that Bolı´var started that has had at least three eruptions in 150 years, in 1858, 1960, 1992, and that Cha´ vez is going to win. 50 He persistently declares an eternal war, a war diffused in time and space against the devil himself. Sometimes the devil is George W. Bush, at others the devil is the Venezuelans, or Spaniards,51 or whoever can be made an enemy of the revolution. Such insistence on an eternal and diffuse war suggests the incurable disease


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of ressentiment, a claim lost in history that cannot be fulfilled and vengeance cannot be satiated. As to other effects considered by our model, one must consider Venezuela’s extraordinary government income, which is based on the constant rise of oil prices and is solely controlled by Cha´vez. There are innumerable cases of big corruption (of the military, the ministers, the deputies, the judges, and the magistrates) and small corruption within public offices and the innumerable parallel agencies (the so-called social ‘‘missions,’’ cooperatives, etc.). While crime escalates and the government seizes private property in the name of equality, government officials display an astounding show of illicit wealth. The immense oil wealth fund bribery is the main medium of domination. The whole society is caught in a bribe system. It is not only the civil servants who earn enormous salaries and get 10 months of ‘‘aguinaldo’’ (Christmas allowances), or the ‘‘poor’’ who are paid in cash only by subscribing to the social programs (missions), it is also banks and private business, and even the opposition, who manage to keep a comfortable standard of living by taking advantage of the exchange control system or, worse, money laundering for businesses and government officials. It is obvious that the huge oil income and the general looting of Venezuelan resources sustain Cha´ vez’s government. Cha´vez has Venezuelans caught between two passions: Ressentiment and greed. The case of Cha´vez’s leadership in Venezuela illustrates the progression of ressentiment. It began with the crushing of the guerrilla in the 1960s, the persistent economic inequality, the repression of the emotion during the years of democracy, incubation within the armed forces, the redirection towards a collective and diffuse universe, the revolt, and the inversion and substitution of values. Finally, there emerged a new value code and leadership that gained legitimacy first by democratic means, later by manipulation of electoral results, and finally by ruling by presidential decree.

LEADERSHIP BY RESSENTIMENT The process of ressentiment in Venezuela is the result of a leader who has put in place a so-far-unstoppable political machine. Every opposition leader has been destroyed, and Venezuela seems caught in an inertia that is independent of the characters and experiences of individuals. Individually, 75 percent of the population is inclined towards freedom and democracy (based on real, expected statistics, results of the Revocatory Referendum against Cha´vez in 2004). Yet, as a whole, Venezuelans are driven by political passion—an emotion that involves most citizens, including Cha´ vez followers and the opposition. One measure of bad leaders may be their capacity to stir a

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considerable amount of emotion in their followers and enemies at the same time—the more enemies, the worse the leader. There are a percentage of indifferent people in Venezuela52 (a category polls call ‘‘the Ni-Nis’’) who are not ravished by political passion, although some in this group may simply be tired and defeated. Nevertheless, we must allow for indifferent people who are not consumed by this political passion. Yet they cannot escape its collective effects even if they emigrate, which thousands are doing as a direct result of this regime. Cha´vez has used ressentiment to accomplish an inversion on ethics. He is implementing an extensive campaign to indoctrinate and universalize the new values, ‘‘to make the revolutionary new Venezuelan,’’ to create the utopian cooperative society mediated by the all-powerful state. Will the new values, invested by such power, substitute old values? Will those values sustain themselves in time? It may depend on the creativity of the new leaders. At some point, the negative values have to become positive or become institutional, as Weber explained regarding charismatic authority. As a leader, Cha´vez has extraordinary skills. He has emotional intelligence and appeal, the capacity to make decisions, a compelling vision, fixed goals, and an ideological (communist) agenda. He avidly seeks power and has decided to take it and keep it as long as he lives. We cannot say which of these qualities constitute his charisma, but what we can say is that his leadership is charismatic according to Weber’s typology.53 It is based on his personal power. He does not obey rules, nor do bureaucracy or institutions sustain him. Some of his followers even attribute supernatural powers to him.54 We can also say, according to the standard definition of leadership, that his charisma is the reflection of the collective emotion we have identified as ressentiment. Cha´vez’s message would not have found an echo in a society where private enterprise and individual effort are ranked as important values. The message of the resented leader catches or lights up when it is reflected, or finds an echo, in some population with the same emotion and similar set of values. The emotional bond with his followers, and also with his enemies, proceeds from that ressentiment that many Venezuelans have against the political elite, against the United States, and against their destiny in general. The responsibility lies as much on Cha´vez as on the rest of the Venezuelans, his followers and his detractors.

AFTERWORD Finding the conditions that may arouse ressentiment into a violent battle will not stop the eternal battle or the momentous eruptions of hate and ressentiment accumulated through history, but it might give us some insight


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on the type of leadership behavior that sparks destructive reprisal. It helps us understand the legacy of leaders who fail to tackle the problems of those who are or feel that they are marginalized in society. Such leaders fail to assess what is too much—too much poverty, too much inequality, too much waste, and too much abuse of power and injustice. Moreover, in today’s world we see how ressentiment plays itself out in the growing number of terrorists who often live under bad leaders, and/or feel slighted, left out, and ready to turn upside down the most basic moral values of human societies. As with any emotion, collective ressentiment can subside, go into latent mode, or be superseded by some positive drive of good leadership. This is possible only if we overcome the human blindness to the limits of a people’s ethical sense of fair distribution of material goods and respect for others’ spiritual goals. It is important to realize that the problem of ressentiment is not Venezuela’s or the Muslim world’s or that of any one group. It is potentially a global problem, which not only comes as a backlash of history (so it cannot be helped) but also as a result of ongoing inequality and injustice at home and in the world.55 There is a joint responsibility between those who resent and the resented. In this sense we should heed Naipaul and see not only our resented face but also the mirrored image of the industrial world. Only then we can find the answer to the Toflers’ questions: When should we forget old rancours? When do sons get free from the sins of their parents? When is the right moment to stop worrying about the past and put us to think about the future?56

NOTES 1. In the Biblical Books of Revelation and Daniel, ‘‘the Beast’’ is a monster with seven heads and ten horns that arises from ‘‘the Abyss’’ or the sea and brings destruction. One of the heads of such a beast has been understood as the Antichrist, which is linked, usually, to the number 666. In some contexts the term refers to the physical universe (Kabbalah) or universal love (Adventists). In political thought it has mostly been understood, starting from Hobbes’s Leviathan, as absolute, destructive power. 2. Although Cha´vez actually got into power by democratic elections, his first try was through a coup that failed on February 4, 1992. 3. Max Scheler, Ressentiment (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2003), 21. In Spanish, though, the word ‘‘resentimiento’’ usually has the same connotation as the French word. The meaning of the English word ‘‘resentment’’ comes from the French. It describes aggrieved feelings of insult, injury, or ill treatment towards something or someone that people tend to hold on to over time. 4. Federico Nietzsche, Obras Completas, Mas Alla del Bien y del Mal (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Aguilar, 1951), I:2. 5. Ibid., I:1–10.

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6. Ibid., I:283. 7. Ibid., I:10. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., I:7. 10. The refutation of English psychologists’ theories on the origins of morals seems to be one main purpose of the Genealogy of Morals. In the prologue, Nietzsche recognizes as a motive to publish his ideas on the origin of morals the reading of Dr. Paul Reé’s book The Origin of the Moral Feelings and the impulse to deny it ‘‘statement by statement, conclusion by conclusion.’’ 11. Ibid., III:15. 12. Scheler, Ressentiment, 24. 13. Ibid., 25. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., 36. 16. Ibid., 28. 17. Ibid., 43–47. 18. Ibid., 43. 19. Gregorio Maranõń, Tiberio, Historia de un Resentimiento (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, S.A., 1959), 25. 20. Ibid., 26. 21. Ibid., 26–27. 22. Ibid., 27-28. 23. Ibid., 23. 24. William Shakespeare, The Tudor Edition of the Complete Works (London and Glasgow: Collins, 1951), I:3, 36–47. 25. Ibid., 1:3, 101–124. 26. Ibid., 4:2, 71–72. 27. Ibid., 2:1, 13–19. 28. Ibid., 2:3. 29. Ibid., 5:3. 30. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (New York: A Signet Book, 1996), 814. 31. Honore´ de Balzac, La Cousine Bette (Paris: Le livre de Poche Librairie Geńe´rale Francaise, 1972), 41. 32. Ibid., 42. 33. Ibid., 43. 34. Ibid., 42. 35. V. S. Naipaul, Guerrillas (London, Great Britain: Penguin Book, 1980), 50. 36. Ibid., 30. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid., 28. 39. Ibid. 40. Max Weber, Economy and Society, trans. and ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968), 193–203. 41. Quoted by Fidel Castro in http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/secciones/visitas/ venezuela/art12.html


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42. Humboldt had characterized Venezuelans, back in the nineteenth century, as of ‘‘good disposition.’’ Before Cha´vez we used to say that Venezuelans are ‘‘buena nota,’’ meaning, I believe, people who do not confront but include. 43. Small patches of ground. 44. Presidents Ro´ mulo Betancourt (1959–1963) and Rau´ l Leoni (1964–1968) unleashed a determined war on guerrilla until their extinction. By the end of Leoni’s administration the main leaders were dead or ready to surrender. 45. In 1968, the VIII Plenary of the Communist Party decided to abandon armed fight and concur to elections at the end of that year. The president elected, Rafael Caldera issued the policy of ‘‘pacification’’ and legalized all leftist parties. 46. UN. 2005: The Millenium Development Goals: A Latin American and Caribbean Perspective. Available at www.eclac.cl/publicaciones/xml/0/21540/lcg2331.pdf 47. Ibid., 19. 48. Ibid., 29. 49. I contributed to that collective feeling of rejection of the political party system by producing a dictionary of corruption in Venezuela from 1959 to 1993 in several volumes. 50. In his usual long speech on Friday, September 14, 2007, broadcast on government controlled media, he finally said he is the reincarnation of Bolı´var. He had previously said he was the reincarnation of Maisanta and Zamora, and that he was inspired by Bolı´var, but had not dared to get that far. 51. Some followers of Cha´vez tore down and vandalized the statue of Cristo´bal Coloń in Caracas as a symbol of colonialism. 52. Recent polls show that up to 48 percent of the sample’s population define themselves as ‘‘Ni-Ni, even if many in that category express they are against the reform of the Constitution sought by Cha´vez.’’ 53. Gladys Villarroel and Nelson Ledesma, ‘‘Carisma y Politica,’’ Politeia 39, no. 30 (2007). 54. Weber, Economy and Society, 193–204. 55. http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith//courses01/rrtw/Postrel.htm; http:// www.racematters.org/muslimrootsofresentment.htm; Stephen Smith and Sandy Tolan, Muslim Roots of Resentment; http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/ features/resentment/ 56. Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler. ‘‘La reparacio´ n y la historia,’’ La Nacio´ n, September 27, 2004. Available at http://www.lanacion.com.ar/opinion/nota.asp ?nota_id=639818


PART III

HOW PHILOSOPHY SHEDS LIGHT ON LEADERSHIP


6 Understanding Leadership: Is It Time for a Linguistic Turn? ANTONIO MARTURANO

Leadership studies is an established area in the field of organization studies, but its roots date back to the earlier philosophical Greek thought. Plato is seen as one of the forerunners of leadership studies.1 Leadership was a philosophical topic for Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Niccolo´ Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant, just to mention a few philosophers. They all talked about the important qualities that a great ‘‘man’’ should possess, and they sought to understand the ideal nature of the leaderfollowers relation. As a philosophical endeavor, the study of leadership was entrapped in the political debate of the times. Indeed, all the authors mentioned above focused on very fundamental problems such as democracy, rights, and ways to shape a just government. Despite its roots, leadership scholars today rarely pay attention to contemporary philosophy. Contemporary philosophy, especially its analytical side, provides a new set of tools and concepts, especially in philosophy of language and philosophy of logic, which were unavailable before. Leadership studies have not attempted to use formal analytical methods from philosophical logic, philosophy of language and semiotics, and modern epistemology to analyze leadership. This failure of leadership scholars to reflect on the epistemological foundations of leadership studies lies behind the disagreement that they have about the definition of leadership. Leadership studies are largely based on work in psychology. Using arguments from the history of modern philosophy and philosophy of logic, I will argue that psychology does not provide a strong

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or, for that matter, a weak epistemological basis for leadership studies. As a consequence, I advocate for a linguistic turn in leadership studies because in the end, what is it that leaders do if they do not use, change, manipulate, and create new meanings? I will analyze leadership as a linguistic phenomenon using tools from the philosophy of language, semiotics, analytic and postanalytic philosophy, and logic. My focus will be on the linguistic phenomenon that is at the basis of leadership creation and its recognition by the followers. Finally, I will propose a new language-based way to look at the leadership that is based on the works of the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco.

EPISTEMOLOGY AND LEADERSHIP STUDIES According to several authors, the state of leadership studies appears to be quite fragmented, and more and more scholars are unsatisfied with the predominance of social science perspective in this field.2 Indeed, according to philosopher Joanne B. Ciulla, ‘‘Most of the leadership literature comes from business schools and researchers with backgrounds in organizational behavior and social and industrial psychology.’’ 3 Psychology is the dominant paradigm in leadership studies and de facto provides a foundation for leadership studies. I would suggest that such fragmentation in leadership studies is a result of the failure of scholars to discuss its foundations. In this respect, as a branch of human inquiry, leadership studies are in the same place that philosophy was at the dawn of the twentieth century. Philosophers at that time were concerned about the future of philosophy, because it appeared that psychology might be able to provide all of the answers to questions about human knowledge. In particular, there was a heated debate about the validity of logical truths. Some authors, notably the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, held the view that logical and mathematical truths were truths about psychology. So, for example, numbers might be equated with a person’s mental images, and truths of mathematics might be equated with laws of human thought. On the contrary, some other authors, notably the German philosopher Gottlob Frege, believed that logic prescribed laws about how people should think (normative level) and was not the science of how people do think (descriptive level).4 Logical truths would remain true even if no one believed them nor used them in their reasoning. If humans were genetically designed to think using the rules of logic, would that not make their thinking logically valid? According to Frege, what is true or false, valid or invalid, does not depend on one’s psychology or beliefs. To think otherwise is to confuse something’s being true with something’s being-taken-to-be-true. Numbers cannot be

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equated with mental images nor can the truths of mathematics be equated with psychological truths. Mathematical and logical truths are objective, not subjective and, more importantly, psychology cannot provide a foundation for mathematics, logic, or even human knowledge. In a similar way, one of the often-repeated refrains of some leadership scholars is that leadership is ‘‘in the mind and the heart’’ of followers and leaders rather than an intersubjective (albeit historical) process. I suspect that this view comes from research that focuses on the motivations behind leadership rather than research on the basic mechanisms of leadership. Here I argue that if we just look at psychological processes as the foundation of leadership, it is not possible to come to an agreement on the nature of leadership. That is why we need another way to explain it, which, like other contingency theories, takes into account psychological factors as well as environmental and historical factors. We use language (which should be understood as a system of signs and rules to manipulate them) to communicate more than knowledge and emotions. It is the most important tool that a leader uses to interact with her followers.5 Language provides an intersubjective tool that is more helpful than psychology to understand the machinery of leadership. In the following section I will begin a linguistic analysis of leadership. That is the basic mechanism people use to recognize someone as a leader and therefore establish a leadership process.

REFERENTIAL OPACITY AND LEADERSHIP A number of leadership scholars have discussed the problems with the definition of leadership. For example, Joseph Rost has argued that leadership scholars need to agree on a common definition of leadership, whereas philosopher Joanne B. Ciulla argues that disagreements about definitions are not about the denotation of the term, but rather its connotation.6 Philosophers of language offer insights into the logic of how we use the term to designate a wide range of people in a variety of contexts and circumstances as leaders. Different names or words may be used to refer to the same thing and can be freely substituted for each other. Hence, in a true statement of identity, one of its two terms may be substituted for the other and the result will be true. This is called the rule of substitutivity or the principle of identity of indiscernibles or Leibniz’s Law.7 The philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz argued that for A and B to be identical they had to share all of the same properties. If A and B have different properties, then they cannot be the same thing. If we find some property that B has but A does not, then we can conclude that A and B are not the same thing.

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For example, the sentences (1) Silvio Berlusconi is the owner of Mediaset (2) Silvio Berlusconi is a known supporter of Milan FC (football club)

are true. We can substitute in the sentence (2) ‘‘Silvio Berlusconi’’ with ‘‘the owner of Mediaset’’ and we will still have a true sentence. This is called ‘‘referential transparency.’’ 8 On the contrary, when the subject of the sentence (Berlusconi) follows a mental state verb or what is called a propositional attitude9 such as ‘‘it is thought that,’’ ‘‘it is believed that,’’ or ‘‘it is known that,’’ we cannot tell if it is true that the owner of Mediaset is the same person as the supporter of Milan FC. This is called referential opacity or opaque context because it is not clear that both sentences are true and refer to the same person. Now, let us consider the following sound argument: (A) The Italian prime minister is the owner of Mediaset (B) The owner of Mediaset is a successful leader (C) The Italian prime minister is a successful leader

The fact that the third sentence (C) follows from (A) and (B) is due to a certain property of the identity relation, that is Leibniz’s Law, or the law of substitution of identicals. This law asserts that if two things are identical, meaning if they share each and all their properties, we are allowed to freely substitute them in a sentence. In statement (A) we can substitute (at least in 2006) the expression ‘‘The Italian prime minister’’ with ‘‘The owner of Mediaset.’’ Therefore the property of ‘‘being a successful leader’’ belonging to ‘‘The owner of Mediaset’’ can also be attributed to ‘‘The Italian prime minister’’ according to Leibniz’s Law. Sentences (B) and (C) are implicit attributions of propositional attitude. Their utterance implies the belief (in followers and others) that the owner of Mediaset is a successful leader. Thus a propositional attitude is implied in sentences (B) and (C). To make it a genuine attribution of propositional attitude, we should restate the sentence thus: (B*) Tony believes that the owner of Mediaset is a successful leader

Let us take this up in the following argument, wherein we make exactly the same claim as the first premise and use the same structure of reasoning but, now that we recognize the implicit propositional attitude, the result turns out to be the opposite.10 Since it is possible for the premises to both be true and the conclusion false, the argument is fallacious or is invalid:


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(D) The Italian prime minister is the owner of Mediaset (E) Tony believes that the Italian prime minister is a successful leader (F) Tony believes that the owner of Mediaset is a successful leader

In order to make the above argument valid we have to add another premise, which follows: (G) Tony believes that (D) The Italian prime minister is the owner of Mediaset

The structure of this reasoning is the same, because a property belonging to ‘‘the Italian prime minister ’’ is the property of being-believed-to-be-asuccessful-leader-by-Tony. According to Leibniz’s Law, such a property should also belong to the owner of Mediaset. But (without G) Tony would not understand such an identity, namely the owner of Mediaset is the same person as the Italian prime minister (that is Mr. Berlusconi). This is exactly what is called referential opacity. This example shows that something intrinsic to logic must have changed when we went from sentences stating X is Y to propositional attitude Tony believes that X is Y. When we recognize (B) as a propositional attitude, which we do in (E), we are obliged to recognize (F) and (G) as attributions of belief too. When we add epistemic operators such as ‘‘belief’’ to standard logic, we get puzzling cases that seem to violate Leibniz’s Law. Consider the following sentences: (H) Tony believes that the Italian prime minister is a successful leader (I) Tony believes that the owner of Mediaset is not a successful leader

They could both be true. Let us imagine that Tony is not able to understand that ‘‘the Italian prime minister’’ and ‘‘owner of Mediaset’’ are referring to the same person, yet both sentences could still be true. There is nothing unsound in recognizing these two sentences as true, that is believing (E)—that Mr. Berlusconi the politician is a successful leader—is not incompatible with believing (F)—believing Mr. Berlusconi is an unsuccessful business leader, or vice versa. But even if Tony knows that Mr. Berlusconi is actually both the Italian prime minister and the owner of Mediaset, he may still make these utterances without committing a logical contradiction because he is using ‘‘successful leader’’ in two different senses attached to two different beliefs about ‘‘being a leader’’ in business and in politics. In the first case ‘‘Italian prime minister’’ has a different sense than ‘‘owner of Mediaset,’’ even if we employ ‘‘successful leader’’ in the same sense. In the second case, ‘‘successful leader’’ is employed with two different senses. Propositional attitudes are relational. The truth of a belief statement is based on what one believes, and not on whether someone or something has

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a certain property. In other words, the truth of the statement ‘‘Tony believes that Mr. Berlusconi is charismatic’’ is based on whether Tony actually does believe that Mr. Berlusconi is charismatic and not on whether Mr. Berlusconi actually has the property of charisma. This is true even though natural language sometimes masks this fundamental difference. The concept of leadership, which we assume to be dependent upon a contingent framework, is now clarified. We use the word ‘‘leader’’ to refer to a set of beliefs and values in a speaker or a set of speakers. For example, Hitler was indisputably a leader because of his position and because he came to embody the values, norms, and beliefs of a majority of the German community in Germany at his time. Embodying values (and eventually manipulating them) in a particular community is conditio sine qua non for a leader to gain supremacy and power. According to the French postmodern critical scholar Michel Foucault, ‘‘power is in the system . . . it is embedded in social relations and institutions.’’ 11 Indeed, characteristics of ‘‘leaderness’’ are different in each community because different values, norms, and beliefs are embedded in social relations and institutions from which power is nourished.12 In leadership studies, scholars may assess Hitler’s leadership by, for example, evaluating his effectiveness and/or morality. This is a metanarrative, free from the set of the values, norms, and beliefs (in a sense similar to Weber’s notion of Wertfrei or value-free), which actually made Hitler seem ‘‘leaderful’’ to the German people when he was alive.

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE Furthermore, a linguistic approach can explain the limits of some leadership scholarship on culture. For example, in the article ‘‘Culture Specific and Cross-Culturally Generalizable Implicit Leadership Theories: Are Attributes of Charismatic/Transformational Leadership Universally Endorsed?’’ Deanne Den Hartog et al. claim that ‘‘specific aspects of charismatic/transformational leadership are strongly and universally endorsed across the cultures.’’ 13 The authors claim that such attributes are ‘‘universally seen as contributing to outstanding leadership.’’ 14 They refer to a set of abstract traits but do not tell us anything about the meanings that these traits have in different cultures and language practices. A more abstract definition can always be found starting with the different cultural aspects of a concept. For example, the concept of quiet leadership can be understood in different ways. Lao Tzu expresses the Chinese sense of quiet leadership in the following sentence: As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate . . . When the best leader ’s work is done the people say, ‘‘We did it ourselves!’’ 15


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In Western culture, a quiet leader can be best described as eminence grise or a person who exercises power or influence in certain areas without holding an official position. The term eminence grise originally referred to François Leclerc du Tremblay, the right-hand man of the infamous Cardinal Richelieu, who was King Louis XIII’s chief minister. These are two different instances of quiet leadership that cannot be collapsed within a general label of quiet leadership, without getting lost in the real, living meaning that it has in particular societies. Indeed, a very abstract definition of quiet leadership will still be able to unify different cultural meanings of the word by means of a semantic ascension, which would mean talking about language and general concepts instead of talking of how words are actually used. This sort of definition cannot take into account that real, living meaning of the different cultural aspects. For example, the fact that a leader needs to be recognized as such by his or her followers would be understood as an element of leadership shared by every culture. But it fails to address the particular differences that each culture uses to individuate a leader or to provide a meaning for her leadership. Den Hartog et al., in other words, confuse a metalinguistic abstraction where we talk about the term ‘‘quiet leadership’’ with the relative way in which each culture addresses quiet leadership over time. Den Hartog and her colleagues claim that there are universal traits that explain leadership at the level of a metalanguage; however, the way that a culture recognizes and identifies a leader can only be explained at the level of an object language in relation to a set of beliefs, norms, and values. Den Hartog and colleagues simply confuse these two different levels. It is important to note that ‘‘traits’’ (interpreted as propositional attitudes) attributed to leaders have, so to speak, a psychologically independent status. They have meaning (sense plus reference) only in the linguistic practice of a particular community and therefore are not rooted in someone’s actual psychology. Moreover, trait theory is often viewed as an alternative to style theory (authoritarian, facilitative, etc.), but in this analysis I have shown that they are not really alternatives in that neither deals with the relational nature of leadership. Like traits, styles are defined by the beliefs of community members. In other words, styles like ‘‘authoritarian’’ are not pure perceptions. Rather it is, according to the philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, a percept, that is a perceptual (social) construction.16 When someone is talking about ‘‘authoritarianism,’’ it does not entail that she has, so to speak, seen it. Surely, she has an image of authoritarianism, but her asserting that something has the attribute of being ‘‘authoritarian’’ is a judgment that is a propositional attitude. In an analogous way, according to Umberto Eco, the very fact that soldiers on different occasions perform a regular action every time the order

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‘‘at ease!’’ is uttered implies that such a behavior is embedded in a concept and it turns into an abstraction, or a law, or a regularity.17 In analogy with the soldiers’ behavior, someone’s behavior comes to have embedded in it the quality of being authoritarian. In other words, the sentence ‘‘the Leader X has an authoritarian style’’ denotes a prescription to followers about how they should perform symbolically to obtain a perceptive contact with the object of the word, namely the leader.18 A symbol’s meaning is all the classes of actions aimed at causing some perceived effects. By producing a series of immediate feedbacks, a sign establishes a habit, which is a tendency to behave likewise in future similar circumstances. According to Peirce, we turn the correspondence between a sign and its representation into a law. Understanding a sign implies learning what is needed in order to produce a concrete state of affairs (such as what soldiers do when they hear the order ‘‘at ease!’’).19 Thus, in this sense, styles and trait theories are not alternatives—they are both forms of attribution of propositional attitudes. We have shown how a very important part of leadership language works. It arises from the beliefs and values of people in all communities, and the beliefs and values are expressed as propositional attitudes.

LEADERSHIP, LINGUISTIC PRACTICES, AND PSYCHOLOGISM IN SOCIAL SCIENCES The concept of leadership in our perspective appears to be an instance of referential opacity because linguistic practices we use to talk about leadership are imbued with propositional attitudes. We have seen that it is not possible to have a well-grounded concept of ‘‘leader’’ in the abstract. The concept of leader depends on a relationship between the players (namely, followers and leaders).20 These relationships can be viewed as ascriptions of propositional attitudes, in particular as sentences about beliefs. Followers ascribe or believe that leaders have certain attributes or capacities. 21 The mutual acknowledgment of such qualities is created through particular language practices. Leaders do not really have characteristics such as charisma; people only believe that they do. Such traits are ascriptions of propositional attitudes. We do not know whether or not such mental objects (that is propositional attitudes) have any foundation outside our minds. In other words, the words we use to describe a particular leader are just names that refer to groups or classes of individual things.22 In this way we can bypass psychological assumptions about the nature of those traits. Traits are representations that have meaning only in a particular social context, and only as attributions within propositional attitudes.


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The full understanding of a trait’s meaning is linked to social conventions (namely, values and beliefs) used in that believer’s community. As the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out in his critique of private language, semantic characteristics of a language, such as definitions, are public characteristics.23 This is different from a private language in which one makes up names for his or her sensations and other subjective experiences. The individual who speaks a private language determines the meaning of the term (i.e., a particular trait).24 Such a language is accessible only to that person and no one else. Because the primary characteristic of a language is to be understandable to anyone in order to communicate something, her language is inaccessible or it is meaningless because it is not linked to any social construction. Using an often-repeated philosophical slogan, the meaning of a word comes from its use, not the meaning in an individual’s mind. The meaning of words in any language has to be public to be understood. Let us now turn our attention to the so-called situational analysis of leadership.25,26 According to philosopher of science and social scientist Karl Popper, social sciences rely on building models to explain certain kinds of events (such as ‘‘Why is unemployment in the construction industry a seasonal trend?’’).27 These events are built on the empirical conditions of the event (i.e., the weather, unemployment statistics, or the nature of the construction industry). If we want the models to be representations of how the elements in the models interact, we also need universal laws (analogous to Newton’s laws of motion in natural sciences). How are leadership models usually applied to the real world? They usually use general ‘‘laws’’ from individual and group psychology. This is what Popper calls psychologism.28 Situational theories replace concrete psychological experiences with abstract situations that are supposed to trigger certain kinds of behavior in people. Popper argues that the only triggering principle in human behavior is the principle of rationality. The principle of rationality states that a person’s actions are always ‘‘adequate’’ or ‘‘appropriate,’’ that is, ‘‘in accordance with the situation.’’ 29 This principle is not subject to any kind of scientific control. In other words, Popper thinks that psychology does not think that people are smart enough to avoid behaving in ways that are more or less predictable to those who are aware of all the relevant parameters of the situation. Such a claim, equivalent in content to Popper’s rationality principle, may be described as an ‘‘empirical conjecture.’’ 30

AN ALTERNATIVE LENS ON LEADERSHIP I will sketch now an alternative way to study leadership based on language. We will start with an analogy between a leader and a ‘‘work of art.’’ 31 There is no agreement on the definition of a leader; but everybody seems to

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agree with what we can call Drucker ’s minimal definition of leadership: ‘‘a leader is someone who has followers.’’ 32 This is an interesting statement albeit an ambiguous one. Drucker ’s statement can be understood in two ways: ‘‘a leader is someone who has actual followers’’ or ‘‘a leader is someone who potentially has followers.’’ If the first hypothesis holds, someone is a leader when de facto he or she has followers. Retroactive leadership cannot count as true leadership. Vincent Van Gogh, the Flemish painter, cannot be called a leader because during his life he did not have followers. He had followers only after he died. In my opinion, this idea is too restrictive and might allow room only for a sociological exploration of leadership. Let us turn our interest to the second way in which I tried to understand Drucker’s statement. In this case, we can certainly list Van Gogh as a leader because he had ‘‘potential’’ followers who become actual followers after his death. But, before analyzing this conjecture, I will first need to refer to the idea of ‘‘work of art’’ and how Eco analyzed this idea in semiotics. I will compare leadership to aesthetics and, in particular, to the contemporary study in textual theories. Textual theories are interesting methodologies for analyzing texts. A ‘‘text’’ is any message preserved in a form whose existence is independent of both sender and receiver, like a book or a painting. Leadership studies shares with textual theories the impossibility of describing the subject matter of their discipline. ‘‘What is a work of art?’’ is analogous to the question ‘‘What is a leader?’’ What makes P. Manzoni’s ‘‘Artist’s Shit’’33 and Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace ‘‘works of art’’? What makes Nelson Mandela and Pol Pot leaders? It is difficult to find a reasonable answer, unless we rely on our previous analysis of opaque contexts. We call something ‘‘leadership’’ or a ‘‘work of art’’ based on the values, norms, beliefs, and needs of followers or readers. In this very sense we can understand that both disciplines share the idea that a work of art and leadership presupposes the existence of readers and followers.34 A work of art and leadership also presuppose a ‘‘potential’’ reader or follower (or, as Eco35 calls it, a ‘‘model reader’’—by analogy we will call it a ‘‘model follower ’’). Leadership, indeed, is also a chain of expressive devices that need to be actualized by some receivers called followers, but leadership (according to our analogy) is, so to speak, an ‘‘incomplete text.’’ By analogy with Eco’s reconstruction of a text,36 we can say that any expression in the text called ‘‘leadership’’ remains just mere words without significance until it is related to (according to a particular code) its conventional contents. Such conventional content can be found in an ideal encyclopedia —or set of all the meanings associated with the same concept—which includes anything publicly known in a particular community (i.e., ‘‘man’’ is a male, a human; but it also will have bodily, psychological, social, and literary characteristics).37 Dictionaries are those repertoires including all the


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properties—or definitions—of terms in a particular language. In other words, a follower is able to give meaning to attribution of propositional attitudes such as ‘‘charisma’’ or ‘‘authoritarian’’ to leaders by relating those terms to a preexisting (public) understanding encoded in a dictionary. According to Eco, a model follower is able to ‘‘unfold’’ a dictionary every time she comes across traits and styles (that we reduced to attributions of propositional attitudes). For example, when she comes across charisma and authoritarianism, she must relate them to a preexisting series of rules that allow her to understand the function of those traits and styles in a particular leadership context. In this very sense, Eco argues, a dictionary sets up the rules we use for the meanings of words in a language (how to use ‘‘authoritarian’’ in an appropriate way), and the encyclopedia will show us all the known occurrences of ‘‘authoritarian’’ in a culture (in history, in politics, in movies, in theatrical plays, and even in jokes). A follower will understand the characteristics of a leader when she finds them based on a dictionary and an encyclopedia. In fact, in order for a follower to decode the system of meanings a leader is embodying, she needs not only a linguistic competence but also a capacity to manage anything about her culture that enables her to trigger a series of presuppositions, repressing idiosyncrasies, etc.38 This explains why in our previous analysis about propositional attitudes, the same follower can understand someone as a leader in one place but not in another, or two persons can disagree about a person’s leadership and how leadership’s characteristics are situation and culture dependent. The leadership process is a sort of ‘‘textual cooperation’’ between a leader and followers. Such cooperation should be based on a leader’s ‘‘structure,’’ that is, her traits plus behaviors that we have previously reduced to meanings. These meanings must be decoded by followers (starting with their dictionary and encyclopedia), and then used (through propositional attitudes) to recognize her as a leader.

CONCLUSION I will not take this attempt to analyze leadership further, as it is a work in progress. According to my reconstruction, leadership is a product in which its effectiveness should be part of its own very generative mechanism or leadership generates itself. Producing leadership means actualizing strategies that include the followers’ strategies. Leadership strategy—according to our analogy with a work of art—is not leader-centric. On the contrary, it is follower-centric. The main activity of the leader is to make followers flourish—so to speak. In a sense, leaders have to give followers the latitude to add meaning to their leadership (we can see here the role of ethics in this model). This captures some of Burns’ theory of transforming leadership. 39

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Leaders and followers help to create competencies in each other. What a leader expects in a model follower (that is, as we saw at the beginning, a potential follower) is someone who will be a partner in constructively shaping the meaning of leadership.

NOTES 1. Plato, The Republic. Available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html (see especially chap. XVIII and following). 2. See, for example, J. B. Ciulla, who claims that ‘‘Leadership, unlike physics, is about human behavior, which does not lend itself to deductions from a theoretical system,’’ quoted in J. T. Wren, ‘‘A Quest for a Grand Theory of Leadership,’’ in The Quest for a General Theory of Leadership, ed. G. R. Goethals and L. J. Sorensen (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2006), 1. 3. See J. B. Ciulla, ‘‘What We Learned Along the Way: A Commentary,’’ in The Quest for a General Theory of Leadership, ed. Goethals and Sorensen, 221. 4. It is worth noting that most leadership theories express the same ambiguity as representation of logic theories within a psychological framework. In other words, most leadership theories are ambiguously normative and descriptive or they do not explicitly say whether they are theories about how leadership is or about how leadership should be. 5. B. Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1948), chap. 1. 6. See J. Rost, Leadership in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Praeger, 1991); and J. B. Ciulla, ‘‘Leadership Ethics: Mapping the Territory,’’ The Business Ethics Quarterly 5, no. 1 (1995): 5–28. 7. Leibniz’s Law says that if A and B are one and the same thing, then they have to share all the same properties. If A and B have different properties, then they cannot be one and the same thing. If we find some property that B has but A does not, then we can conclude that A and B are not the same thing. 8. W. V. A. Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960), 142n. 9. Most propositional attitude attributions use a propositional attitude verb that is followed by a that clause, a clause that includes a full sentence expressing a proposition. Attributions of cognitive relations to propositions can also take other kinds of clauses though: Beckham wanted to play or Hillary wished Bill to succeed, for example. These still attribute propositional attitudes, cognitive relations to an identifiable proposition (Beckham will play, Bill will succeed), though the proposition is not so directly expressed. The weakened form of the sentence, although apparently more active, disguises the presence of a propositional attitude, as in Hillary wished that Bill would succeed. 10. In logic, this is called a hypothetical syllogism, that is, a valid argument of the following form:

If P then Q. If Q then R. Therefore, if P then R.


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In other words, this kind of argument states that if one implies another and that other implies a third, then the first implies the third. 11. Quoted in Wren, ‘‘A Quest for a Grand Theory of Leadership,’’ 17. 12. R. C. Tucker, ‘‘The Theory of Charismatic Leadership,’’ in Philosophers and Kings: Studies in Leadership, ed. D. A. Bastow (New York: Braziller, 1970), 69–94. 13. D. N. Den Hartog, S. A. House, S. A. Hanges, S. A. Ruiz-Quintanilla, and P. W. Dorfman, ‘‘Culture Specific and Cross-Culturally Generalizable Implicit Leadership Theories: Are Attributes of Charismatic/Transformational Leadership Universally Endorsed?’’ Leadership Quarterly 10, no. 2 (1999): 219–256. 14. Ibid. 15. Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, quoted in D. McIlroy, The Pragmatic Leader. A Guide to Mastering Key Management Concepts (Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2004), 71. 16. C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931), §2.141. 17. U. Eco, Lector in Fabula: La Cooperazione Interpretativa nei Testi Narrativi (Milano: Bompiani, 1979), 42. 18. Peirce, Collected Papers, §2.330, 19. Ibid., §5.491 20. We will see below that leadership even presupposes the existence of followers. 21. Ascriptions of propositional attitudes should be not confused with attributions in the sense of attribution theory. Ascribing a person a particular trait means that someone believes that someone else has a particular property. Attribution theory, on the contrary, is a theory about how people explain things. When we offer explanations about why things happened, we can give one of two types. One, we can make an external attribution. Two, we can make internal attribution. An external attribution (get ready for this) assigns causality to an outside agent or force. Or as kids would say, ‘‘The devil made me do it.’’ An external attribution claims that some outside thing motivated the event. By contrast, an internal attribution assigns causality to factors within the person. Or as the sinner would say, ‘‘I am guilty, grant me forgiveness.’’ An internal attribution claims that the person was directly responsible for the event. 22. I am proposing here a nominalistic or a nominalistic-conceptualistic idea of leadership. Nominalism is the philosophic position that abstract or general terms, ‘‘universals,’’ are not real entities either in the world or in the mind, but names that refer to groups or classes of individual things. These terms are canonically used to designate the theories that have been proposed as solutions of one of the most important questions in philosophy, often referred to as the problem of universals, which, while it was a favorite subject for discussion in ancient times, and especially in the Middle Ages, is still prominent in modern and contemporary philosophy. 23. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953). 24. ‘‘The words of this language are to refer to what can be known only to the speaker; to his immediate, private, sensations. So another cannot understand the language.’’ Ibid., §243. 25. F. E. Fiedler, A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967). 26. P. Hersey and K. H. Blanchard, Management of Organization Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources, 4th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977).

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27. K. R. Popper, ‘‘Models, Instruments and Truth. The Status of the Rationality Principle in the Social Sciences,’’ in K. R. Popper, The Myth of the Framework. In Defence of the Science and Rationality, ed. M. A. Notturno (New York: Routledge, 1994), chap. VIII. 28. Popper was strongly critical of psychologism; see his criticism in his Logic of Scientific Discovery (§2 and §25). In particular, Popper believed that no scientific theory can be justified using experience (epistemological antipsychologism). K. R. Popper, Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson, 1959). 29. Popper, ‘‘Models, Instruments and Truth,’’ 169. 30. M. Lagueux claims that ‘‘It is the epistemological cost of such a move that Popper attempted to reduce in his paper by discussing its implications and by rejecting well known aprioristic and instrumentalist ways out of the problem.’’ M. Lagueux, ‘‘Popper and the Rationality Principle.’’ Available at http://www.univie.ac.at/ karlpopper2002/abstracts/ContributedPapers/Lagueux.pdf (accessed July 5, 2007), h. 22, 30. 31. I would recommend to see it just as an ‘‘as if,’’ that is, a structural analogy (i.e., a model) between a ‘‘work of art’’ and leadership. Ordinary uses of the notion of model today tend to collapse the distinction between a model and the theory about which it is a model. There is, indeed, a one-to-one correlation between the propositions of a theory and those of a model. Propositions, which are logical consequences of propositions of the theory, have correlates in the model, which are logical consequences of the correlates in the model of these latter propositions in the theory and vice versa. But the theory and the model have different epistemological structures (they are not isomorphic): in the model, the logically prior premises determine the meaning of the terms occurring in the representation of the calculus of the conclusions. In the theory the logically posterior consequences determine the meaning of the theoretical occurring in the representation in the calculus of the premises. American philosopher of science Richard B. Braithwaite suggests that confusing a theory with a model for it is one of the most important dangers in the use of models. R. B. Braithwaite, Scientific Explanations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), 93. 32. P. Drucker, ‘‘Managing Oneself,’’ Harvard Business Review 77, no. 2 (1999): 65–74. 33. The 90 cans of ‘‘Merda d’artista’’ (‘‘Artist’s Shit, content 30 gr., freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961’’) were first exhibited in the Galleria Pescetto (Albisola Marina) on August 12, 1961. Manzoni calculated the value of the 90 cans—all numbered, each with a net weight of 30 grams—in accordance with the daily exchange rates for gold. Manzoni’s cans of ‘‘Artist’s Shit’’ have some forerunners in the twentieth-century art, like Marcel Duchamp’s urinal (‘‘Fontaine,’’ 1917) or the Surrealists’ coprolalic wits. Salvador Dalı`, Georges Bataille, and, first of all, Alfred Jarry’s ‘‘Ubu Roi’’ (1896) had given artistic and literal dignity to the word ‘‘merde.’’ The link between anality and art, as the equation of excrements with gold, is a leitmotiv of the psychoanalytic movement (and Carl G. Jung could have been a point of reference for Manzoni). Manzoni’s main innovation to this topic is a reflection on the role of the artist’s body in contemporary art. (See http://www.pieromanzoni.org/EN/works_ shit.htm) 34. Eco, Lector in Fabula, 50ff.


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35. Ibid. 36. Ibid., 50 37. U. Eco, Kant e l’Ornitorinco (Milan: Bompiani, 1997), 195. 38. Eco, Lector in fabula, 53. 39. J. MacGregor Burns, Transforming Leadership (New York: Grove Press, 2003); see 2–3 and chap. 10.

7 Why ‘‘Being There’’ Is Essential to Leadership JOANNE B. CIULLA

The first and greatest imperative of command is to be present in person. —John Keegan1 One of the first things Americans hear on the TV or radio news each day is where the president will be and what he will be doing. In England, you can tell when the queen is staying in her castle if her flag is flying over it. People like to know where their leaders are, and that information is readily available to the public. In an era of video conferencing and satellite feeds, leaders can be seen and heard anywhere at anytime in the virtual world. Nonetheless, the presence of a leader on TV is sometimes not good enough. There are times when it is crucial for leaders to physically be in the right place, at the right time, doing the right sort of thing. This is especially the case when there is a disaster or crisis. Leaders who fail to understand the importance of ‘‘being there’’ in a crisis usually face public condemnation. When something bad happens, people want to know where their leaders are and what they are doing. This is about more than symbolic gestures or a sense of timing. Leaders have a moral obligation to be there for us because it is their job and it is part of what the job of leaders means to followers. This chapter examines how place and time are embedded in what it means to be a leader and the moral expectations of leadership.2

ON METHOD The idea that leaders need to be at the right place at the right time is not particularly profound. It is almost a cliche´. While from a common sense point

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of view, the statement ‘‘leaders who are not in the right place at the right time risk condemnation’’ seems true, a leadership scholar from the social sciences would ask, ‘‘What evidence do we have that this is indeed true?’’ A social psychologist might create an experiment that tests how people react when a leader is or is not present in various scenarios, whereas a political scientist might collect data from polls and news articles on public reactions to leaders who did not show up at important events. Social scientists can tell us whether the statement is true and under what conditions it is true, but they do not tend to focus on questions such as ‘‘What does this expectation mean?’’ ‘‘Where did it come from in human history?’’ In leadership studies, the social sciences have gone a long way to describe and explain leadership, but they only scratch the surface of understanding; to dig deeper, we must turn to the humanities.3 The goal of this chapter is to explore why followers expect leaders to be at a certain place at a certain time. My goal is to understand what this means in relation to how we think about leadership. To do this I will draw from history, the classics, literature, and philosophy. One might call my approach hermeneutic. Hermeneutics is the art of interpreting texts and language. Theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher and historian Wilhelm Dilthey characterize ‘‘hermeneutics’’ as a theory of knowledge for scholars who study ‘‘culture, rituals, images, examples of the useful arts—in short, for such products as are the result of man’s deliberate ingenuity rather than of nature’s blind working.’’ 4 The idea of leaders and leadership clearly falls into this category. As the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer notes, the hermeneutic approach allows one to discover the meaning of a part in the context of the whole. 5 In what is called ‘‘the hermeneutic circle,’’ a scholar goes back and forth between interpretations of meaning that are explicit and implicit in the phenomenon under investigation. In this chapter we will begin by looking at the container for ‘‘being there’’— the normative aspects of time and space in general and in a particular piece of literature. We go on to examine a historical vignette about the Roman Emperor of Nero and what it came to mean to us in the present. Then we consider a contemporary case involving the former Russian President Vladimir Putin and use philosopher Martin Heidegger’s work on time and care to pull together our analysis of why being there at the right time is morally important for leaders.

SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE HISTORY AND THE MEANING OF TIME Time marks the space between birth and death in which we live our lives. In the past, events were the measure of time. For example, in Madagascar,

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one-half hour was measured by the time it took to cook rice. The time it took to fry a locust measured a moment. In Chile, it took one Ave Maria to cook an egg and an earthquake could last two credos.6 In the early days of Christianity, the Catholic Church gave a moral sense to time because it said that time belonged to God. Sloth was not, as people think today, the sin of not working. It was the sin of not caring. Sloth was considered a sin because God, having given us the gift of time, wanted us to pay attention to what we do in it and to enthusiastically attend to the things that we do in the time we have.7 Agrarian societies chart time by natural events, and in many cultures, people still primarily use religious events to mark the passing of time. Today, time measures events rather than events measuring time. We regard clocks and calendars as objective and rational ways to decide when to do things and when to go places. Even the kind of watch that a person wears portrays time differently. Traditional analog clocks allow you to see where you have been, where you are, and where you are going. The digital clock literally and figuratively depicts modernity—you only see time in the present. Clocks and calendars give us two different imperatives for action. The first imperative is based on objective measures of time: ‘‘It is June 4th hence, according to my schedule, I must go to New Orleans and be there by noon.’’ The second is based on events that create a feeling of obligation such as, ‘‘New Orleans has been hit by a flood and people are suffering. I have an obligation to go there as soon as possible.’’ Even our objective concept of time is a bit of a fiction. It used to be true that a watch measured every event and synchronized watches worn by different people would agree on the time interval between two events. However, when Albert Einstein noticed that the speed of light appeared the same to every observer, no matter how fast they were moving, scientists abandoned the idea that there was a unique absolute time. Instead, according to relativity theory, observers would have different measures of time as recorded by a clock that they carried. Different observers wearing different watches would not necessarily agree.8 This is a more personal notion of time, relative to the space that is occupied by the observer who measures it. Time then is more than the numbers used to measure it. While clocks and calendars tell us when events take place, events still define time and place for us. Most people do not remember the date when John F. Kennedy was killed or when the Challenger crashed, but they usually remember where they were and what they were doing. Events tend to mark our memories more than calendars and clocks.

WHERE YOU ARE, WHAT YOU KNOW, AND WHO YOU ARE We cannot treat space and time as separate containers or environments of human experience because they usually bleed together. Where we are


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influences our moral outlook on the world. Edwin Abbott illustrates this point in the novel Flatland. Abbott creates a fantasy about spatiality to critique the arrogance and narrow-mindedness of colonial and Victorian morality of his day.9 The book explores the complexities of imagining spatial and moral dimensions. In the story, a character named ‘‘A Square’’ sets out on a journey and discovers the epistemic limitations of living in his two-dimensional world of Flatland. Along the way, he meets up with the Sphere from Spaceland, who patiently helps A Square recognize a third dimension. Once A Square begins to see in three dimensions, he wants to continue in the ‘‘divine’’ search of knowledge about more dimensions, but Sphere arrogantly dismisses the possibility of more than three dimensions. Eventually, A Square returns to Flatland. This part of the story is similar to Plato’s allegory of the cave. When a person breaks free from looking at shadows on the cave wall, and climbs out of the cave, he too sees reality in three dimensions. Like Plato’s cave man,10 A Square will never be at home again in the two-dimensional reality and morality of Flatland. By being somewhere else, he becomes someone else. He is a square who no longer fits in with the other squares. Flatland raises an interesting question about physical reality and our moral perceptions of the world. Does watching the two-dimensional pictures of war, floods, and famine on the news have the same moral impact as being there? How does being there enhance a leader’s capacity to empathize and meet the moral expectations of his or her followers? For our purposes, how does being there at the right time alter or perhaps make a leader? For example, on 9/11 the physical presence of Rudolph Giuliani at the site of the disaster played an enormous role in the public perception of him as a leader, regardless of the quality of what he did at the time or before it. In other words, in times of crisis, being there in body, heart, and mind may be as important or more important than what a leader actually does at the time.

DID NERO FIDDLE WHILE ROME BURNED? The significance of where you are, when you are there, and what you are doing is contingent on who you are. The meaning of a leader occupying a certain place at a certain time is unique. For example, we all know the story of Nero playing his fiddle while Rome burned. There is nothing wrong with Nero playing the fiddle on the roof of his palace; however, there is something that is not only wrong but also immoral about Nero playing the fiddle on his roof at the time in which Rome burns below. It is this point that connects space and time to the implications of Nero’s identity as the leader of Rome. If Nero were an ordinary citizen who lived alone, his behavior in that place at that time would be considered odd, but not necessarily immoral. The fact that Nero is a leader makes his location at that time morally significant,

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because there is a sense in which we expect him to be somewhere else in Rome attending to the disaster. In this case Nero is physically looking down on Rome, but it does not appear that his heart and mind are on the fire. The story of Nero playing his fiddle has come down to us through the ages. It is repeated in various forms by a number of ancient historians and then it shows up (as do so many things from the past) in William Shakespeare’s work as well as in the work of a number of modern writers. Today we sometimes use the phrase as shorthand to describe a leader who is self-centered, inattentive, and irresponsible, and who fails to look after something that is important—‘‘She is like Nero who played the violin while Rome burned.’’ To fully understand the significance of this story for our understanding of leadership, we must first ask, is it true that Nero played the violin while Rome burned? Curiously, for our purposes the truth of the story is not that important. The more interesting question is, Why have people from Nero’s own time up until now kept repeating this story? In AD 64 there was a huge fire in Rome. It lasted six days and wiped out large portions of the city. One of the more reliable accounts of the fire comes from the Roman historian Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56–120). Tacitus reports that Nero was not in Rome when the fire started. The emperor was at his summer home in Antium and did not return to the city until the fire got close to one of his houses in town. When Nero finally arrived in Rome, Tacitus tells us: But as a relief for the evicted and fugitive people, he opened up the Plain of Mars and the Monuments of Agrippa, in fact even his own gardens, and he set up improvised buildings to receive the destitute multitude; and comestibles were sailed up from Ostia and nearby municipalities, and the price of grain was reduced to three sesterces. All of which, though popular, proved unavailing, because a rumor spread that at the very time of the City’s blaze he had actually mounted his domestic stage and sung of the extirpation of Troy, assimilating present calamities to olden disasters.11

If this really was rumor going around Rome, be it true or false, it is one that speaks volumes about how Nero was perceived as a leader. (Imagine President George W. Bush ordering disaster relief after Hurricane Katrina and then getting up on his home stage and singing a song that compared the disaster to the destruction of Troy!) Ancient historians were known to present gossip as fact and embellish history to make the story more interesting. Tacitus was no admirer of Nero, but his account seems more measured than other historians (and he was a near contemporary of Nero’s). For example, the historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (AD 69–140) claims that Nero set the fire to plunder and destroy ancient monuments and the houses of the rich and powerful in the city.


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According to Suetonius, ‘‘Pretending to be disgusted by the drab old buildings and narrow, winding streets of Rome, he brazenly set fire to the city.’’ 12 Suetonius then writes: Nero watched the conflagration from the tower of Maecenas, enraptured by what he called ‘‘the beauty of the flames’’; then put on his tragedian’s costume and sang ‘‘The Sack of Ilium’’13 from beginning to end. He offered to remove corpses and rubble free of charge, but allowed nobody to search among the ruins, even of his own mansion; he wanted to collect as much loot and spoils as possible himself. Then he opened a Fire Relief Fund and insisted on contributions, which bled the provincials white and practically beggared all private citizens.14

This is a far more sinister account of the event. One in which Nero does, as the saying goes, ‘‘fiddle while Rome burns.’’ Later writers followed Suetonius’s story line, only some had Nero singing a different song or playing a different instrument while others, such as Cassius Dio (AD 150–235), had him singing and watching the fire from the roof of his palace.15 Despite any exaggeration or poetic license, we know that Nero was an immoral and somewhat bizarre person in his private and public life. He killed his mother and kicked his pregnant wife to death after she complained about him coming home late from the races. Nero perfected the idea of bread and circuses, giving handouts and violent public entertainment to keep the masses happy. Fiddling while Rome burned was nothing compared to the fact that he then blamed the fire on the Christians. After the fire, Nero rounded up the Christians and had them brutally tortured and killed, often as public entertainment. Among those killed were the Saints Peter and Paul. It is all too easy to caricaturize a leader like Nero, but as the classicist Edward Champlin points out, the real Nero may not have been as bad as his monsterlike image in history.16

CITHARAS AND FIDDLING Nero was a brutal man and a vain artist. He was a serious musician who liked to compete in music contests and longed for artistic recognition. The story of him fiddling while Rome burned seems to speak to the public perception of him as uncaring, self-centered, and disjointed from the people. One thing we can be certain of is that he did not play the fiddle because it had not yet been invented. According to classicist Mary Gyles, Nero probably played the cithara (a stringed instrument resembling a lyre) because he had coins and statues of himself as a cithara player.17 So the interesting question is, why do we say that Nero played the fiddle? Here is where we can see how the study of language offers insight into the origin of certain ideas.

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According to Gyles, the Latin word ‘‘fides’’ means string, and the Roman writer Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–143 BC) uses fides and the diminutive ‘‘fidicula’’ to refer to a stringed instrument, which in his day would be a lyre or a cithara. She traces the term to the AD 500s and finds that ‘‘fidicula’’ is used in English and Continental Germanic to refer to musical instruments such as the harp, lyre, and rotta. Gyles says that by the fourteenth century the word evolved into the word ‘‘fiddle’’ and applied to the violin when it was invented a century later. So what does all this have to do with Nero and leadership? The story of Nero playing the fiddle lay somewhat dormant in literature until it reemerged in the seventeenth century in Shakespeare’s Henry VI where Henry proclaims: Plataginet, I will: and like thee, Nero, Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.18

Gyles argues that it is significant that Nero shows up in this play as a musician, but that in The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare makes it clear that he thinks a lute is the same thing as a fiddle.19 She then points to a number of authors who follow Shakespeare and repeat the story that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Because of the Nero story, the verb ‘‘fiddled’’ enters the English language with two very different meanings. Consider the definition from Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, written between 1745 and 1755: 1. To fiddle, from the noun. 2. To trifle, to shift the hands often, and to do nothing like a fellow that plays upon a fiddle. Good cooks cannot abide what they justly call fiddling work, where abundance of time is spent and little done.20

One rarely associates playing an instrument with ‘‘doing nothing,’’ but if we go back to the Nero story we see that both the story and the word for playing the instrument in the story (albeit the wrong instrument) take on a meaning that includes in it moral condemnation of Nero, who was doing something trivial and unhelpful at the wrong time. In modern English it is an even harsher term that can mean to cheat or swindle,21 to make frivolous movements, and to waste time.22 The intent of this (somewhat off the beaten path) account of Nero and fiddling while Rome burns is to show how sayings can be graphic summaries of what people have thought and felt about how leaders should not behave over a long period of time. People expect leaders to attend to the problems of followers. In times of crisis, people condemn leaders who are not there and/or do something at the time of the crisis that the public perceives as


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pleasant or enjoyable to the leader. When leaders behave this way, the public thinks they are fiddling around. In our next examples, we see that the perception of fiddling around need not involve playing an instrument.

THE PROBLEM WITH NOT BEING THERE Russian President Vladimir Putin offers a striking instance of a leader who failed to understand the importance of ‘‘being there’’ when he stayed on at his vacation dacha instead of returning to his office in Moscow or going to the port at the Barents Sea after the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk sank in August 2000. Consider some of the reactions to Putin’s behavior at home and in the world press.23 ‘‘Particularly irksome,’’ declared a Moscow daily, was that ‘‘he has not interrupted his vacation . . . if only for an hour, to support the seamen in distress.’’ Igor Chernyak wondered about Putin’s ability to empathize. How come that in the past five days, Putin, who once spent a night aboard a submarine and knows what being underwater means, has not found time to address the families of the Kursk’s seamen? Why does he think he can remain silent these days, with all of Russia keyed up, its heart going out to the people aboard the hapless sub?

In democratic societies, the public is supposed to hold their leaders accountable for where they are in times of crisis. For example, the British paper the Independent editorialized (August 18): ‘‘No democratic politician can afford to remain on holiday in a crisis.’’ Oslo’s Dagbladet observed: ‘‘every other democratically elected head of state would have gotten as near the site [of the accident] as humanly possible.’’ Michael Backhaus argued in the tabloid B.Z. of Berlin (August 18): The czars and their Soviet successors simply did not have to take care of public concerns. In their majority, the Russians still want a strong man, a kind of czar, at the lead. But they want someone who takes care of the people and who is with them in times of misery. Putin’s heartless silence and the serious shortcomings during the rescue mission could destroy his reputation as the savior of the Russian motherland.

An editorial in the Italian La Stampa (August 18) notes: According to the Russians, today Putin should be at the Barents Sea . . . following the rescue operations. Yesterday’s public surveys, conducted for ‘‘Echo of Moscow’’ radio, heated up its switchboards: Most of the radio listeners wanted Putin to immediately interrupt his vacation, (adding) ‘‘Clinton does it all the time.’’

Putin replied to these criticisms and acknowledged his mistake in an interview with Voice of America:

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The only thing which could have been changed in my conduct as head of state, it could be possible to halt my working meetings, to suspend them at the place of my vacation in Sochi, the Black Sea, I could go back to the capital, to Moscow. But, again, it would have been a P-R (public relations) activity since in any city of the country, or all over the world, I’m always linked to the military, I have communication means, I can discuss any problems on the table.24

Putin thought that going to his office or to the site of the submarine was simply a matter of public relations. In other words, he cared, but failed to show care. The cause of outrage was the public perception that he chose to stay on vacation rather than be where the public thought that he should be. In short, he appeared to be fiddling around when he should have been doing his job as leader. Note that Putin, like Nero, did seem to attend to the problem at hand. The key issue for followers was that they believed that their leaders were not paying attention and were doing something enjoyable while others suffered. Such leaders appear self-interested, callous, and indifferent to the plight of their followers. Putin’s case is particularly revealing when it comes to the difference between caring and showing care. On the one hand, he is a product of his personal background as head of intelligence and growing up in an undemocratic culture. So one might argue that he did not know that leaders were supposed to stop vacationing and go to Moscow or the site of a disaster right away.25 On the other hand, this does not get at the question of whether Putin really cared about the right things. Some believed that Putin was more concerned with showing that Russia did not need help than caring about the 118 men who were trapped in the submarine. The other rumor going around was that there was something to hide on the submarine. There are many other cases of leaders who failed to be in the right place at the right time. Coincidentally, a year later, we see another example of this involving a submarine. In February 2001, when Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori found out that the U.S. submarine Greeneville sank a Japanese fishing boat called the Ehime Maru’s, he actually called and asked his secretary whether it was all right for him to continue his golf game. Apparently she said yes, because he went on to play for two more hours.26 He was widely condemned by the public and the press. (Mori’s political career was already on thin ice at the time.) His response to criticisms of his behavior was more clueless than Putin’s. He said: ‘‘Why is this an issue of emergency management? It is an accident isn’t it? I think I exercised my leadership.’’ 27 In an editorial, Japanese writer Shin’ya Fujiwara criticized Mori’s behavior and the failure of the captain of the Greeneville to apologize to the Japanese families. Fujiwara aptly sums up the expectations that people have for leaders to be there. He writes, ‘‘both men have shown this capacity to go missing when they are needed, leaving us alone again in our grief and frustration.’’ 28


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Being there in a time of crisis is central to leadership in all contexts. As John Keegan notes in the opening quote of this chapter, a leader’s presence is central to military leadership for practical as well as moral reasons. Business leaders have also been condemned when they fail to show up in times of crisis. One notable example of this is the failure of Exxon CEO Lawrence G. Rawl to visit the site where the Exxon Valdez broke up in Alaska and caused one of the worst oil spills in history.29 It took him about a week to finally get there, in the meantime making Exxon seem like it did not care or take responsibility for the environmental disaster.

CARE AND BEING THERE Let us turn now to what ‘‘care’’ means and how it is related to being there. ‘‘Care’’ has two different but interrelated meanings. It can mean anxiety or concern and is often used as a noun as in ‘‘She has many cares’’ or ‘‘She has no cares.’’ The verb form of ‘‘care’’ often means solicitous, paying attention to, taking responsibility for, or even worrying about someone or something, as in ‘‘I care about or for her.’’ The two different meanings come together in ‘‘I must care for her especially when she has so many cares.’’ The word ‘‘care’’ comes from the Latin word ‘‘cura,’’ which is also the root of the word ‘‘cure.’’ In Being and Time philosopher Martin Heidegger traces the origins of the role of care in life to the fable of Care (Cura) by the Roman writer Gaius Julius Hyginus (64 BC–AD 17).30 The fable ties the idea of caring to the origins and maintenance of humanity. It goes like this: Once when ‘‘care’’ [Cura] was crossing a river, she thoughtfully picked up some mud and began to shape it. While she was thinking about what she had made, Jupiter came by. Care asked him to give it spirit, and this he gladly granted. Care wanted to name the human after herself, but Jupiter insisted that his name should be given to the human instead. While Care and Jupiter were arguing, Earth (Tellus) arose and said that the human being should be named after her, since she had given her own body. Finally, all three disputants accepted Saturn as judge. Saturn decided that Jupiter, who gave spirit to the human, would take back its soul after death; and since Earth had offered her body to the human, she should receive it back after death. But, said Saturn, ‘‘Since Care fashioned the first human being, let her have and hold it as long as it lives.31

The myth demonstrates how care literally and figuratively makes us what we are and sustains us as human beings. Heidegger ties the idea of care (Sorge) to what it means to be or to exist. He uses the word ‘‘Da-sein,’’ to mean ‘‘being there.’’ Heidegger says we not only exist in time, but we exist first and foremost as beings with the capacity to be concerned about our own being or self-identity. We are self-reflective in that we make sense of our ability to make sense of the world. Humans do not exist

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by themselves. They exist in the midst of a world of other people and things. For Heidegger, care is the uniquely human way of being in this world. It is the experience of care that unifies the self and makes a person into an authentic human being. While Heidegger is looking at the broader philosophic question of ‘‘being there,’’ it is instructive to use his observations to think about why care is fundamental to what we are as humans and how we understand our common morality.32 This last point is most important for the issue at hand concerning leaders. The ‘‘being’’ of a leader has some unique aspects to it. Since leaders cannot exist without followers, they exist in the context of followers. What sets them apart in that context is that their role carries the expectation and obligation to care. Failure to place a value on being there at a particular time is, like the vice of sloth, failure to care.

THE ETHICS OF CARE One of the oldest and ubiquitous moral principles is the golden rule: ‘‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you’’ or ‘‘do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.’’ It assumes a common ability to empathize, and it encompasses expansive notions of space and time. The ‘‘others’’ in the rule are just like you and me no matter where they are or what time it is. The rule implies that people are the same based on their wants and needs. The golden rule gives us guidance on how to treat people, but it still does not quite capture what it means to care. Perhaps that is what makes it such a useful principle. Care requires attention, solicitude, and active involvement. Unlike the golden rule, which is objective and egalitarian, care entails having certain dispositions and feelings, and it is highly subjective and selective. In the twentieth century, feminist scholars began to formulate an ethic of care.33 One impetus for this was psychologist Carol Gilligan’s surprising discovery that girls progressed up Lawrence Kohlberg’s scale of moral development more slowly than boys. Gilligan went on to conduct her own study of moral development of girls and found that women and girls thought about ethical problems in ‘‘a different voice’’ than men.34 Rather than reasoning from moral principles, females were more concerned with relationships and contexts. One might argue that if a leader thinks about morality in this ‘‘female’’ way, he or she might be more likely to sense why being in the right place at the right time is important for his or her relationship to followers. It is the same disposition that leads mothers and fathers to go to their screaming babies, even when the babies are not hurt or in danger. According to psychologist Erik Erikson, the human inclination to care is rooted in the impulse to ‘‘caress’’ someone who in his helplessness emits signals of despair.35


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The ethics of care is often contrasted with the ethics of justice. Philosopher Virginia Held describes an ethic of justice as one that focuses on fairness, equality, individual rights, and abstract principles as well as the consistent application of them. An ethic of care is about cultivating caring relations, attentiveness, responsiveness to need, and narrative nuance (which includes time and place). She says, ‘‘Whereas justice protects equality and freedom, care fosters social bonds and cooperation.’’ 36 The basic ideas behind the ethics of care, such as the role of emotions, empathy, and sympathy, have been discussed by many thinkers in the history of philosophy and are not considered feminine or masculine, but merely other ways to think about ethics.37 For example, Søren Kierkegaard introduced the notion of care as a means of counteracting the excessive objectivity of philosophy in the early twentieth century. 38 The Roman philosopher Seneca (who, by the way, was Nero’s tutor) observed that behaving rationally is only part of morality. He said humans were given reason so that they can achieve the good. They were given the capacity to care so that they can perfect the good.39 The dichotomy between those cold, hard, objective, moral principles based on reason and justice, and moral feelings such as empathy is extremely important when we consider the ethics of leadership. Followers want and expect leaders to have moral principles and moral feelings. Not all leaders have both, but this does not necessarily mean that they are immoral or that they cannot learn or at least compensate for missing moral feelings related to care.

CONCLUSION: HOW DUTY AND PROPRIETY CAN LEAD TO CARE Looking back on the Putin example, notice that he says that he was monitoring the situation with sophisticated communications at his vacation dacha. There was nothing that he could practically do to help raise the submarine. He appears to have been directing the action from afar. Putin may well have been behaving like a responsible and rational leader, who is in the wrong place at that time. The public controversy over Putin centered on what his absence at the Barents Sea port said about his feelings; however, there is another equally if not more important issue in the case. Putin not only appeared to lack the right feelings that would motivate him to be there, but he lacked the knowledge that he had a duty to be there. Staying at his dasha made him seem slothful—as if he did not care about how or where he did his work—or as if he was not giving the disaster the appropriate kind of attention. Care is about more than concern for others; it is also about concern for what one does in the role that defines what one is.

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While we want leaders who have feelings of care for other human beings, there is much to recommend in a leader with a strong sense of duty. First, a leader like Putin does not need to have a tender heart to know when and where he should be in times of crisis. Care is largely about feelings, but it may also be framed in terms of attention to one’s duty. Second, the duties of leadership can be taught in ways that moral feeling cannot. Leaders learn from their mistakes when they have a duty to be on the site of a disaster. Putin did. In later disasters, such as the massacre of school children in Beslan by Chechan rebels in 2004, he promptly arrived on the scene. Even if showing up is nothing more than public relations, it still means something to followers. It means the leader is ‘‘on the job’’ and paying attention to their plight. A leader’s presence can give followers confidence in the leader, and this confidence can be a source of comfort. It may be unrealistic to expect all leaders to have finely honed feelings of care, and not all of them do. This is rather like expecting all leaders to have charisma. I would argue that either care for one’s duty or the care that comes from feelings is morally sufficient, albeit not as emotionally satisfying to followers. The duty to be with followers in a crisis is also captured by the concept of ‘‘propriety’’ or what is considered proper behavior for a leader. Confucius understood the importance of propriety and ceremony for leaders as a means of showing both respect and humility.40 Ancient Greek and Chinese writers talked about propriety in terms of the virtue reverence. According to philosopher and classicist Paul Woodruff, the ancients considered reverence the most important virtue for leaders. It was the virtue that made leaders act as if they were a part of a larger whole and kept leaders from acting like gods.41 As noted earlier, leaders simply cannot exist without followers. We have been exploring how being there and care are essential elements of the moral obligations of leadership. Being in a certain place at a certain time is the context and existential aspect of leadership. The best leaders care because of how they feel and because of their sense of duty, but either motivation may be sufficient for filling their moral obligations and doing their job. A leader’s duties are determined by how to do his or her job the right way. As I have argued elsewhere, the ethics of leaders is inextricably tied to and embedded in the skills, knowledge, and competencies of leadership.42 Leaders can and often do learn their duties and proper behavior on the job. Duty and propriety offer guidance for leaders about where they should be at certain times, regardless of how the leader feels. Physical presence affects the way that people perceive the world. Visiting the location of a disaster after it has occurred is different from watching it on a flat screen TV. Being at the site of a disaster may cultivate sentiments of care in leaders who do not have them or, at a minimum, help leaders


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understand why they should be there. When leaders ‘‘fiddle while Rome burns,’’ stay on vacation while sailors die, or play golf while families grieve, they fail to understand that these things do not happen to their followers without happening to them. This is why it is so important for presidents to visit wounded soldiers and attend the funerals of those who have fallen in war. Leaders need to experience the feelings of followers up close because they are players in the same tragedy. Since the time of Nero and perhaps before then, people have condemned leaders who fail to understand this point and ‘‘fiddle while Rome burns.’’

NOTES 1. John Keegan, The Mask of Command (New York: Viking, 1987), 329. 2. Joanne B. Ciulla, ‘‘The State of Leadership Ethics and the Work that Lies Before Us,’’ Business Ethics: A European Review 14, no. 4 (2005): 323–335. 3. As C. P. Snow noted in his famous 1959 Rede lecture, there are ‘‘two cultures’’ of scholars, the humanities and the sciences. He said the sciences provide us with descriptions and explanations, but we need the humanities for understanding. C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 2. 4. Roy Howard, Three Faces of Hermeneutics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 1. 5. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald Marshall (New York: Crossroads Publishing, 1990), 190. 6. E. P. Thompson, ‘‘Time Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,’’ Past and Present, no. 38 (1967). 7. Joanne B. Ciulla, The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work (New York: Crown Business Books, 2000). 8. Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1988). 9. Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (New York: Dover Publications, 1992 [1884]). 10. Plato, Republic, trans. G. M. A. Grube (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1992). 11. Tacitus, The Annals, trans. A. J. Woodman (Indianapolis IN: Hackett Publishing, 2004), 15.39, 323. 12. Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, trans. Robert Graves and Michael Grant (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), 236. 13. This is a lost epic from Greek literature about the sack of Troy. 14. Ibid., 237. 15. Cassius Dio, Roman History, trans. Earnest Gray, Loeb Classical Library Edition, Vol. VIIII (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), sec. 16, 113. 16. Edward Champlin, Nero (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003), 9. 17. Mary F. Gyles, ‘‘Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned,’’ The Classical Journal 42, no. 4 (1947): 211–217.

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18. William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1994), Henry VI, Pt. I Act I, Scene 4, 6. 19. Gyles, ‘‘Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned,’’ 215. 20. Samuel Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language, Vol. I (New York: AMS Press, 1967). 21. It is worth noting here that in the 1530s wandering minstrels had fallen into disrepute and by the seventeenth century were considered idlers and people who spread social unrest. This too contributed to the meaning of the expression ‘‘fiddling around,’’ according to Gyles, ‘‘Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned,’’ 215. 22. The Complete Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 585. 23. All press quotes in this section, unless otherwise stated are from Federation of American Scientists. Available at http://www.fas.org/news/russia/2000/russia -000818-sub_comment.htm 24. Voice of America. Available at http://www.fas.org/news/russia/2000/russia -000909.htm 25. Terry L. Price, Understanding Ethical Failures in Leadership (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 26. Stephanie Strom, ‘‘Sub Incident Erodes Trust in Japan Chief and the U.S.,’’ The New York Times, February 18, 2001, N7. 27. Howard W. French, ‘‘A Sorry Mess: Taking Measure of Suffering,’’ The New York Times, March 4, 2001, WK 16. 28. Shin’ya Fujiwara, ‘‘In Japan, Waiting for the Captain to Appear,’’ The New York Times, February 14, 2001, A17. 29. Bruce Harrison and Tom Prugh, ‘‘Assessing the Damage: Practitioner Perspectives on the Valdez,’’ Public Relations Journal 45, no. 10 (1989): 40. 30. Hyginus, Fabularum Liber (New York: Garland, 1976 [1535]). 31. In an edited form from Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996), 184. 32. See Robert C. Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001). 33. See Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Martha C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); and Martha C. Nussbaum, Sex and Social Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 34. Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). 35. Erik H. Erikson, The Life Cycle Completed: A Review (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982). 36. Virginia Held, The Ethics of Care (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 15. 37. See, for example, Bishop Joseph Butler, Five Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel; and A Dissertation upon the Nature of Virtue (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950 [1726]); and David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1983). 38. Søren Kierkegaard, Johannes Climacus; or, De Omnibus Dubitandum Est; and A Sermon, trans. Thomas Henry Croxall (Paulo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958);


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Frederick Copleston, Contemporary Philosophy: Studies of Logical Positivism and Existentialism (Westminster, MD: Newman, 1966). 39. Seneca, Seneca ad Lucilium Epistulae. Vol. 3 of Epistulae Morales, trans. Richard M. Gummere (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953). 40. See Confucius, ‘‘Selections from the Analects,’’ ed. and trans. Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963). 41. Paul Woodruff, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 42. Joanne B. Ciulla, ‘‘Leadership Ethics: Mapping the Territory,’’ The Business Ethics Quarterly 5, no. 1 (1995): 5–28. Also see Joanne B. Ciulla, ‘‘Ethics and Leadership Effectiveness,’’ in The Nature of Leadership, ed. J. Antonakis, A. T. Cianciolo, and R. J. Sternberg (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2004), 302–327.


PART IV

HOW MUSIC AND MUSICIANS LEAD


8 Leadership through Music KATHLEEN MARIE HIGGINS

‘‘Who has had the most convincing eloquence so far? The drum roll; and as long as the kings command that, they remain the best orators and rabble rousers.’’1 Nietzsche reminds us here of an aspect of leadership that is frequently overlooked: the value of music for leading. Leaders use music pervasively. Parades, gatherings of political parties, summit meetings, and so forth, all utilize music to signal the importance of the occasion and its participants, as well as to emphasize the cohesion of groups. Leaders beyond the political realm also employ music. Religious leaders use music to instill reverence and move the faithful. Educators embed teachings in nursery rhymes and other songs.2 Military leaders rally troops and terrify enemies with music.3 My aim here will be to consider why and how music lends itself to serving leaders’ purposes, as well as to consider some questions of strategy for leaders to consider. I will focus on the concerns of political leaders. However, my analysis should be relevant to other kinds of leaders, too. Philosophers in both ancient Greece and ancient China theorized that leaders should attend to the role that music plays in their states. In what follows I will focus largely on their grounds for this position, although I will elaborate with examples from current musical experience.

MUSIC AND POWER Leaders, whether formal or not, occupy positions of authority. One can go forward in a leadership role only by maintaining one’s power. But there are various approaches for accomplishing this. One extreme approach is that of the police state, in which noncooperation is met with severe retaliation. The ostensible aim in this case is compliance, not enthusiastic support for one’s

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leadership. But even this method is in practice aimed at affecting the attitudes of the governed. Even draconian leaders are most successful if the threat of punishment suffices to dissuade individuals from undesired actions, and this depends on the threat being internalized. What this means is that the authoritarian leader has to be concerned with people’s emotions, trading on such emotions as self-protectiveness and fear. Indeed, Niccolo´ Machiavelli’s advice to leaders was that they should rule with fear rather than love. But authoritarian leaders are not only interested in the emotions that they want to incite. They need to be vigilant regarding emotions that they inadvertently inspire as well. When their populations feel frustrated, unheard, and/or victimized, such leaders are impelled to do something to keep these potentially confrontational emotions at bay. Now consider the opposite end of the leadership spectrum, that of the benign leader, whose strategy runs contrary to Machiavelli’s recommendation. The benevolent leader is genuinely concerned about the well-being of the population. This leader, too, must be attentive to the emotional climate in the populace, for it reflects societal well-being. In addition, like the authoritarian leader, the benevolent one most probably wants to maintain a position of authority, and this is dependent on the continuing support of at least some of the governed. Leaders all along the spectrum, in fact, need to attend to their citizens’ emotions, and therefore they have good reasons for being concerned with music. Music both reflects and impacts the emotions of participants and listeners. Philosophers have considered several ways that music might relate to emotion. Music may mimic emotions or the behavior they induce. Or music may be an expressive behavior, indicating how some person or persons might feel. Or music may cause listeners to experience certain emotions. All three of these ideas will figure in what follows, for each of them figure in rationales for leaders’ strategic employment of music. In practice, however, imitation, arousal, and expression of emotion are usually not separate processes. Emotional expression typically arouses emotion in others, which in turn motivates more emotional expression. Imitating manifestations of emotions can encourage others to adopt similar behaviors. To help focus on various reasons leaders have to work with music, I will begin by discussing traditional accounts of music as imitating emotion, and subsequently consider music as expressive and as arousing emotion. However, the dominant theme will be leaders’ use of music to influence people’s attitudes and behavior and to provide them with social skills—in other words, for better or for worse, to educate.

MUSICAL AS MORAL INFLUENCE The notion of music imitating or mimicking emotion might seem a bit bizarre until we consider that emotion (at least as usually understood)

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involves multiple aspects.4 It includes physiological changes (including activation of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems), sensations, attitudes, thoughts, behaviors, and dispositions to action (or ‘‘action tendencies,’’ as Nico Frijda puts it).5 If music imitates emotion, presumably it imitates features of emotion that are evident to the normal range of unassisted human perception. Sensations and behaviors would seem to be the most obvious bases for musical imitation, though clearly structured thoughts might be imitable as well. The idea that music is imitative was a commonplace for ancient Greek philosophers. Plato and Aristotle assume that music imitates emotions. Aristotle, for example, asserts, Rhythm and melody supply imitations of anger and gentleness, and also of courage and temperance, and of all the qualities contrary to these, and of the other qualities of character, which hardly fall short of the actual affections, as we know from our own experience, for in listening to such strains our souls undergo a change.6

Presumably, Aristotle has in mind the behavior associated with certain emotions in this passage. Music ‘‘behaves’’ through rhythms and melodies in a manner that resembles emotional behavior. Nineteenth-century music theorist Eduard Hanslick, though arguing that music cannot imitate or represent specific emotions through its own resources, nonetheless explicates this idea when he proposes that what music actually presents are ‘‘tonally moving forms.’’ 7 It is able to represent ‘‘those ideas which relate to audible changes in strength, motion, and proportion,’’ ideas ‘‘of increasing and diminishing, acceleration and deceleration, clever interweavings, simple progressions and the like.’’ 8 The reason we see resemblances between music and emotion is that the dynamic features of music—the gait of its rhythms, for example, and the patterns of tension and release—resemble the dynamics of feelings associated with certain emotions. Particular dynamics, according to Hanslick, are sometimes consistent with a variety of emotions, so simply listening to musical patterns in the absence of contextual cues will not tell us for certain that a specific emotion is being represented. This would not have concerned Plato and Aristotle very much, had they ever heard an argument like Hanslick’s. They did not take ‘‘music’’ to mean instrumental music alone, in the absence of any other activity. They assumed that music typically has words conjoined with it, and very often dance. Moreover, music was usually performed in the context of some larger civic event, such as a theater performance. Music video, in which the music is accompanied by characters acting and dancing, is something of a present-day counterpart of this, though we should keep in mind that our contemporary possibilities for individual consumption of music (e.g., by the person

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watching television in isolation) were unprecedented before the twentieth century. At least, much of the music we listen to resembles that of the ancient Athenians in combining music and verse. But this is typical of song in any time and place. Plato and Aristotle, and many ancient Chinese thinkers as well, considered music to be an important instrument of moral education. In this they are concerned with consequences of musical activity that are broadly significant for political leaders. Confucius, for example, counsels, ‘‘Let a man be first incited by the Songs, then given a firm footing by the study of ritual, and finally perfected by music.’’ 9 Similarly, Aristotle contends, Music has a power of forming the character. . . . There seems to be in us a sort of affinity to musical modes and rhythms, which makes some philosophers say that the soul is a tuning, others, that it possesses tuning.10

Plato concurs. His character Socrates claims that with respect to education, Rhythm and harmony permeate the inner part of the soul more than anything else, affecting it most strongly and bringing it grace, so that if someone is properly educated in music and poetry, it makes him graceful, but if not, then the opposite.11

One rationale for the idea that music serves moral education is that the texts conjoined with music might be morally desirable or undesirable, and thus might present good or bad role models for its audience. Treating music as an element of poetry and theater, Plato’s Socrates cautions against allowing these arts to display the kinds of conduct (e.g., lewd or disruptive behavior) that leaders would not want citizens to imitate. However, Plato’s Socrates also refers to more narrowly ‘‘musical’’ matters as well. He calls for the restriction of music to only two modes, one suited to military action and one to reverence. This tight linking of features of music with given kinds of activity reflects the fact that music can incite action. By ‘‘modes’’ Socrates means the scales, or sets of particular tone, from which a piece of music could be constructed. The modes differed with respect to the relative distribution of half steps and whole steps between tones. (Half steps are the tonal distance between the sounds of two adjacent keys on the piano; whole steps are the tonal distance between the sounds of two keys on the piano with one key between them.) Most Westerners are accustomed to two basic modes, major and minor. But our major and minor scales are not the only possible modes. For example, what is called the Dorian mode (though different from what the Greeks would have called Dorian) is the scale that can be formed made by playing all the white piano keys from the D above middle C to the next higher D.12 The ancient Greeks were aware of a variety of modes, for distinctive modes


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were associated with individual city-states and their ways of doing things. The ‘‘ethos theory’’ held that the modes themselves had an impact on the character of the people. Modes linked to societies the Athenians considered barbarian sounded barbarian to them. They heard the music makers and their characteristics through the music. Even the use of certain instruments was frowned upon. Both Plato and Aristotle show disdain for the aulos, the double flute. Plato’s Socrates complains that it introduces composite harmonies, when he wants modes to be pure and straightforward.13 Aristotle, too, deems the aulos too exciting to be educationally useful and harmful to the voice.14 While their explanations do not admit this, the aulos was associated with Dionysian cults; hence, it is likely that their condemnation of the instrument was related to their assessment of the cults themselves. Confucius similarly objects to foreign music on the grounds that it is licentious.15 The ethos theory raises the question of how the modes come to have moral influence. Does something inherent to the specific arrangement of notes and intervals in a particular mode affect people spiritually? Some have contended this but are hard put to explicate how this happens. A more obvious explanation is that we learn conventional associations between certain extramusical content and particular music or musical elements. Even the melody of ‘‘Happy birthday’’ makes us think of someone’s birth anniversary. The tune of a Christmas carol takes many of us imaginatively to that season of the year. The sound of a pipe organ makes many Westerners think of church, and so on. It is easy to believe that the repeated linking of music written in a particular mode with a given city-state made the connection seem natural after a time, just as most of us in the West feel that it is natural to link minor keys and sad moods, even though this association is historically contingent.16 Associations between music’s features and particular societies are also common in our era. Even an instrumental version of a national anthem draws listeners’ minds to thoughts of the country with which it is associated. The selection of instrumentation can also induce feelings of political membership. For example, the bagpipe connotes Scottish or (more broadly) Celtic identity, while the use of traditional Chinese instruments is evocative of Chinese identity both inside and outside that culture. Stylistic elements of a culture’s music also draw listeners’ minds to thoughts of that culture. Musical emblems can also be established by recurrently using particular melodies in particular contexts. Such features of music can be useful to leaders who want to inspire patriotic feelings. Already in ancient Greece, as we have seen, the meanings people associated with music had a marked cultural component. Thus, the meanings one society would associate with particular pieces and elements of music would not necessarily be apparent to foreigners. This is not to deny, however, that

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some elements and works of music have meanings that are cross-cultural. The human auditory system and the nature of musical perception is speciesinvariant, and certain features of music that appeal to it are standard across societies. For example, musical rhythm is more salient to human perception than pitch. Musical rhythms tend to be organized in groupings of twos and threes. Given that our own movements and actions are rhythmic, it becomes possible to compare the rhythms of music, whether our own or other peoples’, with our own activity. Not surprisingly, then, we hear ‘‘imitations’’ of the behavior of emotional people in the music even in styles with which we are not very familiar. Leaders can suggest authority in the way that they comport themselves physically; but they can also do so through music. Dignified music suggests grandeur. It is a means for a leader to assume the role.

MUSIC AS EMOTIONAL BAROMETER Part of being a good leader, as Confucius saw it, was to attend to the needs and concerns of subordinates. According to ancient Chinese thinkers one of the chief ways that a ruler could become aware of the concerns of the people was to listen to the music they were making. Their reasoning is premised on the account of music offered in the ‘‘Great Preface’’ of the Book of Songs (The Shi Jing), one of the Five Classics of Confucianism.17 The feelings move inwardly, and are embodied in words. When words are insufficient for them, recourse is had to sighs and exclamations. When sighs and exclamations are insufficient for them, recourse is had to the prolonged utterances of song. When those prolonged utterances of song are insufficient for them, unconsciously the hands begin to move and the feet to dance.18

According to this vision, music is a natural outgrowth of our innate need for emotional expression, and it communicates emotion more fully than words. The implication is that songs reveal what people really care about. The implication is that a ruler can use popular songs as a means for taking the emotional pulse of the population. The practical consequence was, according to Kenneth DeWoskin, that Chinese rulers would often appoint ‘‘official bureaus commissioned to collect songs outside of court and introduce them into courtly entertainments.’’ 19 A more recent, related practice was Mao Zedong’s enlistment of song collectors to collect and evaluate folk songs and music dramas. The songs of peasants from the countryside were then popularized and used to celebrate agricultural workers and their concerns.20

POLITICAL MUSIC The expression of emotion through music is not only an indication of people’s emotions. It can also extend an emotional outlook. Typically, emotional


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expression is contagious. Listeners usually mirror the emotions expressed in music unless contextual cues or some personal motivation dissuades them.21 This consideration is important to leaders, for they can expect the proliferation of emotions expressed in popular music. Songs with political content are not just barometers of public sentiment— they are propaganda, often of a most effective kind. Songs can offer veiled or unveiled political commentary and can explicitly or implicitly call for political action.22 They often work on emotions, conveying a provocative content through an evocative musical setting. In recent American history, for example, popular music in the 1960s catalyzed the civil rights movement and promoted antiwar sentiment during the Vietnam War. Music is particularly powerful for rallying political support because we tend to identify with music, to imaginatively put ourselves in the emotional place of the protagonist of a song, and to relate to behavior that has affinity with the rhythms we hear. Music with aggressive rhythm to that extent promotes aggressive behavior, for example. The political influence of music has led some leaders and theorists of leadership to favor censorship. Even Plato’s Socrates encourages musical and artistic censorship, although he does suggest that he might be persuaded against it if the music and art in question could be shown to have socially redeeming merit.23 The idea of censorship raises a number of questions, the most obvious one being whether it can ever be morally warranted. Nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart Mill argues that the liberty of adult citizens can only legitimately be constrained with respect to actions that would harm another person. If he is right, musical expression could appropriately be curtailed only if it could be shown to harm another person. Such circumstances are not impossible. For example, the public performance of the historical first stanza of ‘‘Deutschland u¨ber Alles,’’ its national anthem, has been forbidden in Germany since the end of World War II because it is so strongly associated with the Nazi regime that its performance would strike some as a hate crime. One could imagine the performance of a certain provocative work of music in certain contexts being used to promote a riot. However, establishing that a given performance of music causes harm to a given person or persons would probably be difficult to establish in most instances. Of course, not all political institutions aim to protect people’s liberty. Authoritarian regimes have other agendas, and one of the most obvious ways in which they relate to music is to suppress music that they deem subversive. A gruesome example is treatment of Chilean singer-songwriter Vıćtor Jara by the regime of General Augusto Pinochet. Jara was a supporter of Salvador Allende, who had died in the coup against his administration that was led by Pinochet. Soon after the coup Jara was arrested and tortured, having all of his fingers broken so that he could never again play the guitar. Three days

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after his arrest, he was shot to death. This case reveals that leaders who take music seriously are not all exemplary.24 The prospect of musical censorship raises many questions. What are the criteria for censorship? Who decides when these criteria have been met? Who determines if redeeming social merit outweighs the considerations that argue for censorship? What sanctions should be taken against those who perform banned music? Music can have propagandistic influence, but this need not be in opposition to a leader’s aims. Leaders, too, can use musical propaganda to advertise and promote their agendas. Campaign theme songs fall into this category of propagandistic uses of music. The use of music on public service announcements can attract attention or make the content more attractive. Sometimes leaders combine musical censorship with more proactive strategies. Mao Zedong’s government explicitly promoted the composition of songs praising work and revolutionary ideals with the aim of changing people’s thinking. The People’s Republic of China also sought to reform Peking opera, which makes use of stock characters and traditional plots. Traditional plots in many cases were eliminated from the repertoire because they were ‘‘unsocialist.’’ In particular, Mao Zedong’s wife, Jiang Qing, considered such plots objectionable because they reflected the outmoded class structure, fostered Confucianism, and sometimes encouraged superstitions, like belief in ghosts. She directed a crackdown on traditional Peking opera and insisted on their being replaced by ‘‘model,’’ revolutionary Peking opera. Mao and Jiang Qing subscribed to the aesthetic doctrine of socialist realism, which holds that art should portray revolutionary developments, thus contributing to ideological education. They insisted that the plots of the reformed Peking operas should depict communal life, class struggle, and the revolution. The acting should also be easily accessible, and thus devoid of the vocabulary of symbolic gestures that typified the traditional performances. The resulting model Peking operas were very long and had little dramatic tension, given that the plots were limited to showing admirable socialist behavior. Not surprisingly, they never became very popular. In 1976 Mao died and Jiang Qing was removed from power. Traditional Peking opera reemerged but never regained its earlier vitality.25 The socialist realism of Mao and Jiang Qing was a twentieth-century invention, but Chinese thought had long held that art should show people engaged in morally desirable behavior. The idea was that by presenting the ideal, one would encourage people to try to live up to it. This perspective raises questions about both leadership and art. One question is whether this idealistic aim for art should be endorsed: Should one restrict oneself to portraying images of what one wants to see emulated? Should music be allowed to


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express antisocial sentiments, or should only wholesome and sociable ones be tolerated? Another question concerns effectiveness: Even if one wants to promote only the behavior becoming to good citizens, is artistic presentation of the ideal the best strategy? Socialist realist art, such as reformed Peking opera tends to be very heavy-handed and tedious. Simone Weil contends, Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating. Therefore ‘‘imaginative literature’’ is either boring or immoral (or a mixture of both). It only escapes from this alternative if in some way it passes over to the side of reality through the power of art—and only genius can do that.26

If Weil is right, the aesthetics of socialist realism is doomed to failure. Art cannot depict only ‘‘good’’ behavior and still be sufficiently interesting to motivate its audiences. Nevertheless, some art has managed to be both excellent and idealistic. Traditional Indian drama, which aimed to present dharmic characters, that is, those who lived up to their morally prescribed roles, also faced the challenge of how to make such presentations interesting. The solution to this challenge was to combine many arts into an extravaganza and to offer moving presentations of deep and basic human emotions.27 The aesthetic richness of classical Indian drama suggests that artistic rendering of the ideal is not incompatible with high quality art. Most socialist realist art is very blatant in presenting its message. The aesthetic failure of such art suggests that more subtle tactics may be more motivating. Thus, both artists and political leaders with the agenda of inspiring good behavior need to ask themselves how blunt they should be in this effort.

MUSICAL AROUSAL Another reason ancient Greek thinkers considered music an important means of moral education was that music arouses emotions. Plato’s Socrates argues that behavior is contagious. Theater productions with characters acting like buffoons or tricksters could result in audience members behaving the same way. Consequently, he suggests that behavior that is presented should be seriously restricted. The same kind of reasoning is used in the current argument that music videos encourage sadistic behavior and unrestrained sexual activity on the part of young people. Not all popular music, of course, is consumed in connection with videos. But we hear the same complaint that the lyrics of some music promotes violence, and that the rhythms of the music underscore the words. If music can promote violence and sexual promiscuity, presumably leaders within society should be concerned. Exactly how leaders might promote

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certain kinds of music and discourage other kinds becomes a question. Should lyrical content of music albums be rated, for example? Should some kinds of music be banned outright? Again we confront the issue of musical censorship. Plato’s Socrates is not exclusively interested in the sort of musical productions that exert bad influence. He also stresses the kind of music that is conducive to socially desirable behavior. So does the Confucian tradition. Living at a time when uncontrolled warlords amassed territory and social order was undependable, Confucius contended that ritual and music were important means for restoring social harmony. The period of turmoil during which he lived had led to a breakdown of trust and cooperation within society. According to Confucius, ritual and music were complementary means by which people could interactively attune themselves to other members of the community. The cohesion of a society depends on people comfortably interacting in a certain way of life, in which some gestures and procedures become customary. A leader should promote organized circumstances in which traditional music and dances are employed in a ritual function. Such means help to create the circumstances in which citizens will become inclined to participate in cooperative endeavors. Ritual and music could teach people to harmonize themselves without coercion. According to the Analects (or Lun Yu), Confucius said, Govern the people by regulations, keep order among them by chastisements, and they will flee from you, and lose all self-respect. Govern them by moral force, keep order among them by ritual and they will keep their self-respect and come to you of their own accord.28

Confucius draws attention to the fact that music creates bonds among individuals. The leader who wants to promote solidarity among the populations does well to use music for this purpose. We share music even in a physical sense. As Hanslick observes, ‘‘The other arts persuade, but music invades us.’’ 29 The same music physically enters the ears and thus the bodies of everyone who can hear the music, and as we listen we are aware that the same music is within and outside us. Those who listen together synchronize the pace of their movements and their biorhythms, such as respiration and heartbeat, which follow the timing of the music. Music also entrains us, that is, we adjust the pace of our own activities to the rhythms of the music. We tend to do this without paying conscious attention, as we sometimes notice when we have discovered that we are tapping a foot to the music. We go for a walk with a companion and soon find ourselves coordinating our steps. Working songs are useful precisely because they set a rhythm to which workers entrain.


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Camaraderie among musical participants also develops because they share a deeply felt common experience. Phenomenologist Alfred Schutz observes that solidarity is ‘‘founded upon the partaking in common of the different dimensions of time simultaneously lived through by the participants.’’ 30 He points out that when we make music together we each recreate the music, step-by-step, in the inner time of our subjective experience, while also sharing an event in external time. Making music, accordingly, brings the flows of inner and outer time together. But the same is true of those who listen to music together, a condition that is rather like an inwardly ‘‘singing along,’’ as Donald Callen puts it.31 Music affects even our basic sense of connection with other people. Daniel Stern points out that we first learn to recognize other human beings through what he calls ‘‘vitality affects.’’ These are the quasi-musical dynamic and kinetic aspects of a caregiver’s behavior that allow an infant to first recognize a specific other being. Stern characterizes them as ‘‘those dynamic, kinetic qualities of feeling that distinguish animate from inanimate and that correspond to the momentary changes in feeling states involved in the organic process of being alive.’’ 32 Rather than using our usual emotional terminology, Stern suggests that the vitality affects ‘‘are better captured’’ by words that themselves seem appropriate to music, ‘‘dynamic, kinetic terms, such as ‘surging,’ ‘fading away,’ ‘fleeting,’ ‘explosive,’ ‘crescendo,’ ‘decrescendo,’ ‘bursting,’ ‘drawn out,’ and so on.’’ 33 Stern contends that infants and their caregivers attune to each other in the timing and contours of their acts of expression. Such proto-musical interactions allow infants to learn what it is to be ‘‘with’’ another person, an ability that is crucial for interpersonal relationships down the line. The feelings of solidarity that music provokes can result in cooperative action even in the absence of a leader’s direction. The 1914 Christmas truce during World War I is a case in point. At certain points along the front line between France and Germany, Allied and German combatants put down their arms and celebrated Christmas together. Song was a central catalyst in this remarkable development. Stanley Weintraub, in his book about the Christmas truce, observes, Yuletide carols initiated a tentative courtship that further developed through physical contact and ultimately the sharing of the soldiers’ most valued commodities—food and tobacco and such souvenirs as uniform buttons and insignia. . . . Everywhere, Christmas ritual—especially song—eased the anxiety and fear of initial contact.34

The case of the Christmas truce suggests that the ancient Chinese thinkers were right in their belief that music could engender spontaneous, noncoercive cooperation. Obviously, military leaders did not encourage this

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development, for they could hardly have been sanguine about their troops collaborating with the enemy. In this case, song among the troops themselves led to tentative gestures of trust for the occasion. This in itself raises questions about the extent to which official leaders should aim to actively direct their subordinates. Most schools of Chinese thought encourage the notion of wuwei (nonaction or nonassertive action) as an ideal for leaders as for others. According to the Dao De Jing, for example, 35 The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects. . . . When his task is accomplished and his work is all done The people all say, ‘‘It happened to us naturally.’’

This ideal of nonassertiveness raises questions in the philosophy of leadership. Should one aim to ‘‘make one’s mark’’ by leading? Or should one focus more on stability in the way the system functions? Should one aim to improve the way it functions, and if so in what respect(s)? The relevance of these questions is not uniquely evident in policies regarding music, but instead extends across the range of how leaders conduct themselves. But adoption of the wuwei ideal would certainly have implications for how leaders use music. For example, a leader who consistently aimed to lead nonassertively would not suppress dissident music. Such a leader might well think that such music is a peaceful means by which discontented people express themselves. As Confucian philosopher Xunzi observes, music is a means of channeling emotion. Noninterference with people’s musical practices, therefore, can itself promote social stability, and thus be in the ruler’s own interests. Indeed, allowing music to run its natural course might be a good way for a leader to encourage feelings of well-being within the populace. The leader who aims at wuwei might also recognize that participation in musical activities promotes feelings of security. This is not to say that all instances of music are reassuring. But music in familiar styles and ‘‘old favorite’’ songs do encourage comfort in one’s situation. Indeed, the German philosopher and sociologist Theodor Adorno argues that music is too comforting, encouraging complacency with the status quo when change is what is really needed. He contends that society needs music that will push people beyond their comfort zone and inspire them to take action. I think that underestimates the social value of a basic sense of security, but Adorno correctly recognizes that music helps establish it. Music induces a sense of security in part because it is remarkably conservative, in the sense that it is built on pattern repetition at every level to a much greater degree than is the case in other arts. Notes, measures, phrases, sections, and whole pieces of music are reiterated, enabling listeners


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to commit these patterns to memory. As a result, listeners recognize the recurrence of the familiar, which itself is comforting. Ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax contends that music plays a central role in helping a child become a member of a society in the first place, and music is able to do this because it develops a sense of security in the listener. The child begins to learn the musical style of his culture as he acquires the language and the emotional patterns of his people. This style is thus an important link between an individual and his culture, and later in life brings back to the adult unconscious the emotional texture of the world which formed his personality. . . . from the point of view of its social function, the primary effect of music is to give the listener a feeling of security, for it symbolizes the place where he was born, his earliest childhood satisfactions, his religious experience, his pleasure in community doings, his courtship and his work—any or all of these personality-shaping experiences. As soon as the familiar sound pattern is established, he is prepared to laugh, to weep, to dance, to fight, to worship. His heart is opened.36

The repetition of the same pieces of music over time also yields a sense of connection with other people who share the music even when they are distant in both time and space. Members of different generations feel intimately connected when they share the same music. Even the gap between the living and the dead is traversed through musical experience. We can rightly feel that we ‘‘hear Mozart’’ when we perform or listen to his music. The 1991 virtual duet of ‘‘Unforgettable’’ sung by Natalie Cole and her deceased father Nat King Cole, a feat of modern recording technology, is electrifyingly moving because it is so obvious that this music enables connection with the departed. Music also intimates connection with the future. Alan Merriam claims that music’s confident flow toward the future assures us that the future may turn out well. Music, he says, is ‘‘a normal and solid activity which assures the members of society that the world continues in its proper path.’’ 37 Leaders, then, may expect that the simple presence of musical activity within society, especially music that is well known and loved, will help to instill a sense of social equanimity. More proactive leaders, however, may be inclined to do more than tolerate music. They may do what they can to stimulate musical activity, aware that music can help to motivate good human interaction. Music makes us aware of our capacity for social harmony by providing us with a direct experience of mutual coordination with others. Dance, which is closely related to music, is a physical expression of the interpersonal coordination that is stimulated by music. Xunzi describes music’s ability to arouse social attunement.

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When music is performed in the ancestral temple of the ruler, and the ruler and his ministers, superiors and inferiors, listen to it together, there are none who are not filled with a spirit of harmonious reverence. When it is performed within the household, and father and sons, elder and younger brothers listen to it together, there are none who are not filled with a spirit of harmonious kinship. And when it is performed in the community, and old people and young together listen to it, there are none who are not filled with a spirit of harmonious obedience. Hence music brings about complete unity and induces harmony.38

The coordination of multiple individuals’ sense of time in an experience that the entire audience finds deeply satisfying, to all the aspects of their persons, encourages the conviction that one’s own interests are not inherently at odds with the interests of others. This conviction, utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill reminds us, is crucial to the social feeling on which morality depends. . . . a person in whom the social feeling is at all developed cannot bring himself to think of the rest of his fellow creatures as struggling rivals with him for the means of happiness, whom he must desire to see defeated in their object in order that he may succeed in his. The deeply rooted conception which every individual even now has of himself as a social being tends to make him feel it [is] one of his natural wants that there should be harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow creatures. If differences of opinion and of mental culture make it impossible for him to share many of their actual feelings . . . he still needs to be conscious that his real aim and theirs do not conflict.39

The German philosopher Friedrich Schiller concludes that the arts are crucial means for enabling people to recognize that they are not sacrificing their own satisfaction when they promote that of others. Our experience of the arts demonstrates that we can share enjoyment without diminishing it. Music, in particular, offers people the opportunity to experience the satisfaction of interacting amicably with others. As members of a musical audience, we experience ourselves as part of a harmonious social world, in which mutual attunement emerges without coercion. Leaders eager to encourage a stronger sense of social harmony can make use of music in this effort by providing musical accompaniment to important events of state. This reasoning also suggests a rationale for leaders to encourage education that would involve everyone in some form of musical performance, for performance provides practice in mutual cooperation as well as the ability to recognize the sense of fulfillment that comes from it.40 Beyond the general sense of solidarity that it promotes, musical practice involves the attempt to harmonize with other musical voices. As the ‘‘Record of Music’’ puts it, ‘‘The blending together without any mutual injuriousness (of the sentiments and the airs on different instruments) forms the essence of music.’’ 41 This aspect of musicianship accords with the Confucian ideal of allowing others opportunities to


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rise to the occasion, for it illustrates the self-restraint required if the musician is to avoid interfering with either the articulation or the expressive character of other voices. Moreover, musicians must structure the temporal unfolding of their performance in a way that is psychologically coherent and inviting, again a form of practice that develops skill in interacting with others. Daniel Barenboim, in one of his 2006 Raith lectures, compared the shaping of time in a musical performance with timing in international politics. He described discussing with his friend Edward Said the peace negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis in Oslo in the mid-1990s. Barenboim concluded that the process was not going to work. He reports telling Said, The preparation for the beginning of the Oslo discussions was practically nonexistent, much too quick. And the process itself, once the discussion started, was very slow, and then it was interrupted, and then they said they would meet next Tuesday, and then it was cancelled on Monday, and then they met again a month later, and everything. It had no chance. And I sat down at the piano and I showed to him what I meant.

Barenboim demonstrated by playing a few bars of Beethoven’s ‘‘Pathetique’’ sonata and then stopping. ‘‘And I said to him, ‘Oslo, the equivalent of Oslo would be if I would play the introduction very fast and without any preparation of anything. . . . You would not understand anything what I am doing. And then I would get to the main allegro and I will play’ ’’—and he demonstrated by playing a single note.42 In order to demonstrate a serious willingness to treat each other as partners, it is important that the parties to negotiations mutually adjust the timing of their interactions, like musicians or dancers in concert. A third aspect of musical performance that cultivates skill in personal interactions is the need for musicians to listen carefully to other musical participants. Jazz saxophonist Steve Lacy describes the tremendous insight he gained into the nature of performing music when Thelonious Monk told him to make the drummer sound good. Up to that point, he had been trying to show off with his playing. Lacy reports, I learned . . . to play with the other musicians and not get all wrapped up in my own thing and not just play interesting notes just to be interesting. . . . He got me out of the thing of trying to be too hip. . . . And Monk told me, ‘‘No, make the drummer sound good.’’ And that was an enormous help to me, really. It stopped me cold, really, and changed my focus.43

William Day points out that this was ‘‘not exclusively a musical confusion; it is also a moral confusion. . . . One might characterize it as the false conviction that my identity (musical or otherwise) is, since mine, best pursued in

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isolation.’’ 44 This description of what Lacy learned is akin to Confucius’s characterization of personal virtue in terms of supporting others. [The Master:] Authoritative persons establish others in seeking to establish themselves and promote others in seeking to get there themselves. Correlating one’s conduct with those near at hand can be said to be the method of becoming an authoritative person.45

If leaders encourage widespread musical interaction, they will nurture their citizens’ ability to listen and attune to one another.

MUSIC AS IMAGE OF SOCIAL IDEALS Music helps listeners and participants to develop interpersonal skills, but it also provides models for social interaction, including the interaction of leader and society.46 Ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax suggests that cultural differences in preferred vocal style reflect different conceptions of how individuals should interact and different styles of leadership. He argues that a society’s social structure correlates with its basic song style. Lomax developed cantometrics, a coding of generic style that features characteristics of the music of particular societies. 47 Cantometrics considers both ‘‘the phenomena described by European music notation—melody, rhythm, harmony interval size, and so on,’’ and other factors, such as the size, social structure, leadership roles, integration of the music-making group, the kinds of embellishments employed, and the vocal tone quality typically adopted. 48 Lomax contends, ‘‘musical styles may be symbols of basic human value systems which function at the unconscious level and evolve with glacial slowness because the basic social patterns which produce them also evolve slowly.’’ Lomax considers the presence or absence of a dominating leader in a musical style to reflect a society’s ideals for social organization, hierarchical or otherwise. Western Europe folk song is mainly organized with a leader dominating a passive audience (as are symphony orchestras, where the conductor gets extreme compliance from the orchestra as well as the audience). This is the same region’s normative ideal for society: Dominance-subordination, with a deep sense of moral obligation, is the fundamental form of role-taking in the Protestant West. . . . Ultimately, this leaderfollower pattern is rooted in the past, e.g., in the European concept of lifelong fealty to the king or the lord.49

By contrast, the Pygmy and Bushmen of Africa, have a musical style that reflects their idyllically cooperative and tolerant lifestyle. This extraordinary degree of vocal relaxation, which occurs rarely in the world as an over-all vocal style, seems to be a psycho-physiological set, which


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symbolizes openness, nonrepressiveness, and an unconstricted approach to the communication of emotion. . . . These stone-age hunters normally express themselves in a complex, perfectly blended, contrapuntal singing at a level of integration that a Western choir can achieve only after extensive rehearsal. . . . Even their melodies are shared pleasures, just as are all tasks, all property, and all social responsibilities.50

If Lomax is right that societies organize their basic singing style in accordance with their ideals of social organization, hearing such music from infancy amounts to an education in how society and its leaders should operate. Some music also offers models and vicarious experiences of the individual or a minority group harmonizing with the larger group. The jazz solo provides an especially good illustration of a strong individual or minority voice within a larger texture.51 This is the case especially in progressive jazz, where the solo instrument often displays extreme independence, at times seeming to ignore the ensemble. John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman’s solos sometimes have this character. The jazz solo is particularly valuable in modeling the tensions of human interactions realistically. The solo can be in considerable dissonance with the rest of the ensemble. When such a solo seamlessly rejoins the group, it demonstrates that strong individual expression does not necessarily compromise rapport. The aesthetic satisfaction that comes from experiencing such a solo reveals that we can take pleasure in adjudicating among various elements in tension with one another, a lesson that can be applied to societal experience as well. The progressive jazz solo demonstrates that individual expression need not compromise either its own integrity or that of the larger social whole. It offers us grounds for confidence that strong minority expression within society is an available option without the larger whole being undermined.

CONCLUSION Music is effective for many purposes related to human motivation and its effects: it indicates emotional conditions within society, develops moral and political skills, conveys highly charged content, and displays and instills confidence in societal ideals. It also brings people together, facilitating a sense of connection and reinforcing relationships that already exist. Leaders aim to direct the actions their societies take, and to do this effectively leaders must inspire cooperation among citizens and motivate them to work together toward common ends. Music is so deeply involved with human motivation and feelings of solidarity that leaders cannot afford to ignore it.

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NOTES 1. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude of Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1974), #84, 138–140. 2. ‘‘Guitars in the Classroom’’ is a current program that promotes memorization of many of the staples of elementary school through song. See http://www .guitarsintheclassroom.com/ 3. Men who were skilled in mimicking natural sounds were sometimes used in ancient China to confuse the enemy. The bagpipe was used by Scottish troops to terrify opponents who had never heard it before. A United States soldier in Iraq describes in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) how he and his fellow soldiers prime themselves for battle by playing rock music with a driving beat. 4. Scientific investigators debate how the term ‘‘emotion’’ should be used, with some emphasizing the neurophysiological processes involved, often termed collectively ‘‘the affect program’’ of an emotion, more than the phenomenology, i.e., the experience of having an emotion. See, for example, Paul Ekman, Emotions in the Human Face (New York: Pergamom Press, 1972). I will not enter this debate here. Instead I will use the term in its ordinary sense as a multifaceted phenomenon that we paradigmatically feel. 5. See Nico H. Frijda, The Emotions, Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 69–73. 6. Aristotle, Politics, trans. Benjamin Jowett, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), bk. VIII, l. 1340, 1311. 7. Eduard Hanslick, On the Beautiful in Music, trans. Geoffray Payzant (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1986), 29. 8. Ibid., 10. Hanslick focuses in this discussion on absolute music, i.e., music without words, since these cases reveal what music can represent through its own resources, without the cues provided by texts. Many commentators since Hanslick have followed this strategy as well. See, for example, Stephen Davies, Musical Meaning and Expression (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), xi. Recently, Aaron Ridley has objected to this approach, which he admits he once followed. See Aaron Ridley, The Philosophy of Music: Theme and Variations (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), 2–3 and 76–83. 9. The Analects of Confucius, trans. Arthur Waley (New York: Vintage, 1938/1989), 8/8, 134. 10. Aristotle, Politics, trans. Jowett, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. McKeon, bk. VIII, chap. 5, 1340b, 1312. 11. Plato, Republic, translated by G. M. A. Grube, revised by C. D. C. Reeve, in Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper, with associate ed. D. S. Hutchinson (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), II, l. 201d, 1038. 12. Actually, this probably differs from what the ancient Athenians would have known as Dorian. Europeans in the Medieval Era and the Renaissance used the Greek names for their own modes, even though scholars now think they were mistaken in they were using the same ones the Greeks had used. One challenge for researchers into ancient music is to determine exactly what sounds the ancients associated with what is left of their notation.


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13. See Plato, Republic, III. 14. See Aristotle, Politics, 1341a, l.20–26. 15. See Analects, trans. Waley, 15/10, 195–196 16. For further discussion of the historical contingency of the associations between major keys with happy feelings and minor keys with sad feelings, see Kathleen Marie Higgins, Suspended Harmony: Our Musical Nature and Its Global Potential [forthcoming]. 17. The Shi Jing, or Book of Songs, along with the Shu Jing, or Book of Documents, the Yi Jing, or Book of Changes, the Zhun Zhiu, or Spring and Autumn Annals, and the Li Ji, or Book of Rituals, is among The Five Classics that were the basis on which examinations for officials were based from the Han until the Song dynasties. Its influence, accordingly, is hard to overestimate. While the text itself includes only the poetry, the poetry comes literally from songs. 18. The Shee King, or the Book of Poetry, trans. by James Legge, in The Chinese Classics, 5 vols. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960), Vol. 4, 34. 19. Kenneth DeWoskin, A Song for One or Two: Music and the Concept of Art in Early China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Michigan, 1982), 29. 20. The film Yellow Earth (directed by Chen Kaige, cinematography and screenplay by Zhang Yimou, 1993) offers a glimpse of this practice. 21. Cf. Stephen Davies, ‘‘The Expression of Emotion in Music,’’ Mind 89/353 (1980): 67–86. 22. Typically music with political messages is not ‘‘absolute music’’ (music without words), but instead incorporates lyrics. This does not mean that music without texts is politically neutral. As we have noted, political identity can be flagged with means such as melody or instrumentation. Moreover, as we will consider below, musical forms reflect social organization and ideals for human interaction. 23. Cf. Republic, X, l. 607c, 1211. 24. I also discuss this example in Kathleen Marie Higgins, ‘‘Musical Education for Peace,’’ in Educations and Their Purposes: A Conversation among Cultures, ed. Roger T. Ames and Peter D. Hershock (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007), 392–393. 25. For an excellent account of the recent fate of Peking opera, see Timothy Lane Brace, Modernization and Music in Contemporary China: Crisis, Identity, and the Politics of Style, Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, 1992, chap. 2. My discussion is largely drawn from this work. 26. Simone Weil, ‘‘Evil,’’ in Gravity and Grace (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1952), 120. My thanks to Nicholas Partridge for drawing my attention to this passage. 27. See Kathleen Marie Higgins, ‘‘An Alchemy of Emotion: Rasa and Aesthetic Breakthroughs,’’ Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Special Issue: Global Theories of the Arts and Aesthetics 65/1 (2007): 43–54. 28. Analects, 2/3, trans. Waley, 88. 29. Eduard Hanslick, On the Musically Beautiful, trans. Geoffrey Payzant (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publications, 1986), 50. 30. Alfred Schutz, ‘‘Making Music Together: A Study in Social Relationship,’’ in Symbolic Anthropology: A Reader in the Study of Symbols and Meanings, ed. Janet L. Dolgin, David S. Kemnitzer, and David M. Schneider (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 114. Originally in Social Research 18, no. 2 (1951): 1951/1977: 76–97.

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31. See Donald Callen, ‘‘Transfiguring Emotions in Music,’’ Grazer Philosphische Studien 19 (1983): 88. See also Roger Scruton, ‘‘Musical Understanding and Musical Culture,’’ in What Is Music? An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music, ed. Philip Alperson (New York: Haven, 1988), 357, where Scruton refers to the listener’s ‘‘inner dancing.’’ 32. Daniel N. Stern, The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology, with a new introduction by the author (New York: Basic Books, 1985; introduction 2000). 33. Ibid., 54. 34. Stanley Weintraub, Silent Night: The Story of the WWI Christmas Truce (New York: The Free Press, 2002), 26–27 and 30. My thanks to Marilyn Maxwell for drawing my attention to this book. I discuss this case also in ‘‘Musical Education for Peace,’’ 389. 35. Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, trans. D. C. Lao (New York: Penguin Books, 1963), 17, 31. 36. Alan Lomax, ‘‘Folk Song Style,’’ in The Garland Library of Readings in Ethnomusicology, 7 vols., ed. Kay Kaufman Shelemay (New York: Garland Publishing, 1990), Vol. 3, 61; originally in American Anthropologist 61 (1959): 929. 37. Alan P. Merriam, The Anthropology of Music (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 225. 38. Hsu¨n Tzu, Basic Writings, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), 113. 39. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, ed. Oskar Piest (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), 42–43. 40. Portions of the following discussion appear also in Kathleen Marie Higgins, ‘‘Rising to the Occasion: The Implication of Confucian Musical Virtue for Global Community,’’ presented at the International Symposium on ‘‘Confucianism in the Postmodern Era’’ (sponsored by Center for Chinese Studies, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, and College of Humanities, Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing), Beijing, October 31, 2006. 41. ‘‘Yo Ki, or Record of Music,’’ in The Sacred Books of China, 6 vols., in The Sacred Books of the East, 50 vols., ed. F. Max Mu¨ller, Vol. XXVIII, trans. James Legge. The Texts of Confucianism, Part IV: The Li Ki (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1885; reprinted by Clarendon, 1966), 101. 42. Daniel Barenboim, Reith Lectures 2006, Lecture 1: ‘‘In the Beginning was Sound,’’ Cadogan Hall, London, April 7, 2006, BBC Radio transcript available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2006/lecture1.shtml 43. Steve Lacy, interview by Terry Gross, Fresh Air, produced by WHYY-FEM/ Philadelphia, distributed by National Public Radio, November 20, 1997, cited in William Day, ‘‘Knowing as Instancing: Jazz Improvisation and Moral Perfectionism,’’ Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58 (Spring 2000): 108. Day points out that Lacy tells essentially the same story in Thomas Fitterling, Thelonious Monk: His Life and Music, trans. Robert Dobbins, a foreword by Steve Lacy (Albany, CA: Berkeley Hills Books, 1997), 13–14. 44. Day, ‘‘Knowing as Instancing,’’ 110. 45. The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, trans. Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont Jr. (New York: Ballantine, 1998); Analects 6/30, 110.


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46. A version of the following discussion also appears in Suspended Harmony, chap. 4. 47. See Alan Lomax, Cantometrics: An Approach to the Anthropology of Music (Berkeley: University of California Extension Media Center, 1976). Lomax considered more than 3,000 songs from 233 cultures. He coded the songs on the basis of 37 features. 48. Alan Lomax, ‘‘Song Structure and Social Structure,’’ in Readings in Ethnomusicology, ed. David P. McAllester (New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1971), 228–229; originally in Ethnology 1 (1962): 425–451. 49. Lomax, ‘‘Song Structure and Social Structure,’’ 241. 50. Ibid., 237 and 239–240. 51. A version of this discussion of the jazz solo as modeling the interaction of individual and group, and of minority and majority groups within society, also appears in Kathleen Marie Higgins, The Music of Our Lives (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 175–182 [forthcoming in a reissued edition by Lexington Press].

9 Leadership through Music and Laughter: How Henry Carey Reinvented English Music and Song JENNIFER CABLE

Of all the Toasts, that Brittain boasts; the Gim, the Gent, the Jolly, the Brown, the Fair, the Debonnair, there’s none cry’d up like Polly; She’s charm’d the Town, has quite cut down the Opera of Rolli: Go where you will, the subject still, is pretty, pretty Polly.

Polly refers to Miss Polly Peachum, a character in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera of 1728 (January). Henry Carey (1687–1743) set this verse (1728) to his famous tune Sally in our Alley, which Gay had used in the opera. Carey’s verse about Polly Peachum became so popular that it was eventually incorporated into The Beggar’s Opera libretto, beginning with the third edition.1 Even in this short example, we can detect Carey’s delight that Polly had overtaken ‘‘the Opera of Rolli,’’ alluding to Italian opera in general by referring specifically to the Italian poet and librettist who adapted libretti for several opera seria composers whilst they were in London. Though this particular victory celebration for English opera would not last long, Polly’s triumph was one of the indicators that the period of significant success for Italian opera in London was growing short—a situation that surely would have pleased Henry Carey. Poet, composer, librettist, singer, teacher, and Englishman to the core, Carey was on the frontlines of the battle between the theatres presenting ballad opera and English opera, and the theatres presenting the Italian operas of

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Handel, Bononcini, Ariosti, Porpora, Hasse, and Broschi. Through studying Carey’s innovative songs and poems one immediately discerns Carey’s nationalistic sentiments, expressed during a time when the English musical arts were set aside in favor of Italian musical forms and performers.2 Carey was in the forefront of those seeking to change English attitudes towards their own music (in particular English opera) and musicians. Carey also wrote pieces of political and social satire, taking the lead in producing wickedly humorous social commentary. This discussion of Carey’s creative output, referencing songs and poems dating from the 1720s and 1730s, will demonstrate the distinctive ways in which artists use their work to lead.

THE MUSIC SCENE IN ENGLAND In order to place Henry Carey’s leadership role in perspective, it is helpful to review the position of importance that Italian music, and especially Italian vocal music, could claim in England during the first few decades of the 1700s, when Carey was most active. By the end of the first decade of the eighteenth century, Italian opera had seized the attention of English audiences, replacing English stage works and discouraging further attempts by English composers to try their hand in the operatic genre. In 1713, Daniel Purcell wrote: ‘‘The introducing [of] Italian Operas upon the English stage, has so altered the Taste of the nation, as to MUSICK, that scarce any thing, but what bears some Resemblance to the Italian Style and Manner, is received with Favour or heard with Patience.’’ He further states: ‘‘This is indeed a Calamity to be lamented, but hard to be redress’d unless the Composing Opera’s in our own language was promoted, which would very probably answer any Encouragement that should be given to such Undertakings.’’3 Despite Purcell’s plea for support and encouragement for the development of English opera, strategies were instead devised to support Italian opera. In late 1718, under the patronage of George I, the Royal Academy of Music was established with the charge to produce Italian opera that would rival the great opera houses on the Continent. John Jacob Heidegger was named as the company manager, the aforementioned Paolo Antonio Rolli was the secretary and librettist, and George Frederic Handel was given the post of music director. In May 1719, Handel was instructed to hire singers for the company, and the castrato Senesino was specifically mentioned as a singer whom Handel should attempt to secure for the King’s Theatre. Incorporated by royal warrant, which included a stock agreement of £l0,000, the academy was bankrolled by 63 individuals, the majority of whom purchased a single share at 200 guineas, which entitled them to season tickets.4 Once all of the pledged funds were tallied, the founding members had provided the society with a £16,000 base, far exceeding the £10,000 that the agreement required.5

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Yet the costs of producing Italian opera were much higher than the directors expected and the money on hand was quickly spent. The academy directors frequently called upon subscribers during the 1720s, attempting to recover the costs incurred by the opera company; at times, even lawsuits and finally, appeals to the gentleman’s honor were attempted so subscribers would ‘‘pay the call.’’ 6

USING LAUGHTER TO BRING CHANGE By 1727, it was apparent that Handel’s Royal Academy was in jeopardy, and within ten years London audiences began to turn their backs on opera seria. Several factors contributed to the downfall, beginning with the onstage contretemps in 1727 between Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, two notable Italian singers. The infamous dispute, which took place before a royal family member, Princess Caroline, was preceded by a long period during which the press compared Cuzzoni and Faustina, continually alluding to an enormous rivalry between the two (each diva had her strong and stalwart band of supporters who would not hesitate to boo when the rival appeared on the stage.) Following the public debacle, commentaries appeared intending to mock the event. Two examples are Scriblerian John Arbuthnot’s ‘‘The devil to pay at St. James’s: or, A full and true account of a most horrid and bloody battle between Madame Faustina and Madam Cuzzoni. . . . Moreover, how Senesino has taken snuff, is going to leave the opera, and sing psalms at Henley’s oratory’’ and ‘‘The contre temps: of, Rival queans: a small farce. As it was lately acted, with great applause, at Heidegger’s private theater near the Hay Market,’’ printed for A. Moore. Both commentaries appeared in 1727. Henry Carey, active in the London theater scene by 1727, made reference to the rivalry between the two singers in his 1730 version of The Beau Monde or The Pleasure of St. James’s. After beginning with the chorus that speaks of the lovely St. James, and the balls and operas that take place there, he tells us: There’s little Lady Cuzzoni, And bouncing Dame Faustina, The Duce a Bit will either Sing Unless they’re each a Queen-a.7 And when we’ve ek’d out History, And make them Rival Queens, They’ll warble sweetly on the Stage, And scold behind the Scenes.

The onstage brawl was just the beginning of Handel’s woes. During the 1728–1729 season, no Royal Academy operas took place due to high


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production costs and the inconvenient departure of several significant Italian singers, namely Cuzzoni, Faustina, and Senesino. This absence of Italian singers (in particular the castrati Senesino, who left London again in 1736, and Farinelli, who departed London for Spain in 1737) also impacted the production of Italian opera in the 1730s. Ever alert to locating areas ripe in potential for social satire, either in music or in prose, Henry Carey wrote several songs lampooning these famous singers (two, ‘‘The Lady’s Lamentation’’ and ‘‘The Beau’s Lamentation’’ directly address their departure from England), one of which, ‘‘The Musical Hodge Podge,’’ serves as a musical parody, incorporating the signature melodies of the popular castrati. The excessive salary demands made by the Italian singers throughout the 1720s and 1730s crippled the companies that were attempting to produce Italian opera in England. Again, from The Beau Monde (1730) Carey writes, When having fill’d their Pockets full, No longer can they stay; But turn their Backs upon the Town, And scamper all away. The Belles and Beaux cry after them, With all their might and main; And Heidegger is sent in haste To fetch ’em back again.8

And a final blow to the success of Italian opera in England concerns the simple equation of too many opera companies and inadequate funding. By the 1730s, two companies were producing Italian opera (Handel’s company and Giovanni Bononcini’s company, the Opera of the Nobility) while ‘‘English’’ companies were producing popular English ballad opera and burlesque, or attempting English opera (for example, ballad operas such as John Gay’s very popular The Beggar’s Opera, first produced in 1728, and Carey’s The Honest Yorkshireman of 1735; burlesques such as The Dragon of Wantley [1737]; Carey’s comic opera The Contrivances [1729]; and English operas Amelia and Teraminta, both with libretti by Carey). Carey embraced the role of social commentator and satirist, revealing a facile wit in song and verse. The rivals and scandals of the Italian opera proved to be excellent material, and Carey was quick to exploit each of them in order to produce a wickedly clever commentary. Always maintaining his sense of humor, ‘‘Carey chose to expose the foibles of the fashionable society which patronized the opera, highlighting the fickle taste of the town in preferring foreign artists and entertainments at the expense of native performers and performances.’’ 9 In Faustina, or The Roman Songstress. A Satire on the Luxury and Effeminacy of the Age, first published in 1726, Carey speaks to the problem

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of preferring Italian singers to English ones, referring to the castrati as ‘‘Foreign Ox of monstrous size’’ and the Italian female singers as ‘‘foreign strumpets’’ who are imported from the Italian shore at great expense.10 He asks, ‘‘Can then our British Syrens charm no more,’’ surely referring to, amongst others, the English alto Anastasia Robinson, mentioned by Carey earlier in the poem. Carey raises the question, ‘‘And are we now so despicable Grown, that Foreigners must reign in Arts alone, and Britain boast no Genius of its own?’’ The final four lines highlight Carey’s razor sharp sarcasm: Let’s to our pristine State return once more, And leave these foreign Minstrells all our store; And when we’ve learn’d to speak Italian, then, If they so please, we may come Home again.11

LEADING THROUGH POETRY AND SONG In his early professional life, Henry Carey was recognized as a poet and translator (initially French, then later Italian and Latin), and his first published poems appeared in 1710 in the periodical ‘‘The Records of Love, or Weekly amusement for the Fair Sex.’’ Carey published his first collection of poetry in 1713 (two others appeared in 1720 and 1729). In 1715 Carey began to set his own poems to music, an activity that would continue throughout his life. Two of Carey’s earliest songs, ‘‘Flocks are sporting’’ and ‘‘Sally in our Alley’’ appeared in 1715 and 1716/17, respectively.12 Carey’s early musical training most likely comprised singing and composition lessons with John Reading. Carey wrote of Reading in glowing terms during these early years while Reading appeared to serve in a mentorship capacity to the young composer. Additional evidence of the connection between Carey and Reading is found in Reading’s A Book of New Songs, Compos’d (after the Italian Manner), published c. 1710. Carey was the only poet to be credited for the use of his texts, three of which appear in the collection.13 Carey’s career mentors and supporters can also be found on the literary front. Though I have not yet located evidence that Carey was a member of the Scriblerus Club, a literary club founded in 1714 and described by one member as including some of the ‘‘greatest wits of the age,’’ it is clear that Carey had connections with several Scriblerians, most notably John Gay and Alexander Pope. Gay surely knew of Carey, as he used Carey’s tune ‘‘Sally in our Alley’’ in The Beggar’s Opera and later incorporated the Polly Peachum text into the libretto. Carey wrote A Lilliputian Ode on their Majesties’ Accession for George II’s coronation on October 11, 1727: a work most assuredly inspired by Scriblerian Jonathan Swift’s book Gulliver’s Travels, published


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the previous year (1726). An anonymous work published in 1725, entitled Namby pamby; a panegyric on the new versification addressed to A——P——, esq., was thought to be by Scriblerians Swift or Pope, a misconception that continued long after the poem’s publication. An advertisement from 1726 tells of the true author: it states that Namby Pamby was by the author of Mocking Is Catching, a work irrefutably penned by Carey.14 Also, Namby Pamby was published in Carey’s Poems of 1729. Carey mentions his work Namby Pamby in another work, Of Stage Tyrants, written in 1735, and there he thanks Alexander Pope for defending him when all others thought that, since the piece Namby Pamby was clever, it had to have been written by someone else.15 Namby Pamby is a satire of various odes by Ambrose Philips, many of which were written to children of nobles with the intention of bettering Philips’s standing, thus propelling his career. In Namby Pamby Carey ingeniously uses similar language to that used by Philips; however, one cannot miss his deriding tone. Carey also employed the same seven-syllable line as did Philips in his flattering verse. One of the most damning points of Carey’s Namby Pamby are his references throughout the piece to Philips’s second childhood, implying perhaps that Philips had reached senility, thus reducing him to a second childhood of sorts.16 Namby Pamby’s doubly Mild, Once a Man, and twice a Child;17

and later, Second Childhood gone and past, Shou’d he prove a Man at last, What must Second manhood be, In a Child so Bright as he!18

Carey suggests that Philips had difficulties with drink by the statement ‘‘Now he acts the Grenadier, Calling for a Pot of Beer: ‘Where’s his Monday? He’s forgot; Get him gone, a Drunken Sot.’ ’’ 19 Carey’s Namby Pamby was so popular that Philips was called ‘‘Namby Pamby’’ not only in public, but also by Pope in his work The Dunciad of 1727.20 A final example of Carey’s talent for penning innovative and thoughtful political satire consists of two anonymous pieces of prose printed as pamphlets. The first is entitled A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling; Its Dignity, Antiquity, etc. This pamphlet appeared in 1726, the author clearly possessing a knowledge of cooking as well as an understanding of the political situation of the day. Consisting of 25 pages with a two-page preface, this decidedly anti-Whig work takes aim at several political and social targets, Robert

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Walpole and John Churchill Marlborough among them, who had an appetite for dumpling, i.e., bribery and under-the-table monetary gifts. Dumpling continued to be published as late as 1770, an exceptionally long printing life, especially for a satirical pamphlet.21 Authorship of the pamphlet has long been contested amongst scholars of Henry Carey’s literary works; however, the first seven printings of Dumpling contain verses from Namby Pamby and, if more evidence is needed, a version of Carey’s song Mocking Is Catching contains an advertisement for Dumpling at the bottom of the folio sheet, announcing that the pamphlet had recently been published.22 A second pamphlet appeared in 1727, also anonymous yet also by Carey, entitled Pudding and Dumpling Burnt to Pot or, a Compleat Key to the Dissertation on Dumpling. This second text denounces Swift (whose ‘‘Wit has out run his Judgment’’)23 for meeting privately with Walpole, suggesting Walpole’s possible return to the Whig party in exchange for dumpling.24 In sum, Dumpling and a Compleat Key allow Carey to attack by indirection a complete spectrum of traditional eighteenthcentury targets. Like the musician and the satirist that he is, he builds up to a magnificent crescendo which results in one of the finest displays of sustained virtuosity in early eighteenth-century pamphlet writing.25

REVIVING THE ENGLISH VOICE Henry Carey was possessed of a vast talent, as few of his contemporaries were as versatile as Carey so that they could succeed in the realms of music and theatre as readily as in the areas of satire and social commentary. Possibly as early as 1714, Carey appeared as a singer at Stationers’ Hall in a benefit concert (documents exist from this period stating ‘‘sung by Mr. Carey at the Dury Lane theatre’’).26 His efforts as composer and librettist for that theater spanned from 1723 to 1734. He also published collections of ballads and cantatas during the same period (the vast majority of the texts in those collections were by Carey). Carey began to write cantata texts as early as 1713, including a set of six cantata texts, after the Italian manner, modeled on those in the Johann Christoph Pepusch / John Hughes cantata publication of 1710. When considering Carey’s English cantata composition, mention must be made that his output in that genre during the 1720s and 1730s served to connect the early English cantata of John Eccles to the further development of that form by John Stanley, William Boyce, and others later in the eighteenth century. Carey was the most prominent composer during this period to return to the mad song form, his efforts resulting in an innovative eighteenth-century vocal compositional style, which built upon an English seventeenth-century vocal tradition. Carey also published cantatas that took the form of mad


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songs, modeled after those of Henry Purcell. Briefly described, mad songs are multisectional song forms in which the protagonist incrementally loses touch with reality. Carey was the only composer during this period to return to the mad song form, thereby creating an innovative eighteenth-century vocal compositional style through building on an English seventeenth-century vocal tradition. By 1723, Carey had entered a period rich in composition, creativity, and intermittent commercial acceptance that would sustain him until the early 1740s. Continuing to write of the flaws and fetishes of those who supported Italian opera, Carey created very popular songs, which to this day continue to delight and amuse. A brief study of three such compositions spotlights Carey’s strengths as poet and satirist. The first, a ‘‘The Lady’s Lamentation,’’ was published June 11, 1726, as ‘‘Mocking Is Catching, or a Pastoral lamentation for the Loss of a Man and no Man in the simple style.’’ In the poem, a young woman is making her ‘‘moan,’’ for her favorite, Senesino, has left London. His actual departure was June 7, 1726, and Carey’s poem appeared only four days later. ‘‘The Lady’s Lamentation’’ was very well received. Following Senesino’s second departure from London in 1736, Carey set ‘‘The Lady’s Lamentation’’ to music. The musical version was performed by Mrs. Clive, better known as Kitty Clive, the actress and singer who, as it happened, was also a voice student and friend of Carey’s.27 In this humorous poem, a gentleman observes a lady, weeping and wandering alone in the meads. When asked what was causing her upset, she replied that Senesino had flown. The questioner, having no idea who Senesino was, thought that he was a cruel man for leaving so lovely a woman and refers to him as a ‘‘Monster.’’ The word ‘‘monster’’ serves as a double entendre with the first meaning a ‘‘terrible person’’; the second was more onerous, as castrati such as Senesino were often referred to as either ‘‘monster’’ or having a ‘‘monstrous’’ size or shape. The lovely lady then states that Senesino is neither man nor woman, saying Tis neither for Man or for Woman said she, That thus in lamenting I water the Lee, My Warbler celestial sweet Darling of Fame, Is a Shadow of something a Sex without Name.

The gentleman, still not understanding, now assumes that she has lost a bird and can easily replace it with a linnet, blackbird, or lark. She ends the poem by saying that she will never again return to the opera, now that Senesino has ‘‘flown.’’ Adieu Farinelli, Cuzzoni likewise, Whom Stars and whom Garters extol to the Skies

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Leadership and the Humanities Adieu to the Op’ra, adieu to the Ball, My Darling is gone and a Fig for ’em all.

With the success of ‘‘The Lady’s Lamentation’’ in mind, Carey revised the poem to address Farinelli’s departure from London in 1737, made the mournful figure a man rather than a woman, and set it too to music. ‘‘The Beau’s Lamentation for the Loss of Farinelli’’ is set to the same tune as ‘‘The Lady’s Lamentation,’’ with only slight alterations to the melody and the continuo line. Carey also changed the key. Still, one could sing the melody from first with the bass line from the second or vice versa (in the same key, of course) and the lines would fit together nicely, though we would miss Carey’s subtle musical turns, which reflect each text so beautifully. In ‘‘The Beau’s Lamentation’’ Carey references contemporary English singers John Beard, Thomas Salway, and Kitty Clive when suggesting that the beau, clearly cast in the role of ‘‘dandy,’’ consider English singers instead: Come never lament for a singer said I, Can’t English Performers his Absence supply, There’s Beard and there’s Salway and smart Kitty Clive, The pleasantest merriest Mortal alive. Let’s go to the Dragon, good Company’s there, There’s Marg’ry & Maucy & Signor Laguerre.28

The beau responds with great disdain, allowing Carey the opportunity to satirize those who prefer Italian music to English: Oh talk not of horrible English said he, I tell you Italian’s the Language for me, Tis better than Latin, ’tis better than Greek, ’Tis what all our Nobles and Gentry should speak, Plain English may serve for the Cit or the Clown, But not at the Elegant End of the Town.

It was said that Farinelli departed England because money was owed to him. Carey lampoons the perceived greed of the Italian singers in a later stanza when the beau suggests giving money (what would appear to be an enormous amount) to Farinelli in order to entice him to return to England: A Curse upon silver, a Curse upon Gold, That could not my favourite songster withhold, ’Tis Gold that has tempted him over to Spain, ’Tis nothing but Gold can allure him again, Let’s pay the 7 hundred & 7 hundred more, Nay 7 times 7 Thousand & 10 times 10 score.


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The third song can be found in Carey’s second play, a farce entitled Hanging and Marriage, or The Dead Man’s Wedding, which was produced in March 1722. Regrettably, the play was not a success and had only one performance. At the end of the play, a song is called for and immediately a performer sings in Italian. Once finished, a second song is quickly requested, this one in English if you please, so that all might understand. What follows is the wonderful ‘‘A Touch on the Times,’’ which later appears in score in Carey’s Cantatas for a Voice, published in 1724. Aspects of ‘‘A Touch on the Times’’ reveal a true social commentary, as Carey addresses the state of politics at the time, hinting in the text that he was neither Whig nor Tory, but stood somewhere in between. Carey makes no effort to mask his disdain about the politicians of the day and sets the tone of the work at the outset. The song contains five stanzas, of which the first, third, and final follows: A Merry Land by this Light, We Laugh at our own undoing, And Labour with all of our Might, For Slavery and ruin. New factions we daily raise, New Maxims we’re ever instilling, And him that today we Praise, To Morrow’s a Rogue and a Villain. The Statesmen rail at each other, And tickle the Mob with a Story. They make a most Horrible Pother Of National Int’rest and Glory. Their Hearts they are bitter as Gall, Tho’ their Tongues are sweeter than Honey. They don’t care a Figg for us all, But only to finger our Money. Too long have they had their Ends, In setting us one against t’other, And sowing such Strife among Friends, That Brother hated Brother. But we’ll for the future be wise, Grow sociable, honest and hearty. We’ll all their Arts despise, And laugh at the Name of a Party.

In 1732, Carey, along with composers Thomas Arne, John Frederich Lampe, and John Christopher Smith, formed the English Opera Company with the intention of reviving serious opera in English. With the establishment of the English Opera Company, Carey was aligned with some of the most notable English musical figures of the age. He wrote two libretti for this venture,

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Amelia, which was produced at The Haymarket and Teraminta, produced at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Despite the failure of the company, Carey ‘‘emerged as the leading fixture’’ of this group whose goal it was to reestablish English serious opera.29 ‘‘Throughout his career, Carey had been an ardent campaigner for native music, and native talent.’’ 30

CAREY’S LEGACY Though Carey’s early contributions to establishing an English opera did not reach the goal of establishing an audience for that genre, his later theatrical efforts experienced significant commercial success. By 1737 Carey’s ballad opera The Honest Yorkshireman (1735) was playing at Lincoln’s Inn Fields at the beginning of the year, and The Dragon of Wantley was produced at Covent Garden, then being run by John Rich, in October. The revised version of The Dragon of Wantley, with the libretto by Carey and music by his good friend John Frederich Lampe (Carey first became acquainted with Lampe in the mid-1720s) was very well received by London audiences. Originally intended to lampoon Handel’s oratorio (such as Esther, Deborah, and Athalia), the revised version of Dragon burlesqued the numerous traditions, musical and otherwise, found in Italian opera. How the tables had turned: now an English burlesque was playing in the fashionable theatre of Covent Garden while Handel, in the two opera seasons that followed, at times had to settle for the lesser theatre of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. With the success of Dragon, Carey was finally able to have a hand in the decline of continued demand for Italian opera in London. It merits mention that Carey’s barbs and satires were never directed toward Handel, an enormously important and influential musical figure whom Carey held in high esteem. In a poem addressed ‘‘To Mr. Handel on his Admetus’’ published in 1729, Carey describes Handel as an ‘‘unexhausted Source of Harmony, Thou glorious Chief of Phoebus’ tuneful Sons! In whom the Knowledge of all Magick Numbers, Or sound melodious does concentrated dwell.’’ As additional evidence of Carey’s respect and admiration for Handel’s compositional skills, Carey’s name could always be found on the subscriber lists of Handel’s operas, beginning with Rodelina in 1725.31 On the contrary, Carey’s targets were the Italian opera seria genre, the Italian singers, particularly those who were commanding large salaries and exhibited enormous egos, and his English countrymen: those who believed that by glorifying any and all things Italian, and by denigrating all things English, they were, as a result, moving in a higher and more fashionable society. These people were the objects of Carey’s scathing sarcasm and wit, as well as his disdain and scorn.


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What must have been a season of extraordinary satisfaction for Carey, theater producer John Rich produced a number of works by Carey during the 1738–1739 season at Covent Garden: The Dragon of Wantley; the sequel, The Dragoness; The Honest Yorkshireman (performed over 100 times during Carey’s lifetime); and The Contrivances (which remained popular until the end of the century).32 Exhibiting leadership skills in yet another area, Carey became a founding member of the ‘‘Fund for the Support of Decay’d Musicians and their Families,’’ an organization known today as the Musicians Benevolent Fund. Other founding members included Arne, Boyce, Galliard, Handel, Pepusch, and Stanley, an august and powerful group, to be sure.33 The pace of Carey’s career began to slow by 1740, and he wrote no new works for the theatre from 1741 to 1743. He published the set Three Burlesque Cantatas in 1741, though all three had been composed and published earlier. In 1742 he published some of the last songs that he was to compose in A Choice Collection of Six Favourite Songs. New trends were emerging, along with a new generation of composers, and Carey could not find a suitable outlet for his talents. In 1743 Carey completed not only the third edition of his substantial song collection The Musical Century (with subscribers a plenty) but also a complete edition of his theatrical works, entitled The Dramatick Works of Mr. Carey. Sadly, on October 4 of that year, having completed the editions, thus putting his affairs in order, Henry Carey proceeded to take his life by hanging himself in his home. He was 56 years old. Contemporary accounts call Carey’s death a loss to the musical world (The Daily Post) and described him as the author of many excellent songs (The Annals of Europe).34 Two additional happenings compound this tragedy: first, Carey’s youngest son, still in infancy, died on the same day. Perhaps, this child’s death was simply too much for Carey to bear. Second, soon after Carey’s suicide, the demand for songs and ballads once again increased with the advent of the London pleasure gardens. Regretfully, we can only imagine what inventive, delightful, humorous, and satirical entertainments Carey would have created for those venues. Henry Carey used his talents as an artist to bring about change in the music world and to criticize elements of his own society. Throughout his lifetime, his work as composer, poet, satirist, and performer allowed him access to venues and arenas from which to promote his nationalism and support for English music and musicians. He made innovative use of satire in text and music to advance his cause. He turned backward to older musical forms (such as those of Henry Purcell) yet continued to advance the development of the English cantata and English song through the 1720s and 1730s. Though his endeavor with the English Opera Company was not successful, Carey was recognized for his leadership and for his devotion to native music and musicians. During his lifetime Carey faced challenges and obstacles, spending his career in the neighborhood of Grub Street, which by name alone suggests

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something less than high society, noble intentions, and glorious opportunities. However, his Grub Street ties brought life and light to his creative work, permeating his characters and portrayals with experiences that occurred to the everyman, not to those few who lived only in elegance and wealth. His tragic suicide ensured that Carey would never know the full impact of his leadership, nor would he be able to appreciate the number of change that he had helped to initiate.

NOTES 1. Norman Gillespie, ‘‘The Life and Work of Henry Carey (1687–1743)’’ (Ph.D. dissertation, 2 vol., University of London, Royal Holloway College, 1982), 2:75. 2. Songs, prose, and poems discussed in this essay were located through archival research at the British Library (Printed music collection) and the Bodleian Library (Harding Collection). Additional materials were located at the Parsons Music Library, University of Richmond. 3. Daniel Purcell, Six Cantatas for a Voice with a Through Bass, two of which are accompanied with a Violin; compos’d (after the Italian Manner) by Mr. Daniel Purcell none of which were ever before Publish’t. By the Author;’s direction carefully Engrav’d on Copper Plates by Thomas Cross (London: Printed for J. Cullen, 1713), 1. 4. Carole Taylor, ‘‘Italian operagoing in London, 1700–1745’’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Syracuse University, 1991), 110. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., 111. Carey, in his song ‘‘The Beau’s Lamentation for the Loss of Farinelli’’ (1737) refers to the ‘‘call’’ or plea from Academy directors for funds, in the final line of the song. The singer is quite upset that the castrato Farinelli has left London and ends the song with ‘‘Without Farinelli the Opera must fall, So I’ll fling up my tickets & not pay the Call.’’ Henry Carey, The Musical Century, volume II (London: author, 1740), 5. 7. Carey is alluding to the Italian opera seria convention whereby the importance of the role determined the number of arias for the singer. Principle roles offered more arias than secondary roles. Faustina and Cuzzoni desired roles of equal dramatic importance, thus having an equal number of arias. 8. As company manager for Handel’s opera company, John Jacob Heidegger was often asked to secure singers for the season. Here, Carey is poking fun at Heidegger for he is being sent to the continent in the hopes of returning with singers such as Senesino and Cuzzoni. For individuals such as Henry Carey who were seeking to promote English musicians, the high salaries commanded by the Italian singers must have been particularly galling. 9. Gillespie, ‘‘The Life and Work of Henry Carey,’’ 1:73, 96. 10. The Faustina of the title is the Italian singer Faustina Bordoni. 11. Henry Carey, Faustina or The Roman Songstress (London: author, 1726). 12. Gillespie, ‘‘The Life and Work of Henry Carey,’’ 1:59. 13. Ibid., 48–49. 14. Ibid., 206.


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15. Ibid., 1:207. 16. Ibid., 1:209. 17. Henry Carey, Namby Pamby: or, a Panegyric on the New Versification Address’d to A—P— Esq (author, London, 1725; reprinted University of California, Los Angeles: The Augustan Reprint Society, 1970), 2. 18. Ibid., 4. 19. Ibid., 3–4. 20. Gillespie, ‘‘The Life and Work of Henry Carey,’’ 1:207. 21. Henry Carey, A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (London: author, 1726; reprint University of California, Los Angeles: The Augustan Reprint Society, 1970), i. 22. Ibid., ii. 23. Henry Carey, Pudding and Dumpling Burnt To Pot. Or, A Compleat Key to the Dissertation on Dumpling (London: author, 1727; reprint University of California, Los Angeles: The Augustan Reprint Society, 1970), 18. 24. Carey, A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling, iii. 25. Gillespie, ‘‘The Life and Work of Henry Carey,’’ 55. 26. Ibid., v. 27. Kitty Clive continued to be a supportive presence and remained in close contact with Carey during his lifetime. She performed at benefit concerts intended to support his widow and children following Carey’s death. 28. Here Carey is referring to his burlesque, The Dragon of Wantley, for which he wrote the libretto. The music was by Carey’s good friend John Frederich Lampe. Dragon was intended to burlesque Italian vocal music traditions and was enormously popular with English audiences, beginning with its second incarnation in 1737. Margery and Mauxalinda (Maucy) are characters in the mock opera, while Signor Laguerre is John Laguerre, an English baritone who performed the role of Gaffer Gubbins. 29. Gillespie, ‘‘The Life and Work of Henry Carey,’’ 1:96. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid., 1:74. 32. Ibid., 140. 33. Ibid., 141. 34. Ibid., 1:216.


PART V

HOW ARTISTS AND ART LEAD


10 Art History and Leadership Studies CHARLES JOHNSON

Art history is a valuable resource in the study of leadership. The core of the relationships between leaders and followers is reflected throughout the history of art. The history of art is, in effect, a history of leadership. Works of art have served many important functions in relationship to leaders. Leaders have commissioned art to define their power and stature, to proclaim their beliefs, to educate, inspire, and rally their followers, and to enrich the lives of their subordinates. Leaders, however, by their actions have also provoked outrage among their followers including artists. Artists, in certain situations, have created works to disturb the public and express contempt for leaders. We will examine the following three situations in broad historical contexts that illustrate the complex relationships between leaders and artists. When Florence in the early Renaissance faced tremendous challenges with political, economic, and social crises that confronted the entire population, the concerns of chancellors, guilds, and artists over the fate of their society played a leading role in the emergence of the fundamentally new style of the visual arts called Renaissance. Leaders and artists combined talents to produce works of art that were crucial in inspiring the Florentines to overcome adversities. Between 1399 and 1427 a host of statues made their appearance in the center of Florence. In essence what the leaders and artists did was to populate the center of Florence with heroic statues that inspired Florentines to fight against enemies who threatened them with absorption and dictatorship. When Martin Luther ignited the upheavals of the Reformation in the early sixteenth century, the ensuing religious controversies between Catholics and

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Protestants were expressed and conveyed in the new forms of communication, the printing press and printmaking. Prints in particular provided a popular forum for Reformation polemics and, as Professor Craig Harbison points out, they also became the primary artistic medium that expressed the sixteenth-century longing for nonidolatrous religious imagery. Protestants became ‘‘people of the book’’ and their leaders became great pamphleteers. Between 1518 and 1523, Martin Luther with the help of artists authored nearly one-third of all the publications printed in Germany.1 When Honore´ Daumier in the nineteenth century undertook a general examination of modern life, what he found was disturbing. One of his chief concerns was the abuse of power at the expense of the poor by the leaders of France. Yet the leader of France, King Louis-Philippe, the ‘‘Citizen King,’’ during his reign from 1830 to 1848 did little to improve the marginal existence of the working class poor. To express and vent his frustration, Daumier created lithographs, one of which was the disturbing image of King LouisPhilippe depicted as Gargantua in 1831. Daumier paid a price for his unflattering rendering of the King. He was fined and spent time in prison. Daumier is part of a long history of artists who paid a price for being critical of leaders.

LEADERSHIP AND ART IN THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE The story of great leadership and art in the Italian Renaissance can begin with this important building, the Orsanmichele, rebuilt in the middle of the fourteenth century (Photo 10-1). The building originally functioned as a grain market, but because of a series of disasters that occurred in Florence and throughout Tuscany during the century, it was transformed into a church. Dictatorships, famines, floods, epidemics, and financial crashes had occurred. The worst disaster was the Black Plague, which struck with unbelievable intensity in 1348 and beyond, killing off more than half the population throughout Tuscany. People fell sick by the thousands and died untended without the comfort or the sacraments of the Church. Fear intensified the desire for religious solace and the need for people to expiate their overwhelming sense of guilt brought on by this disaster, which was likely attributed by many people to God’s wrath and retribution for their sins. In the immediate aftermath of the plague, the confraternity of Orsanmichele found itself the recipient of an enormous sum of money, 350,000 gold florins in gifts and legacies, a sum that was more than the entire annual income of the Florentine state. Over the next decades, resources from this windfall were used to embellish this building, including the construction of a shrine with an elaborate tabernacle to frame a painting of the Madonna and Child that had been commissioned from Bernardo Daddi in 1346, only two years before the plague. Given the circumstances of an era of pain and death, this painting

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Photo 10-1 Orsanmichele, Florence, showing sculptures of guild patron saints and tabernacles. Rebuilt 1337; arches closed, later fourteenth century; niches and sculptures, fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. Credit: Alinari/Art Resource, New York.

became important; a fragmented culture could find solace in ‘‘Our Lady of Orsanmichele.’’ Public pressure forced the cessation of mercantile activities in Orsanmichele, and by 1357, the decision was made to remove the grain market to another location. In 1365, Daddi’s Virgin in the Orsanmichele was made Special Protectress of the city of Florence, and in 1366, the decision was made to close in the open arches on the building and add stained glass windows, thus transforming Orsanmichele into a church. In the post-plague years, the Orsanmichele, with Daddi’s inspiring painting inside, was a great comfort to the people of Florence. Orsanmichele became the destination of numerous pilgrimages of people grateful for survival who yearned to find meaning in an era of death and chaos.2 Problems, however, did not cease. The plague reappeared periodically, there was proletarian unrest that caused trouble in Florence’s important woolen industry, and there were also political problems that became increasingly ominous near the turn of the century. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, Florence was thrust into a rapidly changing world where awesome challenges called forth its every resource: economic, military, intellectual, and artistic. Since there was no single authoritative ruler in Italy during the

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Renaissance, Florence, a city of some 40,000 to 50,000 people, was pitted against ambitious regional states. Independent enemy communes became breeding grounds for power-seeking tyrants. By the 1390s, every part of the Florentine community was affected by the threatening relations with Giangaleazzo Visconti, Lord of Milan. Giangaleazzo was, reportedly, a cruel and ambitious man. By 1400, Florence and Milan were locked in a struggle for survival. Giangaleazzo deliberately hit the vulnerable aspects of Florence’s economy by causing damage to the cloth industry. And by exerting an astute combination of diplomatic and military pressure, this tyrant surrounded Florence by 1402. His troops also occupied Bologna, Siena, and Pisa so that Florentine merchants could not utilize their ports for their trade. Thus Florence, an artisan republic controlled by its guilds, was threatened by economic catastrophe and potential loss of freedom. To make matters worse, the Florentine Republic was no longer protected by membership in any league against the Visconti of Milan. Florentines, however, had weathered many crises and, for the sake of their own survival, had developed a staunch character under adversity. This quality of courage in difficult situations depended on fortitude, wit, energy, and strength of character. During the fifteenth century it was the marshalling of the city’s strengths of character that served as a catalyst for what became one of the most dazzling and inventive periods in Western art. An era of astonishing creativity, fueled by the revival of classical learning, emerged in Florence. One of the greatest tools of inspired leadership during the period was art, which to this day defines Florence as the greatest city of the Renaissance. Such was the importance of public art in inspiring Florentines to overcome the dangers threatening their freedom that between 1399 and 1427 no less than 32 over-life-size sculptured male figures made their appearance in the center of Florence, 18 on the Cathedral and 14 at Orsanmichele. The 14 Orsanmichele niches had originally been assigned to the leading guilds of Florence in 1339. By 1400, only three had been made and installed, but in the first decade of the fifteenth century, pressure on the guilds renewed, likely because of the political situation Florence was facing. All the statues, the saints at Orsanmichele and the prophets and evangelists at the Duomo, were destined for the exteriors of these two churches of predominately civic character, and all were addressed to the imagination of people in the street. Some, in fact, were placed hardly above street level, as shown in the niche statues on the exterior of the Orsanmichele. Professor Frederick Hartt described these marble and bronze figures as ‘‘soldiers’’ and ‘‘the race of heroes that populated the center of the city.’’ By their expressions, the dignity and intensity of characterization, and the forcefulness of their poses and glances, these statues betray a realization of the forces against which they must struggle and


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summon the full resources of their personalities. In the words of Chancellor Leonardo Bruni, who became a great apologist for freedom, ‘‘What greater thing could this commonwealth accomplish, or in what better way prove that the virtus of her forebears was still alive, than by her own efforts and resources to liberate the whole of Italy from the threat of servitude.’’ Professor Hartt commented, ‘‘it is indeed, virtus, which might be defined not so much as virtue but as the kind of courage, resolution, character in short, that makes a man a man, which flashes from the eyes of these statues of marble and bronze.’’ 3 In Florence, inspiring public statues had become recognized and valued as a civic and moral responsibility. Giorgio Vasari, writing in the sixteenth century, singled out Ghiberti’s John the Baptist (Photo 10-2) as ‘‘the beginning of a new style,’’ and at the same time singled out Ghiberti’s second set of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistry, ‘‘as the finest masterpiece ever created, in ancient or modern times.’’ There are important ideas implied in Vasari’s comments. One is the realization that there was a new style of sculpture emerging in the early fifteenth century. The concerns of leaders and artists over the fate of their society and its well-being were reflected and paralleled in the content and style of the new Renaissance art. Another significant idea implied in Vasari’s comments is the conscious realization of Florence’s glorious ancient past, which emerged with the recovery and study of the writings of the ancients from the Greco-Roman world, which was an important resource for the leaders of Florence in the fifteenth century. Humanism—literally the study of mankind, its history, literature, and institutions—which was rooted in knowledge of ancient secular Latin authors, had begun to emerge in the Italian city-republics in the fourteenth century. It influenced the Latin Constitutions of Siena in the fourteenth century and was brilliantly furthered by Petrarch and Boccaccio. Humanism led a flourishing if somewhat rarified existence in Italian universities and courts during the last decades of the fourteenth century, but the Florentine contribution to humanism lay in bringing humanistic learning out of the contemplative sphere and giving it an important role in active life, making it particularly relevant to civic responsibility and moral duty. Taking their cue from the recently rediscovered letters of Cicero and the legacy of other writers who positioned themselves as ardent defenders of the late Roman Republic, Florentine intellectuals involved themselves in political affairs. To give moral force and authority to their diplomatic enterprises, humanists sought and found convincing analogies with ancient times, abstracting from history lessons to be applied to contemporary situations. With the development of a vernacular literature based on the Tuscan dialect, the audience for humanist writings was expanded. According to Chancellor Leonardo Bruni, Florence was the great home of writing in the vernacular, the volgare, and her Italian

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speech was the model for the peninsula. Bruni also praised Florence as being alone in calling back the forgotten knowledge of antiquity. Who, if not our Commonwealth, has brought to recognition, revived and rescued from the ruin the Latin letters, which previously had been abject, prostrate and almost dead? . . . Indeed, even the knowledge of the Greek letters, which for more than seven hundred years has fallen into disuse in Italy, has been recalled and brought back by our Commonwealth with the result that we have become able to see face to face, and no longer through the veil of absurd translations the greatest philosophers and admirable orators and all those other men distinguished by their learning.

(Leonardo Bruni, Chancellor of Florence)4

It was during Bruni’s chancellorship that Florentines came to feel they had an historical affinity with the Athenians of ancient Greece, an affinity that was complementary to both Florence and her leaders. The ancient Greeks had dealt successfully with their Persian enemies, under the able leadership of Pericles, as now the Florentines had repulsed their enemies, the dukes and lords of Milan and Naples, under the able leadership of their chancellors. Ghiberti’s statue of St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of Florence, was cast in one piece, a tour de force, which introduced wholly new possibilities into the realm of techniques of sculpture at the time (Photo 10-2). No bronze figure on this scale—more than eight feet tall—had been cast for centuries in Italy. And given its size, the viewer at street level is in the presence of a work of inspiring heroic proportions.5 Donatello’s statue of David (Photo 10-3) depicts the Old Testament hero who was victorious over his enemy Goliath, a theme relevant to Florence at the time because of the obvious connection between a triumphant Scriptural victor and the contemporary political circumstances. In the Old Testament, David, the youthful champion of the chosen people, defeated the tyrant, Goliath. The wreath above the head of Donatello’s David has been identified as amaranth, a purplish plant whose name in Greek means ‘‘nonfading.’’ It was considered the fitting crown for the undying memory of heroes. In the New Testament, the amaranth crown is held out as the ultimate reward of the faithful. Originally, there was an inscription in Latin engraved on a bronze strap in David’s right hand (the slingshot that David used to kill Goliath), which read: ‘‘To those who bravely fight for the fatherland the gods will lend aid even against the most terrible foes.’’ 6 The relevance of this rendering of the hero David to Florence and its political and military situation can be judged by the fact that there were no statues of the youthful, victorious David (as distinguished from the adult King David) before this time, and from this time on, they became legion in Florence; Donatello, Castagno, Verrocchio, and Michelangelo all created images


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Photo 10-2 Lorenzo Ghiberti. St. John the Baptist and inlaid marble tabernacle. 1405–1417. Bronze figure, height 8 feet 4 inches. Commissioned by the Arte di Calimala for their niche on Orsanmichele. Credit: The Image Works.

of David. Florence became, in effect, the city of David. As Professor Hartt points out, lest anything be lacking to reinforce its significance, in 1416, two years after the overthrow of Ladislaus, the Signoria demanded Donatello’s statue of David urgently and without delay from the Arte della Lana, so that it could be set up in the Palazzo Vecchio in the council halls of the Republic where it stood for many years. The same thing happened again in Florence almost a century later when the David of Michelangelo, also intended for a buttress of the cathedral in 1502, was set up after its completion in 1504 as a kind of symbol of the embattled republic under Piero Soderini, then engaged in the last and tragic phase of its struggle for survival against tyranny.7 It is noteworthy that in terms of the politics in Florence, Donatello’s David of

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Photo 10-3 Donatello. David. 1408–1409; reworked 1416. Marble, height 6 feet 3 inches. Originally commissioned by the Opera del Duomo for one of the buttresses of the Duomo, the Cathedral of Florence. Credit: The Image Works.

1408 and Michelangelo’s David in the early sixteenth century mark the parameters of the history of Florentine freedom. Donatello’s statue of St. Mark (Photo 10-4) is a stately and formidable figure with a serious noble face expressing severe determination. The Italian term terribile, which is what the Renaissance would use to describe the face, has been described as a symbolic portrait of the ideal Florentine under stress as identified at the time by humanist propagandists for the Republic. In other words, Donatello’s figure of St. Mark is a summation of the virtues demanded in a crisis. Had the Visconti of Milan succeeded in conquering Florence a decade before when this work was first commissioned, Florentines would have been subjected to the rule of a tyrant. But in the hot summer of 1402, the plague reappeared and, after sweeping through the northern regions of


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Photo 10-4 Donatello. St. Mark. 1411–1416. Marble figure, height 7 feet 10 inches. Commissioned by the Arte dei Linaioli e Rigattieri (the linen weavers and peddlers) for their niche on Orsanmichele. Credit: Alinari / Art Resource, New York.

Lombardy, it carried off Giangaleazzo Visconti. In a short time, the Milanese empire collapsed, and Florence was saved. People believed the duke’s death had been heralded by the appearance of a comet. In their joy, the Florentines repeated the verses from Psalm 124: 7–8: ‘‘We have escaped as a bird from the snares of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.’’ 8 Divine intervention or not, the Florentines had been ready for the battle, and prominent leaders of the time, who cast the conflict as a struggle between ‘‘tyranny’’ and ‘‘liberty,’’ credited victory to the character of the Florentine people, the very attributes celebrated in Donatello’s David and St. Mark

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sculptures. Almost immediately after the defeat of the Visconte, Leonardo Bruni, the great Chancellor of Florence, wrote The Laudatio of the City of Florence, which was the most vigorous and complete expression of the ideas that inspired Florence during the struggle with Milan. In the section entitled Why Florence Is to be Admired, Bruni claimed that Florentine citizens were ennobled by their descent from the ancient Roman people and that Florence, founded before the Caesars, had all the virtue necessary to resist tyrants. Bruni extolled the patriotism and love of liberty that he argued had been inherited from ancient Rome and that had inspired the Florentine people in the defense of their city against Milan: There is no place on earth in which justice is fairer to all. For nowhere does such liberty flourish . . . There are in this city the most talented men, who easily surpass the limits of other men in whatever they do. Whether they follow the military profession, or devote themselves to the task of governing the commonwealth, or to certain studies or to the pursuit of knowledge, or to commerce—in everything they undertake and in every activity they far surpass all other mortals, nor do they yield first place in any field or to any other nation. They are patient in the labor, ready to meet danger, ambitious for glory, strong in counsel, industrious, generous, elegant, pleasant, affable, and above all, urbane.9

Donatello’s statue of St. Mark the Evangelist also reveals notions about the subject, St. Mark. Although the old and venerable symbol of St. Mark, the winged lion, was omitted from the statue, it is shown below on the ledge of the niche and is associated with several ideas. The lion, St. Mark’s main attribute, refers to John the Baptist’s prediction: ‘‘Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness’’ (Mark 1:3), identified with the roaring of the lion. The relationship to a lion, the king of beasts, and to Christ the King was not casual. It reflected the contemporary concern with interpreting physiognomy and character in humans by reference to the animal world, which was often done in art. In this circumstance, Donatello and Florence were ‘‘leonine’’ in character, a quality not unrelated to the concept of the virtue of courage. Ghiberti’s and Donatello’s sculptures were, in essence, allegories of esteemed virtues drawn from venerable sources, both Christian and ancient classical. Their presence was important in Florence where leaders of the Republic could use them to help shape and influence contemporary events. What is also significant about these searching estimates of the resources of human character is that they differ profoundly from the medieval longing for divine deliverance. By the time of the installation of the statues on Orsanmichele, deliverance or salvation in the temporal world was now up to the individual, based upon his character. These inspiring statues reflect men of character who took charge of their civic and moral responsibilities. They are


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a tribute to the great artists who created them and leaders who inspired and supported the artists, leaving a legacy that lives on.

REFORMATION PRINTS: PROBLEMS OF LEADERSHIP IN THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY In the early sixteenth century, leaders and artists combined their talents in the context of the emerging Protestant Reformation. Art, specifically printmaking, which transformed communication, became a vital medium for the articulation of Reformation ideas. By the dawn of the sixteenth century, there were serious problems in leadership in both the church and the courts that would have enormous consequences for all of Europe and beyond. Machiavellian leadership—that is, the application of conscious systematic realism to political affairs in a manner that separated political practices from Christian ideals—had emerged full force. This period in history produced striking examples of ‘‘Machiavellian’’ leaders, whose ends justified whatever their means. Emperor Charles V, patron of the Roman Catholic Church, who threatened the life of the pope, had the capital of Christendom destroyed in the horrific Sack of Rome in 1527. His son, King Philip II of Spain, sent 10,000 troops into the Netherlands to quell Protestant uprisings ‘‘with fire and sword.’’ Even Martin Luther betrayed the common people when he urged the nobility to feel no compunction in adopting any form of violence to dampen the Peasant Revolt of 1525, in which more than 100,000 lives were lost.10 Luther’s response to the revolt was a pamphlet, written hurriedly in 1525, entitled Against the Rapacious and Murdering Peasants: Smite, Strangle, and Stab. The pamphlet went through 20 editions.11 To pretend that Christian love and ethics governed men’s lives was, to Machiavelli, a contemptible hypocrisy that must have seemed especially hypocritical with regard to the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. Italians and other reformers since Dante had lamented that the nearer one came to Rome, the wider the gap between Christian teaching and practice. By the early fourteenth century, while most people still believed in the divine foundation of the medieval church, strong antipapal sentiments had begun to emerge and criticism of the papacy was mounting. By the late fourteenth century, there were loud calls for papal and church reform; the English theologian John Wycliffe (c. 1324–1384) at Oxford and Jan Huss (c. 1372–1415) at the University of Prague were two of the most outspoken critics of popes. With the condemnation of his views by Pope Gregory XI in May 1377, Wycliffe began using Antichrist rhetoric against the papacy. As Professor Steven Ozment points out, the thrust of his incessant attacks was to see the papacy itself, not just any individual pope, as the

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culmination of the power of Satan. Jan Huss, who was influenced by Wycliffe, also had a keen sense of the corruption of the papacy. Antichrist language against the papacy was widely used during the course of the Hussite movement. After he was excommunicated by Pope John XXIII in 1411, Huss remained defiantly outspoken against the church, expressing his ideas in a major treatise written in 1413, On the Church, which led to his being burned as a heretic on July 6, 1415. Huss’s follower, Nicolas of Dresden, issued a work in 1412 called The Old Color and the New, in which the symbolic opposition between Christ and Antichrist took on a new form in relation to the contrasts between the poor and humble Christ of the Gospels and the wealth and power of the popes who were then claiming the throne of St. Peter in the waning years of the Great Schism. Nicolas’s treatise, contrasting the ‘‘old color’’ of the apostolic church with the ‘‘new color’’ of papal Christendom was intended for the learned as well as for popular consumption. A century later, Nicolas’s treatise would influence Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation.12 At the end of the fifteenth century, the best known prophetic voice of doom was that of Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498), the powerful and influential Dominican preacher of Florence who dominated the city from 1494 until he was finally hanged and burnt in 1498. Crowds thronged to hear his sermons, which became ever more daring, especially against Pope Alexander VI, whom Sidney Alexander described as one of the most corrupt popes in the history of the church, Pontifex Maximus Corruptus.13 Savonarola used the word ‘‘whore’’ publicly in his Lenten sermons delivered from the pulpit of the Florence Cathedral in the late 1490s in reference to the corruption of the Church. Turn back O wicked Church; I have given you, sayeth the Lord, rich vestments and you have made idols of them. Rich vessels give rise to pride, sacraments to simony; in your abominations you have become a shameless prostitute . . . . . . You have made of the church a public place; you have constructed a brothel open to all . . . And thus O Whorish Church you have shown your ugliness to all the world and your stink rises to heaven. You have multiplied your fornication in Italy, in France, in Spain, everywhere.14

Savonarola preached not only about the corruption within the church, but also about a variety of issues he felt were corrupting the culture. He persuaded people to cast out of their homes vulgar and lascivious things, and all statues and all kinds of paintings that might incite persons to bad and indecent thoughts. Iacopo Nardi, an observer, describes the 1497 bonfire of vanities in which art and other decorative objects were burned: Hence, the children went, sometimes alone and sometimes accompanied by their elders, to all the houses of the citizens in their quarter and gently asked that


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all objects of anathema be cast out of the houses as dirty things, cursed by God and by the Canons of the Holy Church . . . And on Carnival day all these unclean things were brought to the Piazza della Signoria where a special wooden pyramid, with seven steps for the seven deadly sins, had been erected . . . And on the last day of the Carnival . . . all our Florentines thronged to the Piazza to see this second Bonfire of Vanities, and it was greater than the year before.15

Savonarola also attacked artists. He preached sermons addressed to artists in which he accused them of painting their mistresses and whores in the guise of the Madonna. A number of artists were swept by his fervor, including Michelangelo, who all his life carried around with him a book of Savonarola’s sermons, and especially Botticelli whose painting, Calumny of Apelles, 1497– 1498(?) quite possibly makes reference to Fra Girolamo’s tragedy.16 What finally destroyed Savonarola was his conflict with Pope Alexander VI. The Pope ordered Savonarola to cease preaching, forbidding him to exercise his ecclesiastical duties. Savonarola simply dispatched other members of his order to preach sermons he had written. Under torture Savonarola was charged with having sent letters to all the crowned heads in Christendom calling for a new council to depose the Pope. Exasperated, the Pope finally placed the entire city of Florence under interdict; Florentines found themselves excommunicated, which turned people against Savonarola. After being excommunicated, arrested, and tortured, Savonarola was publicly burned as a heretic in Florence in the Piazza Signoria on May 23, 1498. In retrospect, it is perhaps ironic that Savonarola never once projected the notion of another church outside the See of St. Peter. His passion was the purification of the Church, the vessel of salvation that had been tarnished. For a time, Savonarola no doubt was an effective leader and gifted preacher. Early on he even gained a reputation among followers as a prophet, but his rigid methods of trying to achieve goals and his unwillingness to exercise diplomacy with superiors ended his life in tragedy. Apparently, what Savonarola did achieve was the fulfillment of his thirst for martyrdom, his Christ identification, an Imitatione Christi that was to culminate in the spectacular parallels of his death to Christ’s death at Calvary.17 On the eve of the Reformation, at a time when strong leadership was needed, the Catholic Church had become trapped in a hierarchical structure headed by a dissolute and outrageously extravagant papacy that required huge sums of money to support its gigantic building program (St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome was in the early stages of reconstruction) and maintain lavish living standards for its high clergy. The leadership of the Catholic Church had abdicated its responsibilities; bishoprics had become the special refuge of nobility, the majority of whom were appointed to their ecclesiastical offices on the basis of economic or political considerations, not because of religious preparation or aptitude. There were widespread abuses of fiscal

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responsibilities, the practice of simony, the buying and selling of ecclesiastical pardons and offices, and many of the clergy violated their vows of celibacy by keeping concubines. As a young monk in Wittenberg, Luther had become painfully aware of the moral and financial abuses in the Church. In 1510, Luther made a pilgrimage to Rome where he saw, first hand, the splendor of the Roman Church, which reinforced his mounting distrust of the Catholic hierarchy. By 1517, Luther, a member of the Augustinian order and doctor of theology and professor at the University of Wittenberg, had become so offended by practices in the Church that on the Vigil of All Saints, October 31, 1517, he posted his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg church challenging his colleagues to debate issues of Roman Catholic doctrines and practices. The particular issue that prompted Luther to post his theses was the sale of indulgences, collected in Germany at the time by a Dominican priest, Johann Tetzel, who became the immediate object of Luther’s protest. A veteran indulgence salesman who would receive a certain percentage of the amount collected, Tetzel made outrageous claims about the benefits indulgences could provide for those penitents who purchased them. A contemporary account in Friedrich Myconius’s Historia reformationis describes the outlandish behavior of Tetzel: His preaching raised enormous amounts of money which were sent to Rome . . . the claims of this uneducated and shameful monk were unbelievable. Thus he said that even if someone had slept with Christ’s dear Mother, the Pope had power in heaven and on earth to forgive as long as money was put into the indulgence coffer. And if the Pope would forgive, God also had to forgive.18

In 1517, Tetzel stated in his Sermon on Indulgences: You may obtain letters of safe-conduct from the vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ [the pope], by means of which you are able to liberate your soul from the hands of the enemy, and convey it by means of contrition and confession, safe and secure from all pains of Purgatory, into the happy kingdom.19

Luther not only objected to the idea of people having their sins forgiven by purchasing ‘‘Letters of indulgence’’ dispensed by the pope, but he was also outraged by Tetzel taking money from his poor German countrymen to be used by the young German archbishop, Albrecht von Brandenburg, who needed to pay off a huge debt to the pope in return for papal favors. Luther’s response to the sale of indulgences was to post his 95 theses, which included the following: No. 5. The pope has neither the will nor the power to remit any penalties . . . No. 6. The pope has no power to remit any guilt, except by declaring and warranting it to have been remitted by God . . .


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No. 21. Those preachers of indulgences are in error who say that by the indulgences of the pope a man is free and saved from all punishment.20

A copy of Luther’s Theses was sent to Pope Leo X by Cardinal Brandenberg, and on April 17, 1521, Martin Luther had become a condemned heretic under the pope’s ban. On that day Luther, wearing his doctoral cap, stood in the presence of the newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and refused to recant his alleged errors and made his famous declaration. He declared: Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by clear reason, for I do not trust either the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves, I am bound by Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything, for it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me, Amen.21

The religious upheaval instigated by Luther was greatly aided by both printing and printmaking. With the invention of the printing press, prints became the ideal medium for communicating messages, since multiple copies could be reproduced for dissemination to wide audiences. Moreover, the starkness of a black-and-white print was likely more appropriate for controversial messages than the sensuousness of colors in paintings that conveyed traditional Catholic orthodoxy. Printmaking became the primary medium that expressed the sixteenth century longing for nonidolatrous religious imagery. It is perhaps no coincidence that there is a complicity in the vocabulary of printmaking technique—the ‘‘acid’’ and ‘‘bite’’ in an etching, or the ‘‘cut’’ in a woodblock—that matches the intent of artists who wished to express their polemical ideas during the Reformation period. The significance of illustrated printed books during the period was extraordinary. Within a few decades of one of the first books printed on a press with moveable type, the Latin Bible issued by Johann Gutenberg in Mainz, circa 1455, printing had spread from Germany to all the countries of Europe. By the end of the fifteenth century, printing presses existed in over 200 cities and towns, and an estimated 6 million books had been printed with more than half of them on religious subjects. More books were printed in the 40 years between 1460 and 1500 than had been produced by scribes and monks during the entire Middle Ages.22 In the sixteenth century, it was the polemical tract, a short printed pamphlet 14 to 40 pages in length, with decorated pages, that became the vehicle for the spread of Reformation theology. Luther, with the help of artists like Lucas Cranach the Elder, produced about 30 of these tracts, which were distributed in editions of up to 300,000 copies, some of which went into as many as 19 editions. Woodcuts and prints became a powerful medium for supporting Reformation polemics.

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Cranach’s woodcuts were inspired by Nicolas of Dresden’s work of 1412 called The Old Color and the New, in which the symbolic opposition between Christ and Antichrist contrasted the poor and humble Christ of the Gospels and the wealth and power of the popes. These woodcuts were published shortly after the Edict of Worms, issued in May 1521, which condemned Luther for heresy and insurrection and decreed that ‘‘his books are to be eradicated from the memory of man.’’ Having been excommunicated, Luther issued his attack on the bull of excommunication, entitled Against the Execrable Bull of Antichrist, which contained a strong denunciation of the papacy as the seat of the Final Enemy (Antichrist).23 Cranach’s prints depict the contrast between Christ and the papal Antichrist in 13 sets of aptly captioned double pictures. In set No. 11 (Photo 10-5), on the left, we see the humble Christ driving the money changers from the Temple, and on the right, the pompous and prosperous pope receiving the gold of indulgence money at the altar. Other polemical

Photo 10-5 Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472–1553) Set No. 11: Christ Expelling the Money-Changers from the Temple and The Pope Giving Out Indulgences for Money. Woodcuts, each 4-1/2 inches by 3-5/8 inches. Source: Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.


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examples included: Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles and The Pope Sitting on an Imperial Throne Having His feet Kissed by the Emperor; Christ Crowned with Thorns and The Pope Crowned with the Triple Tiara; Christ Healing Cripples and Lepers and The Pope Watching a Tournament; Christ and Peter Walking Barefoot Along a Path and The Pope Being Carried in a Litter. Cranach’s book closes with illustrations adopted from late medieval portrayals of Christ’s Ascension opposite to the Antichrist’s Demise. On one side Christ ascends to heaven from the Mount of Olives, while on the opposite side the papal Antichrist is dragged down into the fires of hell by a host of devils. This book is one of many works produced by Luther and his colleagues who were quick to see the value of the print medium to spread their views. While didactic prints were routinely used by all parties in the Reformation controversy, the artists who supported Martin Luther were an illustrious group. In addition to Cranach, there was Du¨rer, Gru¨newald, and Holbein, to name a few. Cranach’s portrait of Martin Luther in Profile with Doctoral Cap, is one of several admirable portraits of Luther made during the emerging Reformation. This particular portrait was done for the occasion of Luther ’s defense at Worms. Cranach shows him wearing the headpiece of a university doctor, which gives a strong impression of Luther ’s learning and authority. The inscription below the portrait reads: ‘‘Lucas’ work is this picture of Luther’s mortal form; but he himself expressed his spirit’s eternal form.’’ By this date, Luther had, indeed, expressed himself through his writings. After he posted his 95 theses, Luther’s fame had spread and by 1520 many people were curious to know the appearance of the man who had challenged the Catholic Church. There was likely a market for Luther’s portraits. The Catholic Church responded to Luther’s attacks by trying to stem the flow of propaganda. In 1521 the Edict of Worms tried to censor the press and explicitly forbade the publication of satirical matter. The Diets of Nuremberg (1524) and Augsburg (1530) also confirmed and strengthened censorship laws. In spite of these efforts, political and religious literature and prints persisted, as did the Reformation, which would have enormous consequences for both Catholics and Protestants. In the final analysis, it was art that played such an important role in conveying the most important ideas of the Reformation crisis. And subsequent to the Reformation, art remained a powerful tool for leaders in both the Catholic and Protestant worlds. Baroque art, ‘‘the marble megaphone of papal dogma’’ according to art critic Robert Hughes, emerged with full force in the Catholic world during the seventeenth century. In the Protestant world, art evolved in different directions in Holland, in England, and eventually in America. In these locations, art would reflect the emerging secular world of science, exploration, industry, and wealth.

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Religion had its place in the scheme of things in the Protestant world, but that place was clearly defined and circumscribed.

DAUMIER AND THE PROBLEM OF LEADERSHIP IN NINETEENTH CENTURY FRANCE Daumier’s work represents an unhappy relationship between an artist and a leader, which in no way reduces the significance of his art. To the contrary, many artists throughout history have depicted leaders in critical and highly controversial works using unconventional means by which to reveal truths about leadership that are painful and sometimes outrageous. The function of such art has not been to please, but to disturb, or more strongly, to prick the conscious of viewers with the hope of improving or rectifying situations that are intolerable. Daumier’s work depicts an intolerable situation in nineteenth century France in which the leader was not only inept but morally bankrupt. In such situations, the work of art, in effect, leads and ultimately is of greater significance and value than the leader who provoked the artist’s frustration and anger. Often, artists who challenge leaders pay a price. Daumier never achieved wealth or fame in his lifetime, but posthumously he is remembered with likely greater affection and acclaim than Louis-Philippe, Citizen King of France. While the July Revolution of 1830 in France may have been a triumph for the bourgeoisie, it was a disaster for the vast majority of Frenchmen, especially the rapidly growing and increasingly restless working classes. After the revolution Louis-Philippe, the new ‘‘citizen king,’’ was committed to the bourgeoisie who were coming into full possession and awareness of their power. His advisors, confidants, and supporters wanted freedom to build their fortunes unhampered by governmental restrictions or by pressures from worker or peasant movements. During this postrevolutionary era, railways and roads were built, cities grew in size, and industrialization took great strides. But with these developments came social antagonisms between rich industrial capitalists and the working-class poor.24 Through the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the working masses in France and in England were plagued by long hours (many worked more than 12 hours a day), poor wages, and the deplorable consequences of poverty, hunger, disease, and unsanitary housing. With the July Revolution of 1830 they had hoped for an improvement in their marginal existence and a relief from the haunting specter of unemployment, but the inactivity of Louis-Philippe and his ministers in the face of the critical needs of the poor made turmoil inevitable. In 1831, weavers and other workers in the silk industry in Lyon (who worked an average of 16 hours a day) revolted. The government, with troops, crushed the uprising of these workers


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who wanted to negotiate wage increases with their employers. This event in turn led to laws that forbade striking and unionization. For nearly two decades following the July Revolution, working class people were severely circumscribed by the policies of Louis-Philippe. The disparity and polarization between social classes engendered responses in art and literature. Outraged by the excesses of industrialization, an avant-garde emerged among artists and writers that developed into the critical and increasingly combative conscience of bourgeois civilization. As art critic Hilton Kramer pointed out, the avant-garde was, from the start, a vital coefficient of bourgeois culture. The cultural history of the bourgeoisie is the history of its gradual and painful adjustment to this conscience—an adjustment that made the bourgeoisie, despite its own worst inclinations, the moral and aesthetic beneficiary of the avant-garde’s heroic labors.25 In France, artists with a polemical bent, united by their dislike and frustration with the government and its allies, used art as a political weapon. Artists had both the weapons and means to express their ideas. One very effective weapon was the relatively new technique of lithography whereby artists could produce images of sarcastic caricatures in a very powerful medium. The means to publish this kind of expression for the public was the two newspapers edited and published by the caricaturist Charles Philipon, who was to wage editorial war for 30 years against the French government, chronicling the repressive activities of Louis-Phillipe. Philipon launched La Caricature as a political weekly in 1830, and two years later he added Le Charivari. These publications from the outset were planned as both a graphic as well as a written attack on government leadership. Philipon had an extraordinary range of talents from which to draw. Writers like Honore´ de Balzac wrote polemics at Le Caricature, and leading satirical artists pilloried political leaders. One of the most gifted artists was the young Honore´ Daumier (1808–1879), who was powerful enough in his use of biting imagery to attempt to dethrone Louis-Philippe and the established order.26 Daumier, from the July Monarchy of 1830 on through the Second Empire of Napoleon III, used art to chronicle Parisian life, drawing images from the corrupt and pompous behavior of judges and deputies and the broad spectacle of city dwellers. Perhaps Daumier’s most important use of art was to champion the causes of the masses disinherited by industrialization. In 40 years, he would produce 4,000 lithographs—an average of two a week—which must have provided him with a sense of satisfaction at boldly striking out against those issues that disturbed him. Out of a total population of nearly 31 million people there were approximately 26 million Frenchmen who lived at a poverty level. It was these people who became Daumier’s concern. He made the poor working class his subject over and over again in various seemingly unplanned poses and arrangements—the modern city dweller in the hubbub

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of expanding city life, anonymous, insignificant, and often patient with a lot they could not change. Daumier’s work is testimony to his integrity and obstinate belief in a republic, in economic and political equality, in the right of all Frenchmen to determine who should best represent them, and in full freedom of written and spoken opinion. He lived in a world, however, where the leadership did not allow such equality, and that is why Daumier became an indignant eye, a man of enormous moral conviction, who used art to express his views in a clear and powerful way. One of Daumier’s most disturbing lithographs was his image of 1831 entitled Garguntua. By the time Daumier submitted the lithograph in Photo 10-6 of LouisPhilippe as Gargantua on December 16, 1831, to the publishing business run by Charles Philipon (1800–1862), the king of France had become among the avant-garde a symbol of dashed hopes, mediocrity, and materialism, the leader of a detested form of government. Press attacks against royal authority and especially against the person of the king had already become outlawed, punishable by fines and imprisonment or both. Caricature was suppressed because of political instability and commotion, which ultimately resulted in the so-called ‘‘September Laws,’’ which represented a virtual reestablishment

Photo 10-6 Honore´ Daumier (French 1808–1889), Gargantua, 1831 Lithograph. Source: Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Herman Michaels Collection, Vera Michaels Bequest Fund, 1993.48.1.


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of press censorship. Daumier’s print Gargantua, in other words, was an act of courage for which he would be imprisoned and fined. In late December, the police seized the print. They had orders to destroy the original lithograph stone and all remaining proofs. The extreme rarity of impressions today suggest that the police were largely successful in achieving their goal. It is not hard to understand why the lithograph was suppressed. Daumier’s image is a grotesque and scathing representation of the king as the ugly and obese giant Gargantua, a character from François Rabelais’s Gargantua et Pantagruel, originally published in 1532–1535. As Elizabeth Childs explains, the monumental king lounges in a large chaise perceé, or toilet, with a huge plank descending from his mouth like a grotesque extended tongue. On the lower right, cripples, emaciated mothers, and tattered workers gather in front of the Parisian skyline, identified by towers that may include Notre Dame. The poor are dropping coins into the baskets of ministers, who march up the gangplank to dump the tribute, and apparently themselves, into the gaping maw of the waiting monarch. As stray coins fall from overloaded baskets, obsequious ministers huddle at the feet of the king grabbing for riches. And as Louise-Philippe feeds, he excretes a fresh load of rewards to the miniature officials over on the far left gathered beneath his toilet-throne in front of the National Assembly. These officials eagerly flock to receive the shower of decorated crosses and papers having to do with ‘‘nomination of peers’’ and ‘‘military commissions.’’ 27 There were several strong reasons why this print was so offensive. Gargantua, a mythic giant in French folklore in the late middle ages, was chronicled in a burlesque epic by François Rabelais. Rabelais’s work enjoyed wide popularity during the first half of the nineteenth century; his complete writings were published in Paris in at least nine editions between 1820 and 1840. The character of Garguntua appeared in passing reference in the works of such novelists as Victor Hugo and Balzac as the archetypal glutton and the embodiment of material excess. Daumier connected the image of Garguntua to important issues in Louis-Phillip’s administration and leadership. Daumier’s image raised serious and provocative issues that intensified the direct opposition between the powerful and the powerless, between the leader and his followers. The grotesque and gluttonous body of Gargantua exemplifies the imbalance of the leader devouring and consuming far too much of the world’s resources at the expense of the laboring poor who can ill afford to supply his meal. Gargantua depicts the king and his administration as greedy and self-serving, using power for personal gain. As Mikhail Bakhtin points out, in attacking Louis-Philippe’s literal seat of power, Daumier has transformed the throne room into the bathroom. Consequently, the cycle of feeding in Daumier’s lithograph is self-perpetuating but perverse—the baskets of coins poured into the giant king’s mouth resemble

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turds more than money. Money metamorphoses into food/feces, and feces metamorphose (through defecation) back into paper symbolic of wealth and position. Such reversals of nature are consistent with Bakhtin’s analysis of Rabelais’s humor of the burlesque, in which a logic of inversion rules in a topsy-turvy world. Perhaps the real issue with regard to money had to do with the growing mood of political disillusionment that swept through France in 1831. The national economy had been severely depressed in the months following the revolution of 1830, resulting in widespread bankruptcies and staggering unemployment among the working class. Yet, the current inflated national budget included extravagant funding for the king’s selfish needs. In an article published in La Caricature, which undoubtedly inspired Daumier, Balzac blasted the government’s proposal to spend 12 to 18 million francs on the monarch’s support. Balzac was especially cynical in his account of the inflated budget for heating, wine, cuisine, the royal stable, and other miscellaneous pleasures. Daumier refers to these expenses by inscribing the numbers 12 and 18 on the second of the baskets the ministers carry up the gangplank. Daumier extends the inversion with the infantilized king being fed by others. Daumier ’s Louis-Philippe rules not in the spheres of politics, power, and philosophy, but in the lower spheres of food, fat, and feces. The use of excrement can be a powerful means of expressing profound disgust in a nonviolent way. Excrement is, as Bakhtin has observed, one of the best substances for the degrading of all that is exalted.28 Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of Daumier’s violation of the king’s person was not simply his gluttony, obesity, and defecation, but his transformation into the shape of a pear (la poire), which came from a metamorphic satire developed by Philipon. The comparison was a clever insult, since poire means ‘‘fathead’’ or ‘‘simpleton’’ or ‘‘dullard’’ in French slang. Although the sign of the pear soon evolved into a satirical emblem of the entire political regime of Louis-Philippe, it was closely linked in its early days to the specific identity and physiognomy of the king.29 For taking such liberties with the king’s person, Daumier was tried, convicted, and sentenced to six months in prison and fined 500 francs in August 1832. His conviction for Gargantua, however, did little to alter his commitment to political caricature. He continued to draw biting political satires, but these were submitted to less overtly political journals and generally his attacks on political leaders took a more subtle and covert form. Once the September Laws of 1835 imposed rigid and explicit press censorship, French caricaturists were forced to abandon overtly political subjects until after the revolutions of 1848, which ended the reign of Louis-Philippe. Daumier was hardly alone in his role as a social and critical observer. All through the nineteenth century, modernist artists chronicled what could be


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described as moral outrages caused by the actions and policies of leaders they disdained. From Ge´ricault to Picasso and beyond, events prompted artists to respond courageously in ways that were often detrimental to their own wellbeing. Daumier’s lithographs no doubt satisfied his strong moral convictions, but they also resulted in fines and imprisonment, and they provided him with only a meager living, keeping him constantly on the verge of poverty. Daumier, a kind and generous person who was a highly gifted draftsman, created a body of work that fired an early volley in what became a long history of artistic attacks against leadership. He died of a stroke on February 10, 1879, at the age of 71 years. Only posthumously has he received the recognition he deserved.

CONCLUSION In conclusion, it is my hope that the foregoing examples of the complex relationships between leadership and art, as shown in the Florentine Renaissance, in the Reformation period of the sixteenth century, and in nineteenth century France, offer evidence that the combined study of leadership and art history can be enormously beneficial. Throughout history, art has inescapably reflected the way that leaders have embodied their values and the integrity of their commitments. When leaders have failed, artists have focused on the consequences of their choices, often producing works of art that become the indelible legacies of leaders. Some years ago, art historian Vincent Scully wrote: ‘‘For me, the history of art is a delight and a wonder because it teaches me more human history than I can learn in any other way.’’ In view of Professor Scully’s comments, I would suggest that the study of leadership in any period of history that excludes the art of the times, is incomplete. Likewise, the art of any period studied without consideration of the leadership of the period is also incomplete. As mentioned at the beginning of this brief discourse, the history of art is, in effect, a history of leadership.

NOTES 1. Cited in Religion and Politics: The Renaissance Print in Social Context. Exhibition Catalogue, Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond, 33. 2. Nancy Rash Fabbri and Nina Rutenburg, ‘‘The Tabernacle of Orsanmichele in Context,’’ The Art Bulletin LXIII, no. 3 (September 1981): 388–390. 3. Frederick Hartt, ‘‘Art and Freedom in Quattrocento Florence,’’ in Modern Perspectives in Western Art History, ed. W. Eugene Kleinbauer (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989). 4. Ibid., 304.

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5. Frederick Hartt and David Wilkins, History of Italian Renaissance Art (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2006), 184. 6. Ibid., 185. 7. Hartt, ‘‘Art History, Society, and Culture,’’ 301. 8. Ibid., 298. 9. Leonardo Bruni, ‘‘The Laudatio of the City of Florence,’’ in Perspectives on Western Art, Vol. 2, ed. Linnea Wren (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 2–4. 10. Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art (New York: Vintage Press, 1985), Vol. 2, 118–119. 11. Martin Luther, ‘‘Martin Luther, Against the Rapacious and Murdering Peasants, Smite, Strangle, and Stab,’’ in Perspectives on Western Art, ed. Wren, 108–109. 12. Cited in The Renaissance Print in Social Context. Exhibition Catalogue, Marsh Art Gallery, 28. 13. Sidney Alexander, Lions and Foxes: Men and Ideas of the Italian Renaissance (New York: Macmillan, 1974), p. 171. 14. Ibid., 180–181. 15. Cited in ibid., 183–184. 16. Hartt and Wilkins, History of Italian Renaissance Art, 349–351. 17. Alexander, Lions and Foxes, 187–188. 18. Ibid., 250. 19. Johann Tetzel, ‘‘Sermon on Indulgences,’’ in Perspectives on Western Art, ed. Wren, 103. 20. Martin Luther, ‘‘Ninety-Five Theses,’’ in Perspectives on Western Art, ed. Wren, 104–105. 21. Cited in The Renaissance Print in Social Context. Exhibition Catalogue, 33, 36. 22. The Renaissance Print in Social Context, 17. 23. Ibid., 36. 24. Ralph E. Shikes, The Indignant Eye (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 148. 25. Hilton Kramer, The Age of the Avant-Garde (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973), 6. 26. Shikes, The Indignant Eye, 150. 27. Elizabeth Childs, ‘‘Big Trouble, Daumier, Gargantua, and the Censorship of Political Caricature,’’ Art Journal (Spring 1992): 26–31. 28. Ibid., 31. 29. Ibid., 33.

11 Establishing Regimes of Truth: A Study of the Relationship Between Leaders, Power, and Artistic Expression SCOTT BOYLSTON

Each society has its regime of truth, its general politics of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true. —Michel Foucault1 Whoever reads bourgeois newspapers becomes blind and deaf. Away with the stultifying bandages! —John Heartfield, caption from Photo 11-1, 1930 In his book The Selfish Gene, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme to define the building blocks of human coexistence. He argues, ‘‘Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm and eggs, so memes propagate themselves by leaping from brain to brain.’’ 2 Memes are attractive ideas that spread through a culture with the efficiency of a virus. Whether defining an acceptable mode of transportation or the belief that might makes right, the most successful memes become foundations for unassailable societal norms. Even as they are defined by a culture, they transform it, and within their perceived

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Photo 11-1 Goebbels’s Recipe against the Food Shortage in Germany (1930) by John Heartfield. Credit: © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; Research Library, The Getty Institute, Los Angeles, California (87-S194)

‘‘naturalness’’ they generate de facto refutations of alternative concepts. While the primary goal of a leader’s rhetoric is to define linguistic memes that are attractive to the populace, artists attempt to define memes by way of visual rhetoric. The separate acts of artistic creation and leadership are more intimately related than one might first imagine. Art can help leaders emerge and lead by creating visual frameworks to disseminate their core values to an intended audience in a meaningful fashion. Conversely, art can construct visual frameworks that challenge inconsistencies between leaders’ rhetoric and their actions. In both instances, one might consider art a vessel, yet such a conclusion is incomplete. It neglects to account for a fundamental attribute shared by the majority of artists who create it, that of independent vision. While art is merely a vessel, the creator of that art is an active consumer, digester, and transformer of social and political ideology. Artists are critical thinkers who possess the ability to sift through vast and sometimes contradictory volumes of information. More importantly, they

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possess the ability to synthesize such information into cogent declarations that make use of symbolic codes that, by design, are understood and appreciated by the cultural milieu. In this manner, artists performing in the public arena attempt to construct viable memes as a means to legitimize the arguments of the leaders they support. Those artists who commit to engaging public opinion do so because they are either aligned with or in opposition to the policies of those in power. A common fate of artists willing to speak out against leadership can be appreciated by studying historic examples. They are demonized, ostracized, jailed, banished, and sometimes murdered for their actions. They can be subjected to such treatment even at the same time they are idolized by a large segment of a population. The fate of artists who contribute their talents to the cause of emerging and established leaders, however, is not as well documented. While not nearly as vulnerable to abuses of power against them as artistic dissenters, these artists are somewhat less secure in the new establishment than one might assume. In fact, it is not uncommon for the most creative artists in service to leaders to be deemed unhealthy to the new order once it is firmly established. In such situations, it is often at the moment of victory and consolidation of power that the instincts of the artist and the leader begin to diverge. Innovative artists generally remain committed to exploration and experimentation, even as they mature in life. Leaders, on the other hand, as innovative as they may have been during their rise to power, embrace protectionist and stabilizing tendencies once they are established. While many forms of stasis are favored by established leaders, stasis in any form is anathema to most artists. Furthermore, while many artists explore creativity for its intrinsic qualities, leaders tend to embrace creativity as a means to an end. Once that end is reached, the leaders must reassess their needs and methods, even if it means dispensing with or silencing artists who have contributed to their rise. It is here, then—at the pinnacle of achievement—that fundamental personality traits of artists and leaders create the potential for discord. Artists who act against leaders, on the other hand, will sometimes do so for the benefit of oppositional political groups, but more often they act out of personal motivations. Even when designing works of art for organizations, they tend to do so only because they share the same enemies. Alain le Quernec, the famous French poster designer, has put it this way: And so it’s by the negative: why are you from the left in France? Because I think it’s impossible to be from the right. I never wanted to belong to a party. I wanted to be free. Even while I did a lot of work for the Socialist party it was because I had a friend there. But I never belonged to this party because I never wanted to be obliged to follow. I’m not property.3

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Finally, there is the relationship between business leaders and artists as commercial agents, which is quite different from the relationship between leaders and artists in a public arena. Because the worlds of advertising and design embody the most commonly occurring nexus of art and leadership in Western culture, however, it is a fitting place to begin our examination.

THE PRODUCTION OF ART AS A SERVICE TO BUSINESS LEADERSHIP Businesses require competitive branding, and to attain it they exchange money for the services of graphic artists and brand specialists. These creative experts have a professional obligation to create art (in the form of advertisements, commercials, and various print and multimedia objects) that is geared toward their client’s clearly articulated needs. This collaboration between leaders and artists has a singularly defined objective: to create a unified public vision for the benefit of the company in question. Maud Lavin, in her book Clean New World, calls graphic design a ‘‘bizarre form of hamstrung power.’’ She states: Many of its corporate clients’ practitioners are instructed to provide order and clarity, to give their clients’ companies the look, sheen and promise of a clean new world. It’s a fairly neurotic expectation, since designers can’t really clean—they just cover up, wrap, accent, or put into a clean envelope some messy realities. In corporate service—design’s most common function—it is implicated in both cultural stasis and change, but with only partial control.

This acknowledges the discomfort that some designers feel when promoting a product or service that they personally consider harmful to the public interest. The contradiction is embodied in ‘‘someone who has tremendous power to communicate visually and no power whatsoever to influence the content.’’ 4 Artists in service to business, then, subjugate personal ideology for the sake of their client’s needs. Sociologist Robert Jackall, in his book Moral Mazes, compares business hierarchies to fiefdoms of the Middle Ages, where loyalty to the cause of the ‘‘king’s’’ edicts (the demands of the CEO) are the sole measure of what is acceptable and unacceptable.5 Commercial artists, while not a part of these kingdoms, enter into them, if only temporarily, with the constant risk of falling prey to the values and memes declared unassailable by their rulers. In the end, they must also reconcile their own sense of morality with the company’s desire to create a public presence that may or may not be an accurate reflection of reality. A brand, as Marty Neumeier explains in his book The Brand Gap, is ‘‘a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company. It’s a gut feeling because we’re all emotional, intuitive beings, despite our efforts to be


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rational.’’ A brand, then, is ‘‘not what you (as a business leader) says it is. It’s what they (the public at large) say it is.’’ 6 Neumeier uses Plato’s example of a horse to further define this. When the word horse is heard, most people conjure an immediate iconic form: a majestic stead. Horse, in this sense, is branded. In this sense, too, horse represents a meme. This does not mean the company is powerless to define itself in the public realm. Quite the contrary, corporations spend millions of dollars to create a presence that guides public perception toward a very specific form of their ‘‘horse.’’ A majority of that money is spent on visual presentations of the key corporate memes. While advertising is blamed for the ubiquity of useless products, it is rarely seen as anything more than a minor nuisance. It has been deemed ‘‘normal’’ by our culture (Shop ‘til you drop, for instance, is a securely entrenched meme), and it is generally assumed to be nothing more than a benign offshoot of Western ideology. Its role in maintaining the present power structure is rarely considered, let alone challenged. Yet, as John Berger argues in his book Ways of Seeing, ‘‘(Advertising) turns consumption into a substitute for democracy. The choice of what one eats (or wears or drives) takes the place of significant political choice.’’ 7 Berger further claims that advertising formulates a ‘‘philosophical system’’ which ‘‘explains everything in its own terms,’’ and ‘‘interprets the world,’’ in a way that decontextualizes meaning for the sake of unrelenting consumption. Berger sees advertising as ‘‘a political phenomenon of great importance’’ that ‘‘recognizes nothing except the power to acquire.’’ Ultimately, Berger believes, advertising is ‘‘imposing a false standard of what is and what is not desirable,’’ within a culture. Notice we have shifted the focus of leadership from CEOs and other business leaders to a more amorphous and elusive entity that frames the power structures of a commercially oriented society. The philosopher Michel Foucault proposed that power was not enforced upon people as much as through them. His focus on the mechanisms of power provided him the opportunity to study the role of knowledge and truth in their varied manifestations within the realm of power. In his book Power/Knowledge, Foucault states, ‘‘We are subjected to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth.’’ 8 His focus on the organic systems of power, however, was never intended to ‘‘minimize the importance and effectiveness of State power’’ (and hence, the more traditional institutions accessible to leaders). Instead, he believed that, ‘‘excessive insistence on (state power) playing an exclusive role leads to the risk of overlooking all the mechanisms and efforts of power which don’t pass directly via the State apparatus, yet often sustain the State more effectively than its own institutions.’’ 9 The social formation of knowledge (and therefore truth) leads to widely held belief systems, and these systems subsequently lend credibility to emergent power structures that, in turn, lead to newer forms of truth.

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Truths that lose favor in this cultural evolution become ‘‘subjugated knowledge,’’ which are deemed deviant, dangerous, or unworthy of further acknowledgement. In this manner, certain ways of perceiving the world become ingrained in cultures. The society itself, then, wittingly or otherwise, defines those character attributes that will be most prized in their authority figures through an ongoing process of value judgments as defined by shifting cultural norms. Followership, by its own design, is a form of leadership. In his book Captains of Consciousness, the social critic Stuart Ewen unearths some of the underlying principles that led to the formation of our present consumer model. As early as the 1920s, specialists were hired by industry giants to promote overconsumption as a means of keeping pace with their phenomenal growth in production capabilities. One expert warned that, ‘‘Satisfied customers are not as profitable as discontented ones,’’ and promised that, ‘‘Advertising helps to keep the masses dissatisfied with their mode of life.’’ 10 It was accepted as fact that consumers had to be manufactured as a means to keep up with production, and those citizens who insisted on more thrifty lifestyles were publicly disparaged as engaging in the destructive act of ‘‘puritanism in consumption.’’ 11 Insecurities were actively targeted as a means to sell products, and the self-proclaimed ad men and commercial artists of the day bragged about the creative ability to turn the straw of human self-consciousness into an abundant heyday for manufacturers of all ilks. Business economist Paul Nystrom claimed that those unwilling to go along with the emerging consumptive paradigm would be sufficiently ostracized: ‘‘There will be quizzical looks, doubtful stares and critical estimates. He will be judged as lacking the brain power and, perhaps, as an undesirable person. If he persists (in violating norms of consumption) . . . He will lose all of his friends.’’ 12 Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud and an individual integral to the establishment of modern commercial public relations, claimed, ‘‘it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it.’’ 13 Elmo Calkins, perhaps the best known consumer specialist of the time, claimed that there were two kinds of goods: ‘‘Those we use, such as cars or razors, and those we use up, such as toothpaste or soda biscuit. Consumer engineering must see to it that we use up the kinds of goods we now merely use’’ (italics added). He then famously asked, ‘‘Can artificial obsolescence be created?’’ 14 The ever-changing face of style as a reflection of what is ‘‘in’’ and what is not—rather than functional need—has in great part dictated consumer demand ever since. The production of style—an art form in itself— provides a means of cultural leadership. While most people in our culture accept the present rate of consumption, and the present methods of stimulating it as ‘‘naturally’’ occurring phenomena, and as phrases such as buy your own happiness and money is not everything,


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it is the only thing become more deeply embedded cultural memes, individuals become less tolerant of alternative views and less capable of assessing the actual influence of such behavior on the well-being of society. Although it presently exists as a self-perpetuating social norm, consumerism, as it was envisioned by individuals like those quoted above, is the result of an engineered effort on the part and behalf of industrial leaders. As Ewen concludes, The cultural displacement effected by consumerism has provided a mode of perception that has both confronted the question of human need and at the same time restricted its possibilities. Social change cannot come about in a context where objects are invested with human subjective capacities. It cannot come about where commodities contain the limits of social betterment. It requires that people never concede the issues of who shall define and control the social realm.15

Even art forms that claim no role in social manipulation often do so indirectly. The linguist Roland Barthes wrote extensively about cultural myths that define a certain manner of behaving and a specific regiment of appreciating what was to be considered right and proper in a culture. In his book Mythologies, he explores the meme-centric effects of such cultural artifacts as Toys, Wine and Milk, the art of Striptease, and other everyday objects and rituals that express power and influence within them. Stemming from the field of semiotics (the study of signs and sign systems), and similar in many ways to the theories of Foucault, these essays were attempts at critiquing ‘‘the language of so-called mass-culture.’’ The objects and rituals we surround ourselves with are designed not only for specific purposes, but with specific cultural values in mind, and in his writing Barthes was reacting to his own feelings of ‘‘impatience at the sight of the ‘naturalness’ with which newspapers, art and common sense constantly dress up a reality’’ 16 that was fabricated by contrived social imperatives. Barthes’s proposition that ‘‘myth is a language’’ explains how systems of signs come to define realities that are only so within the context of the needs of those who generate and perpetuate them. By these standards, individuals who paint seemingly benign pictures of rural life are engaged in defining cultural norms; they are creating an unchanging model by which the ‘‘real’’ and evolving reality will be judge. The ubiquitous watercolor depictions of seaside leisure activities adorning the walls of beach houses around the country are another form of this ‘‘normalizing’’ effect in that they codify lifestyles that are coveted by those who can afford only a glimpse of such a life (one week a year, for example). This manufacturing of expected means and methods of existence creates a societal tunnel vision; it generates an atmosphere in which citizens are expected to strive for a specific set of so-called needs.

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Within the realm of successful advertising, we can observe that consumers react to the influence of business leaders by becoming facilitators of the business leader’s ideas, so as we further explore the relationship between artists and leaders, we can expect to see the phenomenon of effective leadership convincing followers to do more than simply follow, but to lead in their own right by becoming ardent acolytes who are as convinced of accepting the leader’s values as they are of rejecting those values perceived as contradictory to them. There is a distinct difference between artists in service to business and those in service to public leaders. The former are usually driven purely by financial incentives, while the latter are more often driven by ideological concerns. Despite this disparity, the dynamics can be considered similar due to the leader’s need for control over public perception, and his or her understanding that these perceptions can be successfully manipulated by visual messages.

THE PRODUCTION OF ART AS A SERVICE TO POLITICAL LEADERSHIP Aspiring leaders require certain tools in order to attain positions of power, and we have seen how artwork that inspires the fervent support of followers is one of them. As individuals capable of visually representing a political leader’s set of values, artists are invaluable in establishing legitimacy for the leader ’s rhetorical positioning. When public leaders have successfully achieved their ultimate leadership position, however, artists who have helped these leaders achieve such status rarely survive fully intact. They are often treated in one of several ways: they are labeled dangerous to the survival of the state; they are exiled or murdered; or they are forcefully transformed into mouthpieces of state-sponsored propaganda. Of course, there are always exceptions, and we will take a brief look at two of those before examining other cases similar to that of Gustav Klutsis. By the early 1930s, Klutsis had risen to the stature of ‘‘the master of photomontage in Stalinist propaganda.’’ In 1938 he was executed at Joseph Stalin’s command.17 During those few intervening years, the content of Klutsis’s work had not changed, neither had the prevailing ideology of the Soviet state. There was one clear distinction between Soviet Russia in the early 1930s and the late 1930s, and that was the level of political stability within the country. While Stalin had gained full control over the government by 1927, the volatility of earlier power struggles had left the economy in shambles. Stalin’s first Five-Year Plan (begun in 1928) was designed to transform Russia into an industrial and agricultural world leader, and many policies—while touted by the party apparatus as widely popular—were heavily resisted by the


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country’s mostly rural population. Artists such as Klutsis were needed to convince Russian citizens to make substantial personal sacrifices for the greater benefit of the Communist experiment. By the late 1930s many of these objectives had been met, and Russia—despite (or perhaps because of) the brutal coercion that systematically followed behind the barrage of visual propaganda—established itself as a world power with which to be reckoned. Once established, the Communist Party no longer required a cultural catalyst in the form of artistic agitation. In fact, they feared such catalysts, and artistic experimentation was soon deemed a threat to the Soviet state; only statesanctioned Socialist Realism was acceptable, and innovative artists like Klutsis were silenced. Two prominent historical exceptions to the general rule of eventual abandonment of innovative artists by leaders are Francisco de Goya of Spain and Ludwig Hohlwein of Germany. Francisco de Goya (1746–1828), considered to be the Father of Modern Art by many, was a well-known portrait painter and printmaker at a time of great turmoil in Spain. Goya’s relationship with

Photo 11-2 The Family of Charles IV (1800) by Francisco Goya. Source: The Yorck Project.

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Spanish royalty was ambivalent and tenuous. His royal portrait The Family of Charles IV (1800) (Photo 11-2) treats the King’s family with visible disdain. They are not shown in some idealized form, as was the norm for court portraiture of the time, but instead as a ‘‘collection of ghosts: the frightened children, the bloated king, and—in a master stroke of sardonic humor—the grotesquely vulgar queen.’’ 18 It is difficult to determine how Goya was able to get away with such subversion. It has been suggested that Goya was simply blessed with dim-witted and self-absorbed benefactors who were incapable of perceiving his actions as anything other than humble service. The international power struggles that led to the creation of The Third of May, 1808 (1815) provide insight into the general political instability that artists are confronted with when they engage leaders as patrons. Charles IV of Spain was a corrupt and callous leader, and Goya agreed with many Spaniards who believed that Ferdinand VII, the son of Charles, would make a more reform-minded ruler. Ferdinand VII enlisted the aid of Napoleon Bonaparte, who, once granted the opportunity to send French troops into Spain, forcefully installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne.19 The painting, which depicts the slaughter of Spanish peasants at the hands of Napoleon’s invading forces, was created for Ferdinand VII seven years after the event it depicts, and only after Spain reestablished its independence from France. Unfortunately, the hopes of a more democratic rule under Ferdinand once he regained the throne never materialized, and Goya found himself painting this scene of power’s tendency toward violent repression for the benefit of a ruler who himself abused power. Goya’s Disasters of War, a series of 80 prints created during the 1810s, were not published until 1863—35 years after his death—due to their provocative nature. With such titles as And We Are Like Wild Beasts, Bury Them and Keep Quiet, Great Deeds! Against the Dead!, and Perhaps They Are of a Different Breed, these aquatints revealed the day-to-day horrors of war that common people suffered. They stand as a historically unprecedented antiwar statement by an artist, let alone by one considered a ‘‘court’’ painter with allegiances to the ruling class. Within the context of epic power struggles played out at the expense of Europe’s peasantry, Goya’s œuvre can be seen as an attempt to bear witness to aristocratic hypocrisy and greed, and to the societal price paid for such avarice. Even as he served the ruling class, he performed as a voice of dissent. Goya, disillusioned by the slow rate of social change in his native home even as it proudly considered him an important part of its cultural legacy, chose to spend his later life in France. Ludwig Hohlwein (1874–1948) was a sought-after painter and poster designer long before Germany succumbed to Nazism. During a period of time when the flat colors and simplified silhouettes of the German sachplakat (object poster) were of international renown, Hohlwein offered an original


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and compelling alternative in the form of his vividly rendered anecdotal realism. While his commercial clients ranged from chocolatiers to clothiers, he also produced memorable work for veteran’s relief efforts after World War I. Hohlwein was often considered a court painter in his own right, only the aristocracy he catered to were the ‘‘kings and princes of business and industry.’’ 20 An ardent believer in the sanctity of the Germany ‘‘fatherland,’’ Hohlwein’s work through the 1920s became increasingly nationalistic. In 1933, when Hitler became Chancellor, Hohlwein urged fellow artists to use their skills for the glory of the fatherland: Today, art, as a cultural factor, is more than ever called upon to take a leading place in the building and conserving cultural values . . . May the best among us realize fully the significance of what is at stake and their own responsibility, and may we labor creatively and with conviction at the preservation of our cultural civilization and its restoration to perfectly healthy conditions.21

Hohlwein was a member of the Nazi party and worked directly with Goebbels’s Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment. In his work for the Nazi government, Hohlwein resisted portraying negative stereotypes of German ‘‘enemies’’—a cornerstone of most other Nazi propaganda—in favor of depicting the heroic and monumental beauty of the Aryan race. He did so by glorifying the power and grace of the German physique, and within these physical attributes he expressed the supposed superiority of Nazi identity. In this sense, his work is equal in its disturbing beauty to the movies of Leni Riefenstahl in its glorification of extreme racism. While Hohlwein is used here as an example of an artist who served the needs of an emerging leader and survived, it is impossible to tell what would have become of him had Adolf Hitler remained in power. The sudden defeat of the Third Reich at the end of World War II may have actually saved Hohlwein from an unbecoming end. Of course, it is also possible that Hohlwein could have survived a longer Nazi reign. His ardent support of the party platform could have kept him in good stead with Hitler. When his house and studio were destroyed by bombs as late as 1944, he was granted residence at Hitler’s Berchtesgaden estate. Still, we should not forget the fate of Klutsis, who remained true to Soviet ideology to the very day he was murdered by its guardians. One general observation that could be made when considering the dangers of performing as a ‘‘court’’ artist would be that the overall decency of a leader is a good indicator of how those artists will be treated. Klutsis, for instance, was not alone in being betrayed by the Soviet political machine. The shift in the interpretation of socialist ideology that occurred in Russia from the time of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 to the reign of Stalin was so extreme that

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its historical record is littered with the abuse of brilliant artistic innovators that were at the forefront of the revolution. For this reason, twentiethcentury Russia is a fitting case study of a leader’s propensity to destroy artists that once aided him in his rise. In her book, Iconography of Power, Victoria Bonnell claims, ‘‘The critical issue facing the Bolsheviks in 1917 was not merely the seizure of power but the seizure of meaning.’’ 22 The impressive capabilities of the Bolshevik propaganda apparatus effectively altered the population’s appreciation for ‘‘reality,’’ so much so that these new meanings—Foucault’s knowledge and truth—effectively overthrew the old meanings. The Bolshevik’s visual propaganda took two distinctly different forms: domestic propaganda for the consumption of the peasant masses (Photo 11-3), which appropriated the old iconography of the church and state—iconography that had been used by the Tsarist regime as a means to suppress and exploit the working class —and reformulated it to glorify a new hierarchy of power; and international propaganda, which defined a new and highly abstracted visual language best expressed through the work of the Constructivists. The Constructivists, as young artists, were a part of an international avant-garde movement determined to generate a revolutionary form of communication. Although they were convinced of the need for world revolution just as the Bolshevik leaders were, they believed such a movement required new art—a never-before-seen and universal form of communication—yet their pursuit of that art was so truly innovative that its results often alienated the working class it sought to proselytize. The Russian peasantry had long been accustomed to the iconic religious paintings of the Russian Orthodox Church and traditional folk art, so the task of creating effective domestic propaganda was assigned primarily to experienced iconic painters and lubki illustrators (a term for peasant woodcut posters, or broadsides). Lazar el Lissitsky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Alexander Rodchenko were three of the more prolific Constructivists. Lissitsky’s Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (Photo 11-4) is one of the most frequently reproduced examples of modern graphic design due to its revolutionary application of abstraction. His other work ranged from international exhibit design, poster design, book design, and ‘‘constructed’’ paintings. Mayakovsky was both an illustrator and a poet. His book of poems For the Voice, a patriotic peon to the October Revolution, made him a national hero (the book was designed by Lissitsky). His ‘‘ROSTA’’ illustrations could be seen in most every window in Moscow immediately after the civil war. And Rodchenko, who worked closely with both of these artists, was also world renowned for his artistic skills. By 1930, one of these internationally acclaimed artists had committed suicide, while the other two were creating outlandish propaganda for the Soviet Union. Lissitsky oversaw the development of the most dramatically


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Photo 11-3 Death to World Imperialism (1919) by D. S. Moor. Reproduced from Stephen White, The Bolshevik Poster (1988: Yale University Press) with the author’s permission.

misleading editions of an international magazine called USSR in Construction. Even as Stalin’s regime routinely brutalized its own populace with massive arrests, purges, and murders, the state-sponsored magazine remained true to the cause of glorifying the social experiment of the Soviet state to the outside world. In 1940, USSR in Construction dedicated a full issue to the ‘‘liberation’’ of eastern Poland by Russian forces. By all accounts this act represented a forced occupation of these territories, yet the magazine’s representation of the event was one of selfless Russian sacrifice for the sake of the Polish people. The cover of this special issue, designed by Lissitsky, went so far as

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Photo 11-4 Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1920) by Lazar el Lissitsky. Source: U.S. Library of Congress.

showing a Polish citizen so filled with gratitude for his ‘‘liberation’’ that he kisses a Soviet soldier23 (Photo 11-5). In the same year, Rodchenko, who worked with Lissitsky on USSR in Construction, oversaw the production of another special issue of the magazine. The subject matter for this issue was none other than Mayakovsky, and he was represented as a shining example of an artist who had dedicated his life to the Soviet cause, despite that fact that he had grown so distraught with the regime that he committed suicide. So, within the course of a single year —and within the pages of the same journal—two of the most important avant-garde artists of the twentieth century, who were celebrated for their creativity in service to the ideals of human equality, were used by an oppressive regime to perpetuate lies to the world. There is a special irony in this example that is helpful when considering the changing relationship between artists and leaders as the leaders become more secure in their positions of power. Marxist ideology, especially as interpreted by Leon Trotsky, encouraged the notion of ‘‘permanent’’ revolution as a means of achieving true autonomy for the working class. Such an ongoing evolution toward social equity would require constant agitation, and in such an environment, the services of dynamic artists would surely have been welcome. Trotsky’s theory, however, was condemned by Stalin (and Trotsky himself was exiled) for the sake of a more autocratic rule that essentially froze any hope for a permanent revolution at a point that was most advantageous to Stalin, at the point of his uncontested acquisition of control.


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Photo 11-5 Cover image of USSR in Construction, Polish Peasant Welcomes Russian Forces (1940) by Lazar el Lissitsky.

Confronted with so much talk of a continual change in government, it seems natural that an egotistical and power-hungry Stalin would do his best to silence any artist who had formerly displayed a penchant for revolutionary artistic expression. It is no wonder, then, that the Soviet experiment represents the extremes to which an established leader will go to obliterate creative expression. While it is an especially severe example, it is by no means an isolated tendency.

THE PRODUCTION OF ART AS A SERVICE TO SOCIAL JUSTICE As an introduction to this section, it must be stated that the blame for a society’s human injustices cannot always be placed solely at the feet of its leaders.

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As mentioned earlier, societies evolve according to a continual interplay of ideas, events, and influences, and unless the culture in question is dominated by a powerful dictator, the causes of any social injustices are usually varied and complex. Some common causes include the intractable quarrels between two (or more) factions within a culture, systemic corruption within the culture’s power structures, and the resilience of outmoded traditions and the resulting tendency to accord injustices a certain legitimacy due to these traditions. Of course, not one of the above examples can be discussed without acknowledging its connection to the others. Apartheid, Jim Crow, gender inequalities, and caste systems are just a few examples of injustices that transcend one single cause. The most difficult common trait to surmount in all of these is the strength of the memes that legitimize, establish, and maintain them. Challenging these memes, therefore, becomes a primary objective of any artist interested in fighting against entrenched social injustices. This action constitutes a form of leadership in and of itself in that the artist must be willing to thrust unpopular ideas (Foucault’s subjugated knowledge) continually back into the public limelight in the hope of convincing individuals these ideas hold more merit than the society has hence accorded them. In cases of extreme enforcement of social control, as was often the case in colonial Europe when the absolute power of kings and queens was slowly being undermined by the establishment of parliaments and other forms of representative governance, dissenting artists were seen as heroes of the common people. The Industrial Revolution helped drive the massive social changes during this period, and the invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century transformed the control of knowledge and public opinion in unprecedented fashion. Before this, scribes hand-copied texts, books were reserved for churches and royalty, and the content and tone of all public documents were tightly controlled by those in power. With the advent of mass-publication technologies, broadsides (posters) could be printed and distributed widely through villages without permission from those in power. In this manner, artists began disseminating satirical caricatures of leading figures of the day that mocked their human shortcomings, and revealed their hypocrisies and abuses of power. By the 1800s, magazines were considered one of the most dangerous forms of subversion; their short articles were unsparing in their criticism of those in power, and for any individual who could not read, the illustrations clearly defined the crux of the accusations. Many of these magazines were quickly confiscated by the government, and the publishers jailed. Lithography, which was invented just before 1800, also provided artists with the ability to create more high-quality illustrations for these publications.


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Honore´ Daumier (1808–1879) was a prolific artist who was jailed and intimidated by the French government for his unending stream of political caricatures. He created ‘‘thousands of iconic dissenting images—both symbolic and realistic, comic and tragic—that continue to have resonance’’ today.24 Some of his most pointed satire was created for two magazines of the times: La Caricature, which was forcefully shut down by the government, and Le Charivari (Disturbance), which also came under state sanction and censorship. Both of these were founded by caricature artist Charles Philipon. Daumier’s acerbic commentaries were aimed at the ruling class and even at the king himself. Louis-Philippe, the self-proclaimed ‘‘Citizen King,’’ who had been brought to power by the revolution of 1830, was renowned for his empty promises of free speech and democratic process.25 One of Daumier’s most famous lithographs, The Massacre of the rue Transnonain (1834) depicts a family brutally murdered in their own bedroom. The painting provides a haunting parallel to the massacre in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005 when an American soldier was killed in a roadside bomb explosion. In response to the attack, the rest of the unit went door to door in the village and killed 24 innocent Iraqis, including 11 women and children. The title of Daumier ’s painting refers to a street in Lyon ‘‘where an unknown sniper killed a civilian guard, part of a government force trying to repress a worker demonstration. Because the fatal shot had come from a worker’s housing block, the remaining guards immediately stormed the building and massacred all of its inhabitants.’’26 Daumier ’s Gargantua (1832) led to a six-month prison sentence and the forceful closing down of La Caricature. In the lithograph, the king is represented as an obese giant sitting on a chamber pot with a large plank leading from the ground to his mouth so that peasants could feed him their money and the fruits of their labor. From this nourishment, the king ‘‘produced’’ edicts and decrees. This image of a corpulent monster requiring ceremonial offerings of the toil of the masses has become a recurring motif for satirical artists around the world. By 1835, the French king had become so frustrated with such caricatures that a censorship law banned the publication of political caricatures of any kind. Daumier continued generating images of biting satire, focusing instead on the societal repercussions of corrupt leadership without openly implicating the political leaders. Because of the admiration and respect that the French population held for him, Daumier enjoyed a long life of artistic expression relatively free of state-sponsored retribution. In fact, history has shown that artists or writers who are well known in their country of origin can sometimes elude harsh treatment from their government, as their own notoriety acts as a shield against retaliation. Regardless of the level of censorship and intimidation, artists attempting to uproot the power structures that define or control a society must determine

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the tone of their messages, and this is most often done while considering the desired effect on the intended audience. Daumier was equally comfortable with shocking imagery as he was with humor. While shock can be an effective catalyst in extreme situations, it can often backfire in more egalitarian and democratic societies. In the case of many social injustices within cultures that are not dominated by overtly oppressive regimes, there are three general categories of public attitude: those who are in ardent support of the dominant memes, those who are opposed to them, and those who are not quite sure what to believe. Those in the third category lend their support to the status quo by default, often in the form of a passive majority. It could be argued that such demographics exist even within totalitarian states, only the categories are more firmly entrenched, with those ruling elite who have been granted the favor of the regime in full support of the status quo, the underground dissenters as the vocal opposition to the regime, and the oppressed population living in fear as the passive majority. If a designer is trying to reach the second category—that category composed of individuals who already agree with the artist’s point of view—tone matters little because the audience is predisposed to supporting the message, and little can be done to alienate them. While provocation can often ignite support of those in favor of the artist’s viewpoint, however, such provocation is often used by the opposition as an example of how ‘‘extreme’’ that specific ideology is. Humor, on the other hand, can evoke strong support without alienating the undecided. Either method requires a willingness to present to the public the formerly unpresentable. Taboos are excavated as a means of framing the concepts behind them in a ‘‘new’’ context. Icons, as visual representations of memes, are powerful reminders of the predominance of the manner of thinking that is prevalent in a culture. The appropriation and subversion of iconic forms, therefore, can be a compelling form of dissent. We have looked briefly at Ludwig Hohlwein’s Nazi propaganda, so it is only fitting that for our second example of art in the service of social justice, we take a look at an individual who was creating art in direct opposition to fascism’s rise. Helmut Herzefeld (1891–1968) changed his name to John Heartfield in reaction to the hysteria of German nationalism during and after World War I, and in celebration of American values. Heartfield, along with his brother Wieland and the painter George Grosz, created, edited, and designed some of the most stridently antimilitary and antifascist publications in Germany between the wars, and they did so partly by turning the popular iconography of Nazism on its head. All three were members of the Berlin Dada group. Their early forays into polemic discourse pronounced the moral imperative of artists to give up ‘‘pure art’’ in order to engage in the political struggle. As set forth in the publication Art Is in Danger: ‘‘Either he is an architect, engineer or commercial artist in the army . . . which develops industrial


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power and exploits the world; or . . . he finds a place in the army of the suppressed who fight for their just share of the world.’’ 27 Heartfield’s publishing house, Malik Verlag, printed several magazines through the 1920s that were quickly banned by the Weimar Republic due to their provocative antiestablishment content. Even while the trial against one of those publications was still taking place, they began publishing yet another controversial magazine. In 1925, as an offshoot for an international charity organization funded by the International Communist Party, the magazine AIZ (Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung or Worker’s Illustrated Paper) began publication. Heartfield started contributing to the magazine in 1930 with satirical photomontages of Hitler, Goëring, and the Germany industrialists who funded their rise. ‘‘New political problems demand new means of propaganda,’’ he declared. ‘‘For this task, photography has the greatest persuasive power.’’ 28 Heartfield was credited with reinventing political satire by developing a highly sophisticated method of photomontage. Heartfield’s beliefs that Stalin had successfully eliminated class struggle— in hindsight, his gullibility to the international propaganda that artist’s such as Rodchenko and Lissitsky were creating—drove him to praise the Bolshevik Revolution in some of his photomontages. His best work, however, was that which shed light on the harsher realities of Nazi cruelty and hypocrisy. AIZ features Heartfield’s most biting satirical photomontages, with Germany’s military-industrial complex and the rising Nazi regime its primary targets. The magazine was forced to flee Germany when Hitler became chancellor and enforced strict rules against freedom of the press. It moved to Prague, and changed names to Volks Illustrierte or VI (People’s Illustrated). In 1938, with the Gestapo actively enforcing their will in Czechoslovakia, the magazine moved to Paris where it was published one last issue before closing down permanently. Before France fell to Germany, Heartfield moved to England where he was interned due to his German ancestry, despite the overwhelming evidence of his resistance to Nazi ideology. After the war, he returned to the newly formed East Germany, where he was temporarily considered to have ‘‘treasonable connections’’ to Western powers before finally being allowed to live in peace. It was not until 1964—at 73 years of age, four years before his death and half a century after he changed his name—that this ‘‘new’’ name was officially recognized.

CONCLUSION If it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then visual artists are well equipped to successfully distill the complexities of a leader’s ideas into a form that communicates most effectively to an audience. Memes can

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be formed and legitimated by visuals alone. Yet memes devised by other means—the phrasing of jingles and catchphrases, for instance—are also creative acts, and they are imbued with more communicative power by visual reiterations of their key concepts. In the public realm, emerging leaders require a catalyst for galvanizing public support if they hope to succeed in their endeavor. The quality of their own charisma will certainly play a role, but they are also dependent upon competent manipulation of the contemporary forms of mass media at their disposal. Regardless of the era, creative individuals, as masters of mass media, offer the most effective form of public persuasion. Whether it be the Web designers, radio personalities, or multimedia directors of today, or the poster artists, muralists, or poets of a past era, artists are actively sought by campaigning leaders to help frame their messages. There is also a clear understanding on the part of leaders that artists expressing opposition to them can prove to be very damaging to their potential leadership. Emerging leaders aim to proselytize among those who would support them—to create a vision of what the world could be like if only they were granted control. Such a performance requires a strongly defined emotional appeal. At this point in the process, the artist and the leader often find themselves well suited to one another. The creative passion of one feeds the creative passion of the other, and they work in tandem to generate an illuminating message capable of galvanizing wide support. It is at the point that this wide support is secured that artists and leaders find themselves somewhat at odds. Leaders aim to convert, and then to normalize those they have converted, which requires the introduction of stability. Artists, however, are driven from the beginning by a quest for novelty—a tendency toward change, even rebellion. An artist’s desire to create art that communicates in a visceral and immediate manner, after all, is not a passing fancy. Instead, it exists at the very core of the artist’s personality. And so, with the onset of political stability comes a fear from those who have achieved this stability of the artist as a force with the potential to challenge the newly established memes and destabilize the new power structure. The tendency for leaders to condemn new creative ideas as subversive and dangerous to the newly established status quo often proves irresistible. While the relationship between leaders and supporting artists requires a fair degree of collaboration, artists who challenge leaders often work alone or within small groups of like-minded individuals. The tendency for these artists to reject the ideas of the ruling hierarchy can also manifest itself in their relationships with political organizations of any ideological stance, even those possessing values similar to their own. It is not uncommon for socially active artists to treat larger organizations with a degree of skepticism simply because they are uncomfortable with the tendency within large organizations


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to make compromises and shift allegiances, as well as their vulnerability to corruption and factional infighting. Individuals striving to create art as critical commentary must have the intellectual capacity to weigh the deeper truths of the issues that inform it. Because artists are not always articulate in discussing their own work, their intellectual abilities are often overlooked or minimized. The inability to verbally articulate a premise with finesse can be confused with a shortcoming in intellectual capacity. Contrary to this perception, many artists explore nonverbal means of expression as their method of critical thought. The most successful artists are those with significant intellectual curiosity and capacity. While intellectual vigor is a shared trait of many artists, it is important to acknowledge that this does not always translate into accurate assessments of social dynamics on the artist’s part. Deeply ingrained biases and moral inconsistencies are as much a part of an artist’s genetic makeup as that of any other human being. It is important also to consider that the potential weakness of such an act resides in its very power. Framing, after all, is a form of simplification, and simplification can be dangerous in its refusal of nuanced consideration. Art can simplify complex ideas into concise expressions—into memes. In this sense, artists engage in the hard work of critical thought so that their audiences do not necessarily have to. Yet, simplification as an end in itself—rather than a means of expressing the logic of a desired end—is one of the most common causes of human strife. Bigotry, for instance, is a form of simplification, as is xenophobia and any other expressions of hatred and intolerance. It was Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, after all, who proclaimed, ‘‘In the long run only he will achieve basic results in influencing public opinion who is able to reduce problems to the simplest terms and who has the courage to keep repeating them in this simplified form despite the objection of intellectuals.’’ 29 If the simplification of an idea is used as a rationalization to reject a more nuanced understanding of that idea’s complexity, far greater damage may be perpetuated than if the idea had remained inchoate. If leadership scholars concern themselves with the definition of good leadership, and attempt to define it as both good in a moral sense and good in a goal-oriented sense, scholars exploring the relationship between artists and leaders would do well to consider the same criteria. Ludwig Hohlwein, by any standard was a technically good—if not great—artist. Yet, if much of his work was in service to Nazism, how, then, can we even consider the word good when discussing his work? Art, in and of itself, is an act void of any ethical value. Art is merely an expression, as powerful as it might be, that requires both an audience and a setting. Art, then, despite the artist’s best intentions, is often interpreted not

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by the measure of the artist himself, but by the measure of the times and conditions with which that art is experienced. Art requires followers as much as leaders, in both senses of the phrase.

NOTES 1. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge; Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972– 1977 (New York: Random House, 1980), 131. 2. Michael Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 192. 3. Personal interview, Savannah, Georgia, 2004. 4. Maud Lavin, Clean New World: Culture, Politics and Graphic Design (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 2. 5. Robert Jackall, Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 6. Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design (Berkeley, CA: New Riders Publishing, 2003), 2. 7. John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London, England: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972), 149. 8. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 93 9. Ibid., 72 10. Stuart Ewen, Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977), 39. 11. Ibid., 57. 12. Ibid., 95. 13. Ibid., 83. 14. Stuart Ewen, All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1988), 52. 15. Ewen, Captains of Consciousness, 220. 16. Roland Barthes, Mythologies (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1972), 11. 17. Victoria E. Bonnell, Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters Under Lenin and Stalin (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), 144. 18. H. W. Janson, History of Art, 5th ed. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995), 660. 19. Fred Kleiner, Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 12th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2005), 830. 20. Steven Heller, Ed., Design Literacy (continued): Understanding Graphic Design (New York: Allworth Press, 1999), 248. 21. Ibid., 250. 22. Bonnell, Iconography of Power, 1. 23. Victor Margolin, The Struggle for Utopia: Rodchenko, Lissitsky, Moholy Nagy, 1917– 1946 (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), 207. 24. Steven Heller, Merz to Emigre and Beyond: Avant Garde Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century (London, England: Phaidon Press Limited, 2003), 14. 25. Robert Philippe, Political Graphics: Art as a Weapon (New York: Abbeville Press, Inc., 1980), 146.


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26. Kleiner, Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 858. 27. Heller, Merz to Emigre and Beyond, 75. 28. David Evans, John Heartfield: AIZ/VI, 1930–38 (New York: Abbeville Press, Inc., 1980), 12. 29. Matthew Hughes and Chris Mann, Inside Hitler’s Germany (New York: MJF Books, 2000).


About the Editor and Contributors THE EDITOR Joanne B. Ciulla is Professor and Coston Family Chair in Leadership and Ethics at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond. She has also held the UNESCO Chair in Leadership Studies at the United Nations International Leadership Academy and academic appointments at La Salle University, the Harvard Business School, Oxford University, and The Wharton School. Her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. are in philosophy. She has published numerous books and articles on leadership ethics, business ethics, and philosophy of work. She edited the Praeger Leadership at the Crossroads three-volume set.

THE CONTRIBUTORS Scott Boylston is a designer and writer exploring the nexus of visual communication and social dynamics. His third and upcoming book is on sustainable package design. He has published numerous short stories and participated in various poster exhibitions on social themes. He is presently a professor of graphic design at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and speaks widely on ethical considerations of the practice.

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Jennifer Cable earned her D.M.A. and M.M. degrees from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and her B.M. degree from Oberlin College. The study of eighteenth-century English song is the primary focus of her research work, with recent papers and lecture recitals presented on the cantatas of Johann Christoph Pepusch, the early eighteenth-century English cantata, and the solo vocal music of Henry Carey. She is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, where she directs the Vocal Program. Ruth Capriles was born in Venezuela. She graduated with a degree in history and a Ph.D. in political science. Professor of Venezuelan Political and Economic History at the Catholic University Andre´s Bello, she also coordinates the Center for Information and Documentation on Economic Crime. She teaches ethics and democracy at the Metropolitan University and business ethics and leadership at postgraduate programs in several universities in Venezuela. Among her publications are several works on corruption, Venezuelan economic behavior, and ethics. She is also a regular contributor to the newspaper El Universal. George R. Goethals holds the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professorship in Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. Previously at Williams College, he served as chair of the Program in Leadership Studies and Provost. With Georgia Sorenson and James MacGregor Burns, he edited the Encyclopedia of Leadership (2004) and with Sorenson, The Quest for a General Theory of Leadership (2006). A psychologist, Goethals’s recent scholarship explores rooting for the underdog, image making in presidential debates, and the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. Michael Harvey is Senior Scholar at the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland, and Chair of the Department of Business Management at Washington College (Chestertown, Maryland). He has a Ph.D. in government from Cornell University, a Master ’s in international business from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and a B.A. in English from the University of Maryland. His work focuses on exploring leadership in literature. He has published articles and presented conference papers on Machiavelli and literary approaches to leadership. He is the author of The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing (Hackett, 2003). Aurora Hermida-Ruiz is associate professor of Spanish at the University of Richmond. She received her bachelor’s degree in Spanish literature from the University of Seville and her doctorate in Spanish literature from the University of Virginia. Hermida-Ruiz’s current book project analyzes the critical construction of Garcilaso de la Vega (1503–1536) in contemporary Spanish historiography. Together with Ignacio Navarrete, she is the editor of Garcilaso Studies: A New Trajectory, a special issue of Caliope: Journal of the Society for


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Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry. She has published on Castilian Cancionero poetry and Petrarchan poetics, as well as on the work of some influential literary critics and historians, such as Rafael Lapesa and Jose Antonio Maravall. Kathleen Marie Higgins is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as a frequent visitor to the University of Auckland in New Zealand. In addition to numerous articles, she has published books on the history of philosophy, Nietzsche, and music, and edited books on such topics as Nietzsche, German Idealism, aesthetics, ethics, erotic love, and non-Western philosophy. Among her works on music are The Music of Our Lives (Temple 1991, reissue by Lexington) and a book on music and human nature, entitled Suspended Harmony: Our Musical Nature and Its Global Potential [forthcoming]. Charles Johnson is a senior fellow at the Jepson School and professor of art history, emeritus, at the University of Richmond. He was educated at Westminster College, Union Theological Seminary in New York, and Ohio University, and received his Ph.D. in comparative arts. At Jepson he co-taught several courses on leadership and art. He has traveled widely, lectured in various countries, and received numerous teaching awards. Antonio Marturano is an adjunct professor of Business Ethics on the Faculty of Economics, at the Sacred Heart Catholic University of Rome. Marturano has held academic positions in Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He was the first European to teach a course at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies. Marturano was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship. Marturano received his M.A. in philosophy at the University of Rome ‘‘La Sapienza’’ and his Ph.D. in analytical philosophy and philosophy of law at the State University of Milan. He has published extensively on computer ethics, leadership ethics, and deontic logic. Nicholas O. Warner received his B.A. from Stanford and his Ph.D. in English from Berkeley. After a visiting appointment at Oberlin, he came to Claremont McKenna College, where he is Professor of Literature and a Faculty Associate at the Kravis Leadership Institute. His publications include Spirits of America: Intoxication in 19th-Century American Literature (a Choice Outstanding Academic Book in 1999), and articles on British, American, and Russian literature. More recently, his scholarship has focused on leadership in literature and film.


Index Aaron (Titus Andronicus), 97 Abbott, Edwin, 135 Absolute music, 168 n.8, 169 n.22 Adorno, Theodor, 162 Adventists, 111 n.1 Advertising, 216–20 Against the Execrable Bull of Antichrist (Luther), 204 Against the Rapacious and Murdering Peasants (Luther), 199 Agrarian societies, 134 Ahab, Captain. See Moby-Dick (Melville) AIZ (Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung or Worker’s Illustrated Paper), 231 Alexander, Sidney, 200 Alexander VI, Pope, 200–201 Allen, John J., 22, 27, 36 Allende, Salvador, 157–58 Alter, Robert, 21 Amaranth, 194 Amelia (Carey), 175, 182

‘‘American dream,’’ 23, 35. See also Cultural materialism Analects (Confucius), 160 Ancient China, 122, 144, 151, 154, 168 n.3. See also Confucius and Confucianism Ancient Greece, 144, 151, 153–55, 193– 94. See also Aristotle; Plato Ancient Rome, 193–94, 198. See also Nero Anderson, Sherwood, 71 Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 17 The Annals of Europe, 183 Antichrist, 90, 199–200, 204–5 Antonio (The Merchant of Venice), 96–97 Appomattox, Virginia. See Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung or Worker’s Illustrated Paper (AIZ), 231 Arbuthnot, John, 174 Aristotle, 37, 153–55 Arne, Thomas, 181, 183

242 Art and art history, 189–211, 213–34; aesthetic doctrine of socialist realism, 158–59; avant-garde, 207–8, 224–26; baroque, 205; biases and moral inconsistencies of artists, 233; censorship of, 208–9, 210, 228, 229–30; commercial art, 216–20; the Constructivists, 224–27, 231; critical commentary of, 233; Daumier and nineteenth century France, 190, 207– 11, 208(ph), 229–30; framing as simplification, 233; Italian Renaissance, 189, 190–99; political art, 220–27, 229, 230–31; Reformation prints, 203–6; social justice art, 227–31 Art Is in Danger, 230–31 ‘‘Artist’s Shit’’ (Manzoni), 126 The Assault on Reason (Gore), 49 n.96 Athens. See Ancient Greece Atlas Shrugged (Rand), 98–100 Attribution theory, 129 n.21 Atwood, Margaret, 22 Auerbach, Erich, 27, 45 n.53 Aulos, 155 Authoritarian leadership, 123–24, 151– 52, 157–58 Avant-garde, 207–8, 224–26 Babcock, Orville, 77–78 Babies, 161 Backhaus, Michael, 139 Badaracco, Joseph, 23, 25–26, 44 n.42 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 209–10 Balzac, Honore´ de, 99–101, 107, 207, 209, 210 Barenboim, Daniel, 165 Baroque art, 205 Barthes, Roland, 219 Bass, Bernard, 13 Bataille, Georges, 130 n.33 Beard, John, 180 Beasley, Jerry L., 48 n.90 ‘‘The Beast,’’ 90 Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (Lissitsky), 224, 226(ph)

Index The Beau Monde or The Pleasure of St. James’s (Carey), 174, 175 ‘‘The Beau’s Lamentation for the Loss of Farinelli’’ (Carey), 180, 184 n.6 The Beggar’s Opera (Gay), 172, 175, 176 Beineix, Jean-Jacques, 33 Being and Time (Heidegger), 141–42 Benedict XVI, Pope, 40 n.8 Benevolent leaders, 152 Bennis, Warren, 42 n.30, 43 n.38, 44 n.42 Berger, John, 217 Bernays, Edward, 218 Beslan massacre, 144 Betancourt, Ro´mulo, 113 n.44 Betty Blue (Beineix), 33 Betty (‘‘la cousine Bette’’) (Human Comedy), 100–101, 104, 107 The Bible, 20–21, 51, 59, 203. See also Religion ‘‘Billy Budd’’ (Melville), 4, 7 Bin Laden, Osama, 104 Black Plague, 190–91, 196–97 Bloom, Harold, 20–21, 26, 29, 30, 35, 50 n.102 Blough, Roger, 80 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 193 Bogus empowerment, 10 Bok, Derek C., 42 n.26 Bolı´var, Simoń, 108 Bolivarian Movement. See Cha´vez, Hugo Bolshevik Revolution, 223–24, 231 Bonaparte, Joseph, 222 Bonnell, Victoria, 224 Bononcini, Giovanni, 175 Booker, Cory, 33 A Book of New Songs (Reading), 176 Book of Songs (Five Classics of Confucianism), 156 Bordoni, Faustina, 174, 175–76 Botticelli, 201 Bowery, Charles, 74, 76, 81, 84 Boyce, William, 178, 183 Boys, moral development of, 142 Brandenburg, Albrecht von, 202–3

Index The Brand Gap (Neumeier), 216–17 Brand specialists. See Commercial artists Bravo, Douglas, 107 Bruni, Leonardo, 193–94, 198 Bunting, Josiah, 87 Burlesque, 175, 182–83, 185 n.28 Burns, James MacGregor, 4, 10–11, 127 Bush, George W., 108 Bushmen of Africa, 166–67 Businesses and business leaders: absence during times of crisis, 141; business hierarchies compared to fiefdoms of the Middle Ages, 216; commercial art, 216–20; leadership studies, 24–26, 29–30; rags-to-riches stories, 22–23 The Business World—Moral and Social Inquiry through Fiction (Harvard), 25 B.Z. (tabloid), 139 Caldera, Rafael, 105, 107, 113 n.45 Calendars, 134 Calinescu, Matei, 20–21 Calkins, Elmo, 218 Callen, Donald, 161 Calumny of Apelles (Botticelli), 201 Campaign theme songs, 158 Cantatas for a Voice (Carey), 181 Cantometrics, 166–67 Cantor, MacKinlay, 82 Capella, Martianus, 25 Captains of Consciousness (Ewen), 218 Care and caring, 141–44, 161 Care (Cura) (Hyginus), 141 Carey, Henry, 172–84; challenges faced by, 183–84; family, 183, 185 n.27; legacy, 182–84; music scene in England, 173–74; poetry and compositions, 176–78; reviving the English voice, 178–82; as social commentator and satirist, 174–75; suicide, 183 Caribbean region, 108

243 Caroline, Princess of England, 174 Castagno, Andrea del, 194–95 Castro, Ame´rico, 28 Catharsis, 37 Catholic Church. See Roman Catholic Church Catton, Bruce, 74, 81, 83, 84, 87 Cave allegory (Plato), 135 Censorship: of art, 228, 229–30; by Hitler, 231; of music, 157–59, 160; September Laws of France, 208–9, 210 Cervantes, Miguel de. See Don Quixote Chamberlain, Joshua Lawrence, 83 Champlin, Edward, 137 Charisma and charismatic leadership: of Cha´vez, 110; exemplified in Moby-Dick, 4, 9, 11, 13; universal attributes, 122–23; Weber’s definition, 11, 104, 110 Charles IV, King of Spain, 221 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 199, 203 Cha´vez, Hugo, 28, 90–91, 104, 105–10 Chechan rebels, 144 Chekhov, Anton, 17 Chernyak, Igor, 139 Children, 142, 163. See also Infants Childs, Elizabeth, 209 Chile, 134, 157–58 China: Ancient China, 122, 144, 151, 154, 168 n.3; on leadership, 162; Mao, Zedong, 156, 158; official songs of, 156; Peking opera, 158–59; wuwei (nonaction or nonassertive action), 162. See also Confucius and Confucianism A Choice Collection of Six Favourite Songs (Carey), 183 Christ Expelling the Money-Changers from the Temple (Cranach), 204(ph) Christianity: Antichrist rhetoric, 90, 199–200, 204–5; art based on, 193, 194–98; The Bible, 20–21, 51, 59, 203; blamed by Nero for fire in Rome, 137;

244 Jesus Christ, 40 n.8, 201, 204(ph), 204–5; moral sense of time, 134. See also Luther, Martin; Religion; Roman Catholic Church Christmas truce (1914), 161–62 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 138, 193 Cithara, 137–38 Ciulla, Joanne B., 10, 118, 119 Civil rights movement, 157 Civil War (U.S.). See Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant Clark, Matthew, 47 n.70 Clark, Wesley, 86 Clean New World (Lavin), 216 Clemens, Samuel, 71 Clive, Kitty, 179–80 Clocks, 134 Close, Anthony, 27, 37, 41 n.21, 47 n.77 Coleman, Ornette, 167 Cole, Nat King and Natalie, 163 Collective behaviors. See Group behavior Coloń, Cristo´bal, 113 n.51 Colonialism, 101–2, 113 n.45, 228 Coltrane, John, 167 Commercial artists, 216–20 Compleat Key (Carey), 178 Concord College, 48 n.90 Confucius and Confucianism: Mao Zedong vs., 158; on music, 154, 155, 156, 160, 162, 164–65; on propriety, 144 Consumer engineering. See Businesses and business leaders Context of leadership, 5 The Contrivances (Carey), 175, 183 Corporate leadership. See Businesses and business leaders Corruption, 108, 109. See also Immoral leaders Counter Reformation, 37–38 Coutu, Diane, 26, 30 Covent Garden, 182, 183 Cranach, Lucas (the Elder), 203–5, 204(ph)

Index Crisis conditions: duties of leaders and, 143–44; Nero example, 135–39, 140, 143; presence of leaders during, 132, 135, 138–41; Putin example, 139–40, 143. See also Fear Cuba, 105, 106 Cuddon, J. A., 19 n.21 Cultural materialism, 30, 35, 218–20 Culture and music, 155–56, 163. See also Art and art history; Music ‘‘Culture Specific and Cross-Culturally Generalizable Implicit Leadership Theories’’ (Hartog), 122, 123 Cuzzoni, Francesca, 174, 175 Czechoslovakia, 231 Dada group, 230–31 Daddi, Bernardo, 190–91 Dagbladet (newspaper), 139 The Daily Post, 183 Dalı`, Salvador, 130 n.33 Dance, 163 Daniel (Bible), 111 n.1 Dante, 199 Dao De Jing, 162 Daumier, Honore´, 190, 207–11, 208(ph), 229–30 David (biblical), 194–95 David (Donatello), 194–96, 196(ph), 197–98 David (Michelangelo), 195–96 Davis, Jefferson, 72, 79, 85 Dawkins, Richard, 213 Day, William, 165–66 Death to World Imperialism (Moor), 225(ph) Delbanco, Andrew, 13 Democracy, 107–8 Den Hartog, Deanne, 122, 123 ‘‘Deutschland u¨ber Alles’’ (German national anthem), 157 DeWoskin, Kenneth, 156 Diets of Nuremberg and Augsburg, 205 Dignitas homini, 38–39

Index Dilthey, Wilhelm, 133 Dio, Cassius, 137 Dionysian cult, 155 Disasters of War (Goya), 222 Donatello, 194–96, 197–98 Don Quixote (Cervantes), 20–39; on article of faith in one’s own identity, 32, 38; the case of literature in leadership studies, 24–26; Cervantes as humanist, 38; Cha´vez’s distribution of, 28; Don Quixote as Christ-like figure, 40 n.8; Don Quixote as leader, 22; as guide for regeneration of Spain’s spiritual values, 27–28; Hamlet vs. Don Quixote, 28–29; leadership as a ‘‘quixotic’’ endeavor, 22–23; March’s Passion and Discipline, 30–35; (mis)reading Don Quixote with a purpose, 36–38; as ‘‘most meaningful book of all time,’’ 20; nostalgia, cynicism, and ambivalence, 38–39; plot overview, 23; ‘‘quixotic,’’ modern usage of, 22–23, 32–33; as rereadable text, 20–21; ‘‘romantic’’ approach, 26–35; Sancho Panza as representative of finest characteristic of the masses, 29 Dorian mode, 154–55 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 46 n.60 The Dragoness; The Honest Yorkshireman (Carey), 183 The Dragon of Wantley (burlesque), 175, 182, 183, 185 n.28 The Dramatick Works of Mr. Carey (Carey), 183 Drucker, Peter, 9, 47 n.72, 126 Duomo, 192 Eccles, John, 178 Eco, Umberto, 123–24, 126–27 Edict of Worms, 204, 205 Education, 24, 49 n.92, 151 Ehime Maru’s (Japanese fishing boat), 140

245 Einstein, Albert, 134 El pensamiento de Cervantes (The Thought of Cervantes) (Castro), 28 Emergency situations. See Crisis conditions Eminence grise, 123 Emotions: authoritarian leadership’s use of, 152; emotional intertwining of followers and leaders exhibited in Moby-Dick, 4, 9–10, 13–14, 15; leader-follower dynamics based on, 104, 110; multiple aspects of, 153; music related to, 152–53, 156; scientific theories of, 168 n.4. See also Ressentiment Empathy, 139 Empowerment, 10 England: burlesques, 175, 182–83, 185 n.28; cantatas, 178–79; English opera, 175; English Opera Company, 181–82, 183; Industrial Revolution, 206; mad songs, 179; Queen of England, 132; religious art, 205–6; Royal Academy of Music, 173–75. See also Carey, Henry Erikson, Erik, 142 Ethics. See Morality Ethics of care, 142–43 Ethics of justice, 143 Ethos theory, 155 Eugene Onegin (Pushkin), 17 Ewen, Stuart, 218, 219 Exxon Valdez, 141 Fahrenheit 9/11 (film), 168 n.3 Falstaff. See Hamlet (Shakespeare) The Family of Charles IV (Goya), 221(ph), 221–22 Farinelli, 175, 180, 184 n.6 Fascism, 230–31. See also Nazis Fatalism, 14 Faustina. See Bordoni, Faustina Faustina, or The Roman Songstress (Carey), 175–76 Fear, 152. See also Crisis conditions

246 Feminists and feminism, 30, 142. See also Gender Ferdinand VII, King of Spain, 222 Ferry, David, 56 Fidicula, 138 Fiefdoms, 216 Films for the Humanities, 31 Flatland (Abbott), 135 ‘‘Flocks are sporting’’ (Carey), 176 Florence. See Italian Renaissance Florence Baptistry, 193 Followers: categories of public attitudes on social injustices, 230; definition of leadership requiring, 126–27; feelings of followers experienced by leaders, 144–45; linguistic approach to understanding leadership and, 124– 27; model followers, 126–27; public characteristics of languages, 125, 127; reciprocity of the leader-follower dynamic, 5–6, 13, 104; Sancho Panza as representative of finest characteristic of the masses, 29; trait theory and, 124–25, 127; ubiquitous need to accept authority in Moby-Dick, 5; unification of, 10, 13–14. See also Group behavior ‘‘Fontaine’’ (Duchamp), 130 n.33 Foote, Shelby, 75, 81, 84 For the Voice (Mayakovsky), 224 Forgiveness, 95 Foucault, Michel, 122, 213, 217–18, 224, 228 France: Daumier, Honore´, 190, 207–11, 208(ph), 229–30; Industrial Revolution, 206–10; July Revolution (France), 206–7; September Laws, 208–9, 210; World War I Christmas truce, 161–62; World War II, 231 Franco, Francisco, 28 Freeman, Douglas Southall, 80–81, 84 Frege, Gottlob, 118 Frijda, Nico, 153 Fujiwara, Shin’ya, 140 Fuller, J. F. C., 86

Index Fund for the Support of Decay’d Musicians and their Families, 183 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 133 Galliard, John Ernest, 183 Gandhi, Mohandas, 22 Garcıá Pelayo, Manuel, 94–95, 104 Gardner, John, 24, 29, 33, 42 nn.27, 32, 47 n.70 Gargantua (Daumier), 190, 208(ph), 208– 10, 229 Gargantua et Pantagruel (Rabelais), 209, 210 Gates, Bill, 22, 23, 29–30 Gay, John, 172, 175, 176 Gender, 30, 52, 142 The Genealogy of Morals (Nietzsche), 92–93 The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant (Fuller), 86 George, A. R., 56 George I, King of England, 173 George II, King of England, 176–77 Germany: Heartfield, John, 213, 214, 230–31; Hitler, 5, 122, 223, 231; Hohlwein’s art, 221, 222–23, 233; national anthem, 157; Nazis, 157, 230–31, 233; World War I Christmas truce, 161–62. See also Luther, Martin Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 193, 194, 198 Giangaleazzo Visconti, Lord of Milan, 192, 194, 196–97 Gilgamesh epic, 51–62; central elements, 52; on community, 53, 60–62; on followers, 53, 54–55; on gender relations, 52; on heroic leadership, 52, 53–54; rediscovery of, 51, 62; on self-discovery by leaders, 53, 56, 58– 60; on transformational power of friendship, love and empathy, 53 Gilligan, Carol, 142 Girls, moral development of, 142 Girolamo, Fra, 201 Giuliani, Rudolph, 135 Goebbels, Josef, 223, 233

Index Goebbels’s Recipe against the Food Shortage in Germany (Heartfield), 214(ph) Goëring, Hermann Wilhelm, 231 Gordon, John B., 83 Gore, Al, 35 Goya, Francisco de, 221–22 Grant, Ulysses S.. See Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant Graphic artists. See Commercial artists Great Britain. See England The Great Flood, 51, 59 ‘‘Great Generals Series,’’ 86 Greece (Ancient), 144, 151, 153–55, 193– 94. See also Aristotle; Plato Greeneville (U.S. submarine), 140 Gregory XI, Pope, 199–200 Grossman, Edith, 21 Grosz, George, 230 Group behavior: controlled by passions, 102, 104; motive power of individuals, 98–99; ressentiment, 94, 95; ‘‘slave revolt’’ reactions, 93, 94, 95, 102, 104. See also Followers Grub Street, 183–84 The Guardian, 39–40 n.2 Guerrillas (Naipaul), 101–2 Guevara, Ernesto Che, 28 ‘‘Guitars in the Classroom,’’ 168 n.2 Gulliver’s Travels (Swift), 176–77 Gutenberg, Johann, 203 Gyles, Mary, 137–38 Habits, defined, 124 Haditha, Iraq, 229 ‘‘Hamlet and Don Quixote’’ (Turgenev), 29 Hamlet (Shakespeare), 28–29 Handel, George Frederic, 173–75, 182, 183 Hanging and Marriage (Carey), 181 Hanslick, Eduard, 153, 160 Harbison, Craig, 190 Hartt, Frederick, 192, 193, 195 Harvard Business Review, 26, 29, 30, 31

247 Harvard Business School, 24, 25 The Haymarket, 182 Heartfield, John, 213, 214, 230–31 Heidegger, John Jacob, 173, 184 n.8 Heidegger, Martin, 141–42 Heider, Fritz, 85 Held, Virginia, 143 Henry VI (Shakespeare), 138 Hermeneutics, 133 Heroes, 98–100 Herrero, Miguel, 45 n.51 Herzefeld, Helmut. See Heartfield, John Herzefeld, Wieland, 230 Hewlett, William, 22 Higher education, 24, 49 n.92 Historia reformationis (Myconius), 202 Hitler, Adolf, 5, 122, 223, 231. See also Nazis Hobbes, Thomas, 111 n.1 Hohlwein, Ludwig, 221, 222–23, 233 Holland, 205–6 Hollander, Edwin, 9 The Honest Yorkshireman (Carey), 175, 182 Hughes, John, 178 Hughes, Robert, 205 Hugo, Victor, 209 Hulot, Baron (Human Comedy), 100–101 Human Comedy (Balzac), 99–100 Humanism, 38–39, 193–94 Humboldt, Alexander von, 113 n.42 Humor, 230 Hunt, Sonja, 11 Huss, Jan, and the Hussite movement, 199–200 Hyginus, Gaius Julius, 141 Hypocrisy, 7 Hypothetical syllogism, 128 n.10 Iconography of Power (Bonnell), 224 Icons, 230 Immoral leaders, 4–5. See also Corruption An Inconvenient Truth (Gore), 49 n.96

248 Independent (newspaper), 139 Indian drama, 159 Indian Institute of Management, 31 Industrial Revolution, 206–10, 228 Infants, 161. See also Children Interior monologue, defined, 19 n.21 Internal attributions, 129 n.21 International Communist Party, 231 International Monetary Fund, 91 Iraq, 168 n.3, 229 Ishmael (Melville). See Moby-Dick (Melville) Israel, 165 Italian opera, 172–74, 175–76, 180–81, 182 Italian Renaissance, 189, 190–99; Black Plague, 190–91, 196–97; humanism, 193–94; music terms used by, 168 n.12; Orsanmichele, 190–91, 191(ph), 192, 195, 197; political unrest, 191–93, 196–98; sculptures, 192–93, 194–99 Jackall, Robert, 216 Japan, 140 Jara, Vıćtor, 157–58 Jarry, Alfred, 130 n.33 Jazz music, 167 Jesus Christ, 40 n.8, 201, 204(ph), 204–5. See also Christianity Jiang Qing, 158 Jimmy (Guerrillas), 101–2 Jischke, Martin C., 26, 34 Jobs, Steve, 22 Johnson, Samuel, 138 Johnston, Joseph, 72 John the Baptist, 198 John the Baptist (Ghiberti), 193, 194, 195(ph) John XXIII, Pope, 200 Jones, Edward E., 72–73, 84 Juan Carlos, King, 48 n.82 Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), 43 n.38 July Revolution (France), 206–7 Jung, Carl G., 130 n.33 Justice, ethics of, 143

Index Kabbalah, 111 n.1 Kant, Immanuel, 48 n.81 Kantor, MacKinlay, 75, 84 Kazin, Alfred, 17 Keegan, John, 132, 141 Kellerman, Barbara, 5 Kennedy, John F., 80 Kennedy, Robert F., 32 Kierkegaard, Søren, 31, 48 n.81, 49 n.92, 143 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 22, 32 Kirk, G. S., 52 Klutsis, Gustav, 220–21, 223–24 Kohlberg, Lawrence, 142 Kramer, Hilton, 207 Kursk (Russian submarine), 139–40, 143 La Caricature (newspaper), 207, 210, 229 Lacy, Steve, 165 Ladislaus, 195 ‘‘The Lady’s Lamentation’’ (Carey), 179–80 Laguerre, John, 185 n.28 Lampe, John Frederich, 181, 182, 185 n.28 Language. See Linguistic analysis of leadership Lao Tzu, 122 La Stampa (newspaper), 139 The Laudatio of the City of Florence (Bruni), 198 Lavin, Maud, 216 Leadership: characteristics embedded in each community, 122; definitions of, 4, 119, 122–23, 126; as double mirror relationship, 104; lack of common definition of, 119; leadership studies, 24–26, 29–30, 117; lunatics vs., 34; ‘‘noisy’’ quality of, 7; rags-to-riches stories, 22–23 A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (Carey), 177–78 Le Charivari (newspaper), 207, 229 Lee, Robert E.: amnesty issued to, 78–79; appearance at Appomattox, 76–77;

Index final attack on Union forces ordered by, 74; Grant’s respect for, 71–72; on horses of soldiers, 79–82, 85; meeting with Grant, 77–82; note to Grant prior to surrender, 73–74; presidency of Washington College, 85; surrender at Appomattox, 69, 72–73, 82–83; sword worn at surrender, 76, 77, 81–82, 84; trust in Grant, 87. See also Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant Leibniz’s Law, 119–21 Leoni, Rau´l, 113 n.44 Leo X, Pope, 203 Le Quernec, Alain, 215 Leviathan (Hobbes), 111 n.1 Levin, Harry, 21, 29, 36, 37 Light, speed of, 134 Lilliputian Ode on their Majesties’ Accession (Carey), 176–77 Lincoln, Abraham, 69, 81, 84, 85 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 182 Linguistic analysis of leadership, 117– 28; an alternative lens on leadership, 125–27; epistemology and leadership studies, 118–19; language, described, 119; language and culture, 122–24, 219; psychologism in social sciences and, 117–19, 124–25; public characteristics of languages, 125, 127; referential opacity and leadership, 119–22 Lipman-Blumen, Jean, 5 Lissitsky, Lazar el, 224–26, 227, 231 Lithography, 190, 207–11, 228–29 Logical truths, 118–19 Lomax, Alan, 163, 166–67 London, England, 52 Longstreet, James, 81, 87 Lord of Milan (Giangaleazzo Visconti), 192, 194, 196–97 Lord of the Rings (Tolkien), 61 Louis-Philippe, King of France, 190, 206–10, 229 Louis XIII, King, 123 Loyalty vs. mutiny, 7, 9, 15–16

249 Lunatics, 34 Lun Yu (Confucius), 160 Luther, Martin, 189–206; declaration before Emperor Charles V, 203; Edict of Worms, 204, 205; history of Reformation, 199–203; Nicolas’s influence on, 200; 95 theses, 202–3; Peasant Revolt response, 199; portraits of, 205; printing and printmaking, 203–5 Macbeth (Shakespeare), 90 Machiavelli, Niccolo`, and Machiavellian leadership, 152, 199 Madagascar, 133–34 Madonna and Child (painting), 190–91 Mad songs, 179 Magazines, 228–29. See also specific publications by name Malik Verlag, 231 Managers, 7–8 Manipulation, 9–12, 122. See also Propaganda Manzoni, P., 126 Mao Zedong, 156, 158 Maranõ´, Gregorio, 95, 104, 105 March, James, 25, 26, 30–35, 38, 43 n.38, 44 n.42 Marcos, Subcomandante, 28 Marlborough, John Churchill, 178 Marshall, Charles, 77–78 Martin Luther in Profile with Doctoral Cap (Cranach), 205 Marxist ideology, 226 The Massacre of the rue Transnonain (Daumier), 229 Material success, 30, 35, 218–20. See also American dream Mathematics, 118–19 Mayakovsky, Vladimir, 224, 226 McFeely, William, 71, 75–77, 82, 84 McLean, Wilmer, 72, 76, 87. See also Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, meeting with Lee Meade, George, 85, 87

250 Medieval Era, 168 n.12 Mellado, General Gutie´rrez, 48 n.82 Melville, Herman: leadership-related topics in other works, 4; nautical imagery, 4; period and setting of fiction, 3, 4. See also Moby-Dick Melville’s Quarrel with God (Thompson), 6 Memes, 213–14, 228, 230, 231–33 Memories, 134 The Merchant of Venice. See Shylock ‘‘Merda d’artista’’ (Manzoni), 126 Merriam, Alan, 163 Metanarratives, 122 Michelangelo, 194–96, 201 Middle Ages, 216 Military, 151 Mill, John Stuart, 118, 157, 164 ‘‘The Millennium Development Goals’’ (UN), 108 Miller, Hillis J., 21 Mimesis, 37 Mimesis (Auerbach), 45 n.53 Minstrels of 1530s, 146 n.21 Miyazaki, Hayao, 33 Moby-Dick (Melville), 3–19; Ahab as transactional leader, 10–12; Ahab as transformational leader, 11–12, 13; Ahab not condemned by Melville, 4– 5; Ahab’s leadership skills, 4–5, 8–9; Ahab’s oratory skills, 9; Ahab’s personal agenda, 11, 12–13; Ahab’s refusal to respect the natural order, 6–7; Captains Peleg and Bildad as managers, 7–8; challenges to authority, 15–17; on charisma, 4, 9, 11, 13; context of Ahab’s leadership, 5; description of officers and harpooners, 8, 9, 10; on disobeying earthly ‘‘gods and commodores,’’ 6– 7; on emotional intertwining of followers and leaders, 4, 9–10, 13–14, 15; empowerment of Ahab’s followers, 10; fatalism within, 14; Father Mapple’s sermon, 6–7; followers unified by Ahab, 10, 13–14; hierarchical,

Index cultural, religious, multiracial, and commercial organizational structure of the Pequod, 8; institutional and personal authority as a basis for leadership, 4; Ishmael’s preference as follower, 5–6; on leadership as performance, 8–9; on loyalty vs. mutiny, 7, 9, 15–16; manipulation by Ahab, 9– 12; on moral dimensions of leadership, 4; reciprocity of the leader-follower dynamic, 5–6, 13; symbolic gestures employed by, 9–10, 13; on ubiquitous need to accept authority, 5; on uncontrollable factors that come into play with leadership, 14; unresolved questions, 16–17 Mocking Is Catching (Carey), 177, 178, 179 Monk, Thelonious, 165 Moor, D. S., 225(ph) Moore, A., 174 Moore, Michael, 168 n.3 Morality: challenges to authority, 15–17; commercial art, 216–17; contemporary moral vacuum, 24–26; Don Quixote as guide for regeneration of Spain’s spiritual values, 27–28; ethics of care, 142–44; higher education ‘‘divorced’’ from, 24–25; immoral leaders, 4–5; Kohlberg’s scale of moral development, 142; Moby-Dick (Melville), 4; music, influence of, 152–56; Nietzsche’s theory of ressentiment, 92–93; physical reality and moral perceptions of the world, 135–36; sense of time, 134; ‘‘slave revolt’’ reactions, 93, 94, 95, 102, 104 The Moral Leader (Badaracco), 44 n.42 Moral Mazes (Jackall), 216 Mori, Yoshiro, 140 Munõz Molina, Antonio, 38 Music, 151–67; absolute music, 168 n.8, 169 n.22; arousal from, 159–66; benefits to performers of, 164–66; burlesques, 175, 182–83, 185 n.28;

Index camaraderie among musical participants, 161, 163–66; Cantometrics, 166–67; censorship and suppression of, 157–59, 160; Christmas truce of 1914, 161–62; Dorian mode, 154–55; as emotional barometer, 156; English music and song (see England); as image of social ideals, 166–67; Italian opera, 172–74, 175–76, 180–81, 182; moral influence, 152–56; music videos, 153; Plato’s and Aristotle’s understanding of, 153–54; political, 156–59; power and, 151–52; reassurance from, 162–63; rhythms, 156, 160; ‘‘singing along,’’ 161; tensions within human interactions reflected in, 167; vitality affects, 161. See also Carey, Henry The Musical Century (Carey), 183 Musicians Benevolent Fund, 183 Mutiny, 15–17 Myconius, Friedrich, 202 My Neighbor Totoro (Miyazaki), 33 Mythologies (Barthes), 219 Nabokov, Vladimir, 20, 21, 40 n.10 Naipaul, V. S., 101–2, 111 Namby Pamby (anonymous), 177, 178 Napolean I, Emperor of the French, 222 Nardi, Iacopo, 200–201 Nationality, 155 Natural order, 6–7 Nazis, 157, 230–31, 233. See also Hitler, Adolf Nero, 135–39, 140, 143 The Netherlands, 199 Neumeier, Marty, 216–17 New York Times, 62 n.4 Nicolas of Dresden, 200, 204 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 92–93, 95, 98–99, 101–2, 104, 151 9/11 Terror attacks, 135 Nineveh, 52 The Ni-Nis, 110 Nisbett, Richard E., 72–73, 84

251 Noah (biblical), 51, 59 ‘‘Noisy’’ quality of leaders, 7 Nominalism, 129 n.22 Nonaction of nonassertive action (wuwei), 162 Norwegian Nobel Institute, 39–40 n.2 Nystrom, Paul, 218 Of Stage Tyrants (Carey), 177 The Old Color and the New (Nicolas of Dresden), 200, 204 Olsson Center at University of Virginia’s Darden Business School, 43–44 n.39 Omoo (Melville), 4 On Leadership (March and Weil), 43 n.38, 47 n.70 On the Church (Huss), 200 Opaque context, 120 Opera: English opera, 175; Italian opera, 172–74, 175–76, 180–81, 182; Peking opera, 158–59; Royal Academy of Music, 173–75. See also Music Opera of the Nobility, 175 Oratory skills, 9. See also Linguistic analysis of leadership Organizational Leadership (March), 30–35 Organizational structure of groups, 8 The Origin of the Moral Feelings (Reé), 112 n.10 Orsanmichele, 190–91, 191(ph), 192, 195, 197, 198–99 Oslo agreements, 165 Othello (Shakespeare), 30 O’Toole, James, 42 n.30, 43 n.38, 44 n.42 Ozment, Steven, 199–200 Packard, David, 22 Palestinians, 165 Partial Magic (Alter), 40 n.10 Passion and Discipline (March), 30–35 Passions, collective behavior controlled by, 102, 104 Passive majorities, 230 Patriotism, 155

252 Patterson, Mark, 19 n.14 Paul, Saint, 137 Peasant Revolt of 1525, 199 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 123, 124 Peking opera, 158–59 People’s Illustrated (Volks Illustrierte or VI), 231 Pepusch, Johann Christoph, 178, 183 Percepts, 123–24 Pe´rez Delgado, Pedro, 108 Performance, leadership as, 8–9 Pericles, 194 Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant: amnesty issued to Confederates by Grant, 78– 79; bibliographical information, 71; consensus on military leadership skills of, 86; described, 71–73; directness and clarity, 85–86; Grant gets lost, 74–76, 83–84; Grant’s appearance, 76–77, 84; Grant’s respect for Lee, 71–72; the headache, 73–74; on horses of soldiers, 79–82, 85; impression of confidence throughout, 86–87; Lee’s note to Grant prior to surrender, 73–74; Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, 69, 72–73, 82–83, 84; Lee’s sword worn at surrender, 76, 77, 81–82, 84; Lincoln’s influence on Grant, 81, 84; McFeely’s global impression of Grant, 76, 84; meeting with Lee, 77–82; passiveness, 87–88; presidential greatness rating, 86; scholarly treatment of Grant’s account, 72–73, 74, 75–77, 80–82, 83–85; telegram to Stanton, 69–70, 84; trusting disposition of Grant, 87; ‘‘Unconditional Surrender’’ at Fort Donelson, 81 Peter, Saint, 137 Petrarch, Francesco, 193 Philip II, King of Spain, 199 Philipon, Charles, 207, 208, 229 Philips, Ambrose, 177 Pinochet, Augusto, 157–58

Index Piper, Tom, 24, 43 n.34 Plato: cave allegory, 135; as forerunner of leadership studies, 117; horse example, 217; on music, 153–55, 157, 159, 160 Poetics (Aristotle), 37 Poetry, 37 Poland, 225 Police states, 151–52 Polish Peasant Welcomes Russian Forces (Lissitsky), 225–26, 227 Political art, 220–27, 229 Political music, 151, 156–59 Polly Peachum (The Beggar’s Opera), 172, 176 Pope, Alexander, 176–77 The Pope Giving Out Indulgences for Money (Cranach), 204(ph) Popper, Karl, 125 Post-Burckhardtian views, 50 n.109 Poulet, Georges, 16 Power: of advertising, 216–18; ‘‘The Beast’’ as absolute, destructive power, 111 n.1; group behavior and, 94; music and, 151–52; powerlessness of priests, 93, 99, 104; ressentiment as political passion, 102, 104 Power/Knowledge (Foucault), 217–18 Presence of leaders, 132–45; care and being there, 141–42; citharas and fiddling, 137–39; duty and propriety, 143–45; the ethics of care, 142–43; feelings of followers experienced by leaders, 144–45; method of investigation, 132–33; Nero, 135–39, 140, 143; Putin, 139–41; time and space, 133–35 Presidency/presidents, 132 Priests, 93, 99, 104 Principle of identity of indiscernibles, 119–21 Principle of rationality, 125 Printing press, 203, 228 Program in Leadership, Ethics and Corporate Responsibility (Harvard), 24

Index Progressive jazz music, 167 Propaganda, 156–57, 158. See also Manipulation Propositional attitudes, 120–22, 123–24, 127 Propriety, 144 Protestants, 199. See also Luther, Martin Provocation, 230 Pseudotransformational leadership, 13 Psychologism, 125 Public service music, 158 Pudding and Dumpling Burnt to Pot (Carey), 178 Purcell, Daniel, 173 Purcell, Henry, 179, 183 Purdue University, 26 Putin, Vladimir, 139–40, 143 Pygmy, 166–67 Questions of Character (Badaracco), 25– 26, 44 n.42 Quiet leadership, 122–23 Rabelais, François, 209, 210 Racism, 223 Rags-to-riches stories, 22–23 Rand, Ayn, 98–100, 101–2, 104, 106 Ratzinger, Cardinal, 40 n.8 Rawl, Lawrence G., 141 Reading, John, 176 Reciprocity of the leader-follower dynamic, 5–6, 13, 104 ‘‘Record of Music’’ (The Sacred Books of China), 164 ‘‘The Records of Love, or Weekly amusement for the Fair Sex’’ (periodical), 176 Redburn (Melville), 7 Reé, Paul, 112 n.10 Referential opacity, 120–21 Referential transparency, 120 Reformation. See Luther, Martin Relativity theory, 134 R. E. Lee (Freeman), 80–81

253 Religion: art based on, 193, 194–98; The Bible, 20–21, 51, 59, 203; during Black Plague, 190–91; iconography used by the Tsarist regime, 224; Melville on disobeying earthly ‘‘gods and commodores,’’ 6–7; moral sense of time, 134; music within, 151; powerlessness of priests, 93, 99, 104. See also Christianity; Luther, Martin Renaissance, 168 n.12. See also Italian Renaissance Ressentiment, 90–111; application of the model, 105–9; Balzac, 99–101, 107; Cha´vez’s revolution, 91, 104; collective qualities of, 102, 104; colonialism, 101–2; contentment vs., 105; definitions, 92, 93–94, 100; forgiveness vs., 95; Garcıá Pelayo, 94– 95, 104; generosity vs., 105; as global problem, 111; leadership by ressentiment, 109–10; Maranõ´, 95, 104, 105; Naipaul, 101–2, 111; Nietzsche, 92–93, 95, 98, 99, 101–2, 104; passive, 100; in process of political passion, 102–5; Rand, 98– 100, 101–2, 104, 106; Scheler, 93–94, 95, 99, 102, 104; Shakespeare, 90, 96– 98; as social condition, 102–5 Revelation (Bible), 111 n.1 Revenge. See Ressentiment Rich, John, 182, 183 Richelieu, Cardinal, 123 Riefenstahl, Leni, 223 Riley, E. C., 36 Robinson, Anastasia, 176 Rodchenko, Alexander, 224, 226, 231 Rodelina (Handel), 182 Rolli, Paolo Antonio, 173 Roman Catholic Church: baroque art, 205; on gift of time, 134; moral and financial abuses in the Church, 201–3; powerlessness of priests, 93, 99, 104; Reformation history vs., 189–90, 199– 202, 205. See also Christianity; specific popes by name

254 Rome (Ancient), 193–94, 198. See also Nero Rost, Joseph, 119 Royal Academy of Music, 173–75 Rule of substitutivity, 119–21 Ruscio, Kenneth, 24, 42 n.28, 42 n.31 Rushdie, Salman, 20 Russia: Beslan massacre, 144; culture, 29; Kursk (Russian submarine), 139– 40, 143; Tsarist Russia, 224. See also Soviet Union Sachplakat, 222 Said, Edward, 165 Saint-Beuve, Charles Augustin, 20 ‘‘Sally in our Alley’’ (Carey), 176 Salway, Thomas, 180 Sancho Panza. See Don Quixote (Cervantes) Sanctimonious authority figures, 7 Savonarola, Girolamo, 200–201 Scha¨rf-Kluger, Rivkah, 51–52 Scheler, Max, 92, 93–94, 95, 99, 102, 104 Schiller, Friedrich, 164 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 133 Schutz, Alfred, 161 Scotland, 168 n.3 Scriblerus Club, 176 Scully, Vincent, 211 The Selfish Gene (Dawkins), 213 Semiotics, 219 Seneca, 143 Senesino, 173, 175, 179–80 September Laws of France, 208–9, 210 September 11 terror attacks, 135 Sexual promiscuity, 159–60 Shakespeare, William: Henry VI, 138; Julius Caesar, 43 n.38; Nero, 136; Othello, 30; ressentiment expressed by characters, 90, 96–98, 104; The Taming of the Shrew, 138 Shaw, George Bernard Shaw, 30, 48 n.83 The Shi Jing (Five Classics of Confucianism), 156

Index Shylock (The Merchant of Venice), 96–97, 104 Simmel, Georg, 18 n.9 Simpson, Brooks, 74, 82, 84 Situational analysis of leadership, 125 Slander, 97–98 ‘‘Slave revolt’’ reactions, 93, 94, 95, 102, 104 Sloth, 134 Smith, George, 51, 58, 62 Smith, Jean Edward, 74, 76, 81, 84 Smith, John Christopher, 181 Smoking, 35 Snow, C. P., 145 n.3 Socialist realism, 158–59 Social justice art, 227–31 Socrates, 154–55, 157, 159, 160 Soderini, Piero, 195 Soldiers, 123–24 Solomon, Robert C., 5, 7 Song. See Music Soviet Union: Bolshevik Revolution, 223–24, 231; the Constructivists, 224– 27, 231; Klutsis’s work, 220–21, 223– 24; Stalin, 220–21, 223–24, 225–27, 231. See also Russia Spain: Civil War, 28; Counter Reformation, 37–38; Don Quixote as guide for regeneration of Spain’s spiritual values, 27–28; Goya’s art, 221–22; Spaniards declared to be the devil by Cha´vez, 108; SpanishAmerican War, 27; transition to democracy, 48 n.82 Spatiality, 133–35, 161, 163–66 Speed of light, 134 Stalin, Joseph, 220–21, 223–24, 225–27, 231 Stanford Business Magazine, 31 Stanford Business School, 25, 26, 30–31, 44 n.42, 48 n.89 Stanley, John, 178, 183 Stein, Gertrude, 71 Stern, Daniel, 161

Index A Stillness at Appomattox (Catton), 83. See also Catton, Bruce Stipek, Deborah J., 31 St. John the Baptist (Ghiberti), 193, 194, 195(ph) St. Mark (Donatello), 196, 197(ph), 197– 98 St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, 201 Studia humanitatis, 38–39 Style theory, 123–24 Submarine emergencies, 139–40 Suetonius, 136–37 Suffering. See Ressentiment Swift, Jonathan, 176–77, 178 Taboos, 230 Tacitus, Gaius Cornelius, 136 Taggart’s wife (Atlas Shrugged), 99 The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare), 138 Tamora (Titus Andronicus), 97 Teraminta (Carey), 175, 182 Terrorist alert system, 111 Tetzel, Johann, 202–3 Textual theories, 126 The Third of May (Goya), 222 Third world countries, 107–8 Thompson, Lawrance, 6 The Thought of Cervantes (Castro), 28 Three Burlesque Cantatas (Carey), 183 Tigay, Jeffrey, 52, 54 Time and space, 133–35, 161, 163–66 Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare), 97 Toffanin, Giuseppe, 37 Tolkien, J. R. R., 61 Tolstoy, Leo, 17, 30 ‘‘To Mr. Handel on his Admetus’’ (Carey), 182 ‘‘A Touch on the Times’’ (Carey), 181 Traits, 122–25, 127 Tranquillus, Gaius Suetonius, 136–37 Transactional leadership, 10–12 Transformational leadership, 10–12, 13, 127 Tremblay, François Leclerc de, 123

255 Trotsky, Leon, 226 Truth, 118–19 Tsarist Russia, 224 Turgenev, Ivan, 29, 35 Tuscany, Italy. See Italian Renaissance Twain, Mark, 71 Typee (Melville), 4, 7 Tyrannical authority figures, 4–5 ‘‘Ubo Roi’’ (Jarry), 130 n.33 Unamuno, Miguel de, 20, 27–28, 31–32, 48 n.81 Unethical authority figures, 4–5. See also Corruption ‘‘Unforgettable’’ (Cole), 163 Unification of followers, 10, 13–14 United Nations (UN), 108 United States Steel Corporation, 80 Universal laws, 125 University of Richmond Jepson School of Leadership Studies, 42 n.29 University of Virginia’s Darden Business School, 43–44 n.39 Uruk, 52. See also Gilgamesh epic USSR in Construction (magazine), 225– 26, 227(ph) Values, 122. See also Morality Van Gogh, Vincent, 126 Vasari, Giorgio, 193 Venezuela, 28, 90–91, 105–10 Verrocchio, Andrea del, 194–95 Vidal, Gore, 71 Vietnam War, 157 Violence, 159–60 Vitality affects, 161 Volks Illustrierte or VI (People’s Illustrated), 231 Voltaire, 7 Walpole, Robert, 177–78 War, 157, 222. See also specific wars by name War and Peace (Tolstoy), 30 Washington and Lee University, 85

256 Ways of Seeing (Berger), 217 Weber, Max, 11, 19 n.14, 104, 110, 122 Weil, Simone, 159 Weil, Thierry, 43 n.38, 47 n.70 Weimar Republic. See Germany Weintraub, Stanley, 161 Wertfrei (value-free), 122 White Jacket (Melville), 4 Wilson, Diana de Armas, 21 Wilson, Edmund, 86–87 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 125 Women, 30, 52, 142 Woodruff, Paul, 144

Index Worker’s Illustrated Paper (AIZ), 231 World War I, 161–62, 223, 230 World War II, 223, 231 Wuwei (nonaction or nonassertive action), 162 Wycliffe, John, 199–200 Xunzi, 162–63 Yellow Earth (film), 169 n.20 Zamora, Ezequiel, 108 Zapatero, Jose´ Luis Rodrı´guez, 28

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