The Quest for a General Theory of Leadership

Citation

Austin, A. (2007), "The Quest for a General Theory of Leadership", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 28 No. 6, pp. 591-592. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437730710781010

This is a scholarly work about the discussions and more notably, the disagreements of a group of distinguished academics including J. Thomas Wren of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, and Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner James MacGregor Burns to whom the book is dedicated. It is clear from the early chapters that the group found they were ill‐prepared to focus on a general theory of leadership without first establishing foundations and definitions from which to work, and agreeing upon a structure for pursuit of the theory. This then turned out to be the focus of the book.

The volume is organized into ten chapters plus an Afterword by James MacGregor Burns. Chapter 1 introduces the quest and explains the early realization of the group that the process of determining a unified theory of leadership was as important as the product. The group represented a wide range of academic disciplines including philosophy, political science, anthropology, psychology, communications, public administration, history, as well as leadership studies. All or most of the participants convened eight times for up to five days at a time.

Chapters 2 and 3 examine the foundations of the human condition and the requirements of what a theory of leadership is and is not. As they endeavored to resolve what the unified theory might contain, the understanding came that they had not determined what basic question they were answering, and thus exposing the dilemma of having no methods to test their solution. As a result they set about the task of examining how other disciplines have focused in on a question and/or a theory. The result is a view of leadership through the eyes of a positivist, a realist, a pragmatist and a relativist. The next four chapters undertake specific elements and factors of leadership such as power, leader‐follower relations, group dynamics, ethics, causality; as well as, influences such as Kurt Lewin's field theory, the principle of cumulative effect put forward by Gunnar Myrdal, Stephen J. Gould and punctuated equilibrium and Margaret Wheatley and the new science of leadership.

With Chapter 8, the group begins to consider the work of practitioners and researchers in the field of leadership studies in order to build a constructionist approach. This is the beginning of the authors' attempt to bring together the ideas of an “objective” reality and a “subjective” interpretation of it into a single perspective. Chapter 9 is a verbatim contextual discussion between Historian J. Thomas Wren and Anthropologist Elizabeth Faier. There are basic disagreements between Wren the traditionalist and Faier the constructivist. The purpose of their discussion is to expose essential questions on the way in which context might inform theoretical thinking about leadership.

The final chapter is a commentary by Joanne B. Ciulla on what was learned from the effort to arrive at a general theory of leadership, in spite of the fact that a general theory of leadership is never achieved. Anyone who has tried to devise a theory on any complex subject will admit that it is a messy process. I love a good theoretical discussion as much as the next knowledge enthusiast; however, this book shows us all the chaos and disorganization and leaves us to contend with it instead of guiding us in finding some clarity of the process. Further, because the emphasis was on the quest I felt mislead about the contents. In Chapter 10, Ciulla points out many of the aspects of scholarly debate experienced in this book that I consider to be flaws. For example, the chapters, written by different authors are eclectic in style, tone, and content. Each represents the research interests and backgrounds of the author(s). A good editor would have helped to make this book better organized, more consistent and therefore accessible to more readers. The chapters could have benefited from outlining. I am a fan of the directive to writers and presenters to “tell [the audience] what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them.”

While I was disappointed in the organization of this book and its failure to develop a unified theory, I nonetheless believe that it offers a contribution to the field. There is a non‐comprehensive, but still impressive compendium of approaches to leadership including my favorite: Wren's “periodic table of leadership studies. There are also thoughtful descriptions of the views of leadership by such intellectuals as Aristotle, Machiavelli, Foucault, Hesse, Locke, Kant, Hobbes, and many others.”

Readers who might find this book valuable are academics and others interested in philosophical discussions and the underlying factors of leadership. Practitioners will find little of immediate use.