Style, Charisma, Power and Politics in Leadership

The interplay between style, leadership, charisma, and power is one that has been explored by many authors writing about organizations and politics. All of these factors can play a role in creating an effective institution. Here’s how two political writers analyzed them, and each is relevant to any leader's work.

“Although leadership and the exercise of power are distinguishable activities, they overlap and interweave in important ways. Consider a corporate chief executive officer who has the gift for inspiring and motivating people, who has vision, who lifts the spirits of employees with a resulting rise in productivity and quality of product, and a drop in turnover and absenteeism. That is leadership. But evidence emerges that the company is falling behind in the technology race. One day with the stroke of a pen the CEO increases the funds available to the research division. That is the exercise of power. The stroke of a pen could have been made by an executive with none of the qualities one associates with leadership.”

John W. Gardner, U.S. political activist, statesman. On Leadership, ch. 6, Free Press (1990).

We can also learn from another perspective that shows the effectiveness of contrasting approaches to leadership:

“The leadership qualities of Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower deserve special scrutiny because their common and contrasting qualities illumine the nature of “charismatic” leadership in the Presidency. James M. Burns, by calling his study of Roosevelt "The Lion and the Fox," placed him in the tradition of Machiavellian strategy, and there is little question that Roosevelt used imaginative daring and pugnacity along with the cunning maneuver. Both qualities led him deep into party politics, where he fought the unfaithful ... and smote the heathen without. Eisenhower had less both of the lion and the fox; he was not savage in attack, but usually soft-spoken; and he affected the style of staying outside political involvement and keeping above the party battles.... He understood the deep American impulse toward the belittling of politics, and by seeming to avoid partisanship he could win more converts to his cause than the most partisan leader.”

Max Lerner (1902–1992), Russian-born U.S. author, columnist. America as a Civilization, pt. 6, ch. 3, Simon & Schuster (1957).

Contributed by Joel Gordon

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