What makes a good leader
Books became the greatest of companions for both Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. In his new book “Leaders:Myth and Reality”, Stanley McChrystal admits to an intensive reading habit by devouring history, biography and memoir before during and after his time as an army cadet at West Point and worked his way to become a four-star general.
These books appear at a critical time for global leadership. In business, the imperial and imperious leadership style by Chief executives has fallen out of favour. A more team based approach seems to be taking its place. More women are rising to senior corporative roles, changing the patriarchal blue print of business leadership, and the influence of bottom-up movements is spreading.
In politics strong men are enjoying a resurgence from Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Philippines Rodrigo Duterte to America’s Donald Trump, the most self-obsessed and divisive US president in decades.
McChrystal charts lessons from potted biographies of 13 prominent leaders including Pultarch’s Lives, in which the historian form the 1st century AD compared 24 pairs of ancient personalities one Greek and one Roman.
McChrystal helps propagate that leadership is based on static checklist or formula that leaders themselves are more important than the team that surrounds them and that leadership is about driving people towards an outcome. Leaders should instead “ shift their mindset to think of themselves as a node in a network, rather than the top apex of a triangle”.
Walt Disney, Coco Chanel are the founders; Alber Einstein and Leonard Bernstein “ the Geniuses”; William Tweed, the corrupt tammany Hall boss and Margaret Thatcher “ the PowerBrokers”, reformers Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr, and heroes Harriet Tubman and Zheng He. Their stories distilled from many longer biographies, are compelling to read. The book calls for a redefinition of leadership as complex, dynamic system to which leaders their followers and context all contribute is timely.
There is a section on “ The Zealots” which matches two murderers Robespierre, the 18th century French revolutionary and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, whom the general helped track down and kill in 2006.
Aspiring leaders will be best served learning to discern what is required in each situation and not following a standard set of textbook leadership qualities.
Leaders: Myth and Reality by Stanley McChrystal, Jeff Eggers and Jason Mangone, Portfolio Penguin, £14.99/$30, 458 pages.