Anthony Holmes

In considering leadership we must ask whether or not leadership is real or illusory.

If leadership is an illusion then what is it that, historically, we have called leadership?

Leadership may, for example, be the hubris of an individual who takes credit for fortuitous events that he/she believes, mistakenly, to have resulted directly from his/her actions. But why to we allow this and believe it?

We must also consider what we mean by ‘real’.

The existence of physical objects is testable by the senses in real time. Although there is debate about whether what each person perceives through their senses is the same as what another may perceive. But the existence and location of the same object in the past or the future cannot be tested similarly. Archaeological evidence may help with objects that once existed but we have no witnesses to interrogate and no-one alive today can make an inspection of locations in the historical time frame.

Events and locations may be verifiable archaeologically but a reported historical conversation cannot be verified by the archaeological evidence.

We must rely on hearsay, passed through generations, probably distorted through repetitive embellishment and given in texts which may not present a verbatim account but may have been carefully written in order to express a singular propagandist point of view in a compelling way. Even seemingly confirmatory separate accounts may have been orchestrated, it is difficult for us to know with certainty.

 

Quentin Skinner has written persuasively about the problems of relying on the content of ancient texts especially cautioning against misunderstanding the motives of the author and translator and presuming that words and phrases have a stable meaning.

The potentially obsequious glorification of powerful individuals is likely to have been the most common objective of contemporaneous accounts; much more likely than objective reportage.

Furthermore whether the reported events were the intended outcome of any historical figure's action is not retrievable as intentions are thoughts and probably private thoughts at that.

It is also interesting to note that very few/none of the significant events of documented history are said, by contemporaneous accounts, to have arisen by happenstance. Most, if not all, are causally linked to the, often heroic, actions of the individual we are encouraged to regard as a leader.

Big events require big people!

All this historical, textual ‘evidence’ of leaders acting to benefit the affairs of man may therefore be false.

If we are unable to offer robust criteria against which to test the ‘reality’ of the deeds and, most importantly, the intentions of those whose escapades have come down to us through history as leaders, how then are we to determine characteristics and common traits of leaders? And if we cannot identify these traits how are we to verify the existence of such individuals by identifying those, in the current population, that possess these traits?

All we are able to say is that throughout history there have been prominent individuals about whom stories have been told and that these individuals are often directly associated with transitional events.

What we are not able to say is that the actions of these individuals were deterministic in a causal sense or even that their intention was to bring about the outcome with which they have been credited.

But when a transitional event arises we do seem to be programmed to seek an individual to propose or dictate how we should act. We appear to begin from the unverified position that such an individual must exist because the historical record reveals that, previously at times of crisis, such an individual emerged.

By crisis or disorder I mean that the community is consumed by a single (or tight group of associated) integrating concern or desire such as the threat of invasion by a hostile enemy..

Our underlying belief is that the curing of such crises an the chaos that they bring results from the intervention of a guiding mind. (These guiding minds are those individuals we term leaders). The community directs their concern to locate such an individual by focussing on a commonly approved candidate individual and, in the absence of such an individual, towards a deity.

It is this individual, real or mythical, who becomes the communities hope for deliverance.

Why is this so?

There is comfort to be derived from the presumed existence of leaders as individuals who are capable of achieving the difficult and necessary tasks that have proved unresponsive to our best endeavours.

But, if leadership as we have come to understand it is illusory, does the recognition of a directing mind carry any weight in the identification of a causal link between the individual and the effect that the wider audience regards as desirable?

What is leadership as we have come to understand it?

It is a directing mind that impels voluntary followers to a set of actions that are associated (in a presumed causal way) with the achievement of certain events that were, at the outset, regarded by this group of followers as yielding an improvement in their collective interest.

The problem with identifying the presence of leadership lies in the nature of the causal link. Often a beneficial turn of events arises when an individual is simply associated with some contemporaneous action as the guiding mind, through no more that status or proximity. But such association ≠ a causal relationship.

Moreover leaders, if they exist, do not act independently of followers as they are only capable of affecting events through them. Hence good instructions to act may be badly executed from which no beneficial turn of event arises. In which case can we still confer the title of leader on the individual as we would were the instructions to have been expedited correctly?

Alternatively the opposing forces may act imprudently offering a remarkable but notional victory. (for e.g. Churchill in 1940 was greatly, if not crucially, assisted by Hitler’s decision not to invade the UK and to divide his forces in order to attach the USSR)

In most cases of acclaimed leadership the causal chain cannot be traced satisfactorily from analysis to intention to instruction to execution to beneficial outcome. It is unclear to what degree the ‘leader’ caused effects and therefore conferring the title on the individual seems to be a need by the community to receive or create confirmation that such beneficial effects do indeed result from the actions of  a guiding mind and as such reassure that it is possible to secure a chosen furture. If we no longer believe that this results from Devine intervention in the affairs of man then it must be achieved by mortal intervention.

Are the following tests sufficient to identify the presence or absence of leadership?

Test 1 – Beneficial Intent

The directing mind must have made its intent explicit at the time or prior to issuing the initial intentions.

The declared intent must have been to achieve an effect that was, at least minimally, to cause followers to assert that their collective interest would benefit.

Test 2 - Action

The principal effect must have resulted from actions taken by the individual considered a directing mind acting either unilaterally or through the set of followers acting on the explicit instructions of this individual.

Test 3 – Proximity

The causal chain between the guiding mind and the beneficial effect must be short.

The individual presumed to have been the directing mind may act through voluntary followers and their involuntary subordinates in a hierarchy of a dimension sufficiently large as to remove the individual from the point at which their action touches the objective by a distance that renders the establishment of a direct causal link to be unsafe as the capacity for extraneous forces to influence events is too great to be satisfactorily eliminated from what is a complex non linear dynamic system.

Conclusion

Is it a sufficient qualification for leadership that an individual creates an environment conducive to the achievement of the objective which is achieved, not through his/her direct instruction, but through the direction of another or others? No, because such a person would then be a facilitator and not a leader.

In simpler words; if it is not possible to separate out the direct causal influence of the, so called, leader then it is unjustifiable to call them leader.

To assert leadership it is necessary to be able to demonstrate this causal relationship between the individual and the outcome.

 

In many cases when an individual has been called a leader it is impossible to trace this direct causal link and the best that can be said is that the individual held a position of authority during in a period when unexpected crucial events occurred to the general benefit. But this may be elevation of status by association and, in most cases, is a retrospective accolade.

 

Unless intention is declared in advance of action and a causal link can be indisputably established we cannot rule out the possibility that leadership is an illusion.

c. Anthony Holmes 2007