Great Person Theory of Leadership

Historical Context

The origins of the GPTL are often traced to Plato's Republic. Written in 380 BCE, the Republic presented ideas on leadership in the form of a tutorial in which the student (Adeimantus) learns from the master (Socrates) that only a rare class of philosopher–ruler is innately fit to lead the uneducated and brutish majority and that, without such leaders, democracy is in peril. For Socrates, the key characteristics of such a ruler quickness in learning, a good memory, courage, and breadth of vision. Important, too, is that the person needs to be gifted physically as well as mentally.

Although embryonic, Plato's analysis set the stage for the large body of subsequent leadership research that focused attention on the psychology of the individual and argued that leaders' distinctive and exceptional qualities mark them out as qualified not only for responsibility and high office [Page 312]but also for universal admiration and respect. Particularly important in this respect were Thomas Carlyle's 1840 lectures titled “Heroes and Hero Worship,” which argued that the history of civilization is effectively the history of the great men whose leadership made civilization possible.

Examining the historical trajectory of such ideas, there is a clear lineage that progresses from John Stuart Mill's notion of the genius whose pleasures are of a higher order than the animalistic gratifications of the majority, through Friedrich Nietzsche's “superman” who would let nothing stop him from satisfying his appetites, to Gustave Le Bon's notion of the hypnotic crowd leader.

These ideas were carried into the 20th century by Max Weber—in particular through his writings on the historical significance of charismatic leaders who possess superhuman powers not accessible to the ordinary person. Weber argued that such people—and only such people—have the capacity to deliver enlightenment and salvation to the masses. This analysis became less popular in the wake of World War II, after people had become terrifyingly familiar with the capacity for charismatic dictators to deliver the very opposite. Nevertheless, the idea of charismatic leadership has recently been rehabilitated and revitalized by James McGregor Burns, whose work focuses on the special properties of an individual that allow him or her to articulate a vision that inspires large-scale group action and transformation.

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