Public Administration

18th-Century Views of Leadership

Grover Starling's (1998) text, Managing in the Public Sector, offers a global perspective on leadership that was presented in a 1997 issue of the Economist. The view espoused in the editorial is that leadership is a concept that is studied and discussed by Americans to a larger degree—sometimes obsessively—than in any other nation. The French have no adequate word for it. The Germans and Italians have an aversion to the study of it because of their experiences with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Even the British, who have produced leaders widely admired by Americans, do not have the same enthusiasm for leadership. They removed Winston Churchill from office after he won World War II and ridiculed Margaret Thatcher, whose leadership was internationally respected. According to Starling (1998), the English resent leadership if it is too blatant, but Americans are “unabashed in their zest for leadership” (p. 360).

The conclusion drawn by the editor (Starling, 1998) is that U.S. views of leadership are grounded in their emphasis on individualism and idealism and the accomplishments of the Founding Fathers, who continue to exert a powerful influence on the U.S. psyche. United in a Lockean view that all men are created equal, entitled to natural rights, and capable of self-governance, the revolutionary colonists declared independence from the despotic rule of the hereditary monarch and proclaimed themselves rightfully entitled to create a free and independent state. The victory of the colonists in the American Revolution firmly planted in the U.S. psyche the notion that sovereignty and ultimate power reside in the people and that leaders or those who hold titles of office are inclined to abuse their powers if not closely monitored by those whose freedoms government was created to protect.

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