Leadership

Certain TrumpetsThe Nature of Leadership

Michael QuinnLLS 475 Exercising Effective Leadership

Spring 2010Dr. Keith W. Krasemann

Agenda

Group ExerciseAbout Garry WillsIntroduction of Certain Trumpets

Group Exercise

Is there a difference between Leadership and

Management?

Take 12 subject words from sheet of paper.

Place the appropriate description under the column for

Leader or Manager

For example, The Subject word Energy.

Leader has passion.

Manager has control.

Garry Wills

About Garry Wills

Garry Wills, is the author of numerous books, including Saint

Augustine, Papal Sin, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Lincoln

at Gettysburg. He has won many other awards, among them

two National Book Critics Circle Awards and the 1998

National Medal for the Humanities. Wills has also written

penetrating studies of:

George Washington

Thomas Jefferson

John Wayne

Saint Paul

About Garry Wills

Wills is a regular contributor to the New York Review of

Books, he is an adjunct professor of history at Northwestern

University. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.

Leadership consists of…

A Leader

FollowersShared Goal

Leadership

The followers do not submit to the person of the leader.

They join him or her in pursuit of the goal

The leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leader and followers.

The leader must be willing to…

…get inside the minds of his or her

followers.

To sound certain trumpets does not

mean just trumpeting one’s own

certitudes. It means sounding a specific

call to specific people capable of

response.

Manager Leader

Being a skillful

manager does not make

one a leader.

To become a leader,

one must find the right

followers and the right

goal.

Franklin Roosevelt – Electoral Leader

Franklin Roosevelt – Electoral Leader

He did not prevail by ignoring people’s demands.He anticipated those demands

A popular leader must be sensitive to the followers’ reactions and must know when he or she is “losing the audience.”

Roosevelt refused to let society dictate the terms on which polios live.

Roosevelt wanted his own way – but he knew that the way to get it was not to impose it.

By the time he got his way, it turned out to be the way of many other followers as well.

Adlai Stevenson – Electoral Antitype

Adlai Stevenson – Electoral Antitype

Stevenson had noble ideas – as did Roosevelt.

But, Stevenson felt that the way to implement them was to present himself as a thoughtful idealist and wait for the world to flock to him.

Stevenson believed that a man should be above the pressures and multitude, telling people uncomfortable truths.

Stevenson kept some distance from the crowd by indulging “Inside” comments that played to the intellectuals.

Eleanor Roosevelt – Reform Leader

Eleanor Roosevelt – Reform Leader

Eleanor became an advocate of women’s causes.

She realized that she could do more because of her White House position.

Eleanor became the driving force – helping unemployed reclaim land.

Eleanor found ways to dramatize grave injustices to African Americans.

Human Rights.

Helped the disadvantaged.

Nancy Reagan – Reform Antitype

Nancy Reagan – Reform Antitype

Main concern seemed to be upgrading china used at banquets.

“JUST SAY NO”

Became an Individual choice.

People are still inspired to follow Mrs. Roosevelt’s lead in civil rights, feminist movement and welfare causes.

Who marches now to Mrs. Reagan’s“Just Say No” slogan?

Andrew Young – Diplomatic Leader

Andrew Young – Diplomatic Leader

Join the civil rights movement – idea of educating the poor black preachers he had met.

Mr. Young believed that ALL channels of communication should be kept open.

Became Ambassador to the United Nations.

Young used his status to bring different people together – losing some people's allegiance by this very openness, but forging enough of a following in enough places inside and outside America, to be a kind of permanent emissary for peace.

Clark Kerr – Diplomatic Antitype

Clark Kerr – Diplomatic Antitype

Kerr’s natural arena – negotiation. However, he let negotiations drag on for six months.

Free speech – yet Kerr rejoiced in the close connection between the university and the government.

Left no room for students.

Unable and unwilling to get inside the minds of those who should have been followers.

Sealed himself off from the students.

Ross Perot – Business Leader

Ross Perot – Business Leader

Leadership that made his sales-service team willing to work weekends, travel at the drop of a hat.

Perot was a homilist, a thinker in punchy slogans, a dramatist.

Volunteers from his own firm undertook a dangerous mission to Iran..

Instilled pride in people.

Quick to give credit to others.

Roger Smith - Business Antitype

Roger Smith - Business Antitype

Brilliant financial planner

When Smith closed plants, he could not go before the public.

Smith was impressed with Perot – the firmness and commanding personality.

Lacked the commitment of his followers that Perot had.

Carl Stotz – Sports Leader

Carl Stotz – Sports Leader

Inventor of Little League baseball.

Formulating his own vision and conveying it to others.

Stotz was a purist – he felt out of place with big corporations – yet he was the best spokesman for Little League.

Asked for other boys to play, other men to coach and umpire.

Kenesaw Mountain Landis – Sports Antitype

Kenesaw Mountain Landis – Sports Antitype

Tyrant for the rules.

Hard to really discover who Landis’ followers were versus Carl Stotz.

Many obeyed him.

In his own mind – a judge dealing with criminals.

No stand he took was reversible.

Worked behind closed doors.

Conclusion

Wills scorns the “Dale Carnegie approach” to leadership as it reduces leaders into mere expediters of the demands of followers and as such, actually results in one servicing rather than leading.

Wills suggests to redirect studies to include artistic, religious, and intellectual leaders, as well as gender and racial categories.

New approach where leader incorporates a dynamic analytical balance among leaders, followers, goals, and an all inclusive context.

Dr. King would, in any case, have been an impressive preacher, a

respected pastor, pampered by his congregation – a leader in that

sense.

But at a moment in history, he identified a different range of

potential followers; lifted up his voice for them; was carried

forward, by them, to goals he had not foreseen, but which he

ended up pursuing with them.

How should one become a leader?

By finding the right followers and the right goal.

One of the two is no good without the other.

And they must be right for you and for the

historical moment.

Tell me who your admired leaders are,

and you have bared your soul.

Wills (p. 270)

How am I to become a leader?

According to Wills, we also need to add...

Leader to whom? = Followers

Going where? = Goal

“Various trumpets are always being sounded. Take your pick. We lack sufficient followers. That is always the real problem with leadership. Calls are always going down into the vastly deep; but what spirits will respond?” (p. 22).

Leaders Antitype

Franklin Roosevelt

Harriet Tubman

Eleanor Roosevelt

Andrew Young

Napoleon

King David

Ross Perot

John XXIII

George Washington

Socrates

Mary Baker Eddy

Carl Stotz

Martha Graham

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cesare Borgia

Dorothy Day

Adlai Stevenson

Stephen A. Douglas

Nancy Reagan

Clark Kerr

George McClellan

Solomon

Roger Smith

Celestine V

Oliver Cromwell

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Phineas Parkhurst Quimby

Kenesaw Mountain Landis

Madonna

Robert Parris Moses

Piero Soderini

Ammon Hennacy

Reference

Wills, G (1994). Certain trumpets: The nature of leadership. New York: Simon &

Schuster Paperbacks.