Outline & Synopsis

390

CHAPTER

10

Leadership

Keynote: The Hedgehog, the Fox, Henry V, or the “Hidden-Hand” Golfer 390

Leading for Performance 393

Defining Leadership 394 Leadership and Management 395 Trait Theories 398 Transactional Approaches 398 Contingency Approaches 400 Transformational Leadership 401 The Importance of Optimism 403

Too Much Leadership 404

Micromanagement 404 Overmanagement 405

Moral Leadership 405

The Bully Pulpit 406 Rhetorical Leadership 406

A Case Study: Transforming the Postal Service 407

CHAPTER OUTLINE

KEYNOTE: The Hedgehog, the Fox, Henry V,

or the “Hidden-Hand” Golfer

The hedgehog is a small animal similar to a porcupine. When threatened, it rolls up into a ball so it is protected by the sharp quills covering its body. The fox is a noto- riously clever, shrewd, and ingenious creature—so much so that “foxy” has become a synonym for these traits. One fine day in ancient Greece the poet Archilochus wrote, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Twenty-six hundred years later Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997), the British political phi- losopher, used Archilochus’s brief poetic fragment as the basis for The Hedgehog and the Fox, his now-famous essay on intellectual style, on how leaders think, and on the utility of animal similes for describing human traits.

Berlin’s essay has inspired a popular parlor game in political circles: classifying leaders as either hedgehogs or foxes. Hedgehogs are those who are single-minded about a concept. They know, like the hedgehog, “one big thing.” President Ronald Reagan was a hedgehog. He knew that capitalism was better for the prosperity of the peoples of the world than socialism. This basic belief guided both his domestic policies (lower taxes, less government regulation) and his foreign policies (defeat communism wherever possible). As a hedgehog he was notorious for not bothering with the details of policy implementation. But that, of course, was what helped define him as a hedgehog. Hedgehogs are big-picture, not small-detail, leaders.

Now contrast Reagan with the Democratic presidents who preceded and fol- lowed him. Both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were policy wonks obsessed with

391Keynote: The Hedgehog, the Fox, Henry V, or the “Hidden-Hand” Golfer

the details. They were both brilliant foxes. They knew all the excruciating details on all the policies before them. The problem was that they were men who knew too much. They were so obsessed with details that they never gave their subordinates in the administration, let alone the American people, a clear vision to follow. They thought and acted too much tactically and not enough strategically. Foreign policy to them was essentially a collection of improvisations. In contrast, Reagan’s foreign policy could be summed up in two words: beat communism.

A hedgehog leader is one who imbues the organization with his or her overall philosophy of action. It is Elizabeth I heaping “foul scorn” on the 1588 Spanish armada that unsuccessfully sought to invade England. It is Admiral Horatio Nelson telling his captains before the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, “No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.” It is President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 dedicating the cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and demand- ing of the nation “that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.” Fancy words for “Let’s win the war.” It is President Franklin D. Roosevelt telling the nation in a radio address (December 19, 1940) that “we must be the great arsenal of democracy.” And it is President Ronald Reagan telling a Republican congressional dinner (May 4, 1982), “We’re the party that wants to see an America in which people can still get rich.”

“Hedgehogic” visions all. These are calls to action that, while simple, are not simplistic, that offer specific instructions, and that are ultimately inspirational. After all, the job of a leader is to inspire—and hedgehogs do it better than foxes because they are more focused, more on target. People will not rally around a laundry list of little things no matter how worthy each item may be. Foxes may be brilliant managers and organizers of all the policy details, but management is not leadership. The original managers, etymologically speaking, were horse trainers. The word’s meaning was gradually extended to any kind of skillful handling. So while a fox’s skill in handling situations is generally acknowledged, handling is not leadership. All the attention to details may not add up to “Follow me!” A leader with a hedgehogic vision inspires others, while a manager merely delegates.

The presidential election of 2000 offered a direct contrast between a hedge- hog and a fox. Then Governor George W. Bush knew a few big things: cut taxes, strengthen the military, and reform education and Social Security. His opponent, then Vice President Al Gore, wallowed in details. Despite Gore’s obviously better grasp of the facts at hand, Bush seemed to win the presidential debates because he stayed on message with his hedgehogic vision. According to columnist Dick Morris, “It wasn’t that Bush didn’t know the details, but that he didn’t much care. He knows, instinctively, that details don’t matter as much as big ideas do” (New York Post, Janu- ary 2, 2001). So President Bush got to be a hedgehog in the White House. He showed every sign of following in the hedgehogic tradition of Ronald Reagan—except that while the elderly Reagan sought a nap every afternoon, the energetic Bush headed off to the gym for a workout. Remember that leaders may have a detached management style and still be strongly focused on objectives. They just see things differently. They see to it that their staff deals with the foxy details.

Note that it is Reagan that Bush is imitating here, not his father. The first Pres- ident Bush, despite being understudy to hedgehog Reagan for eight years, became

392 LeadershipC H A P T E R 1 0

too foxy for his own good. He got off his own message domestically (“Read my lips—no new taxes”) when he raised taxes. Then his foreign policy of forging a “new world order” was so vague and complicated—not to mention reminiscent of Nazi phraseology—that what he meant by it remains elusive to this day. The best proof that the son will not imitate the father is the glaring fact that the father lost his 1992 bid for reelection to the fox from Arkansas. Bill Clinton was the ultimate fox. He put forth one detail after another with no overarching vision. So the public is all the more ready to follow a presidential hedgehog—especially if there are no sex or financial scandals that demean the presidential office.

There is no better example in the world’s literature of tactical rhetoric support- ing a strategic objective than Shakespeare’s Henry V. President George W. Bush has often been analyzed as a modern Henry V. While still a prince, young Henry led a degenerate life as a hard-drinking associate of fun-loving ne’er-do-wells— thieves, prostitutes, and worse. His father despairs that his son, destined to inherit the throne, will never amount to much. As he approaches death, King Henry IV advises the prince to cope with his forthcoming domestic problems by making an effort to “busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels.” The youthful Prince Hal, when crowned Henry V on his father’s death, takes exactly that advice. Shakespeare has the new king order his officials to find a legal justification for waging war on France. Henry then assembles his “band of brothers” and forces them to listen to some of the most famous, most inspirational, and most quoted lines in all of Shake- speare. With poetry he rallies them to go “once more into the breach,” compares them to “greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start,” and has them attack on the shout of “the game’s afoot!” Thanks to Shakespeare’s stirring words and to the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, Henry conquers France, thus becoming history’s and literature’s greatest example of how someone turns out to be a great national hero after a misspent youth.

Ever since George W. Bush became a serious contender for president, political commentators have compared him to Henry V as a leader. (Nobody has compared him to Henry for eloquence.) Like Henry, Bush has a father who led a great nation, logged a misspent youth replete with frequent alcoholic binges, and ascended to power. All this links the forty-third president with the legendary English ruler. Yet the question remains, did Bush end up as much of a hero as Henry V? He cer- tainly followed Henry in busying “giddy minds with foreign quarrels” with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Henry V won his wars. In contrast, when Bush left office in January 2009, he handed off two unfinished wars to his successor, he left the American economy in the worst shape since the Great Depression, he departed with record-low approval ratings, and, finally, he left the nation in the hands of an ascendant left determined to reverse his right-wing agenda. Henry V remains one of England’s great heroes. George W. Bush, despite his unwavering focus on the war in Iraq for most of his two terms, is overwhelmingly considered if not a failure, then less than a success as a president.

President Barack Obama’s leadership style seems to be a hybrid of the hedge- hog and the fox. In his first few months in office, he laid out a hedgehogic list of big things to accomplish: conclude two wars, reform health care, stimulate an economy in deep recession, develop new energy policies, reform education, install new regu- latory regimes for business and banking, reform immigration policies, and facilitate

393Leading for Performance

peace in the Middle East. He seeks to be an everything-at-once, a hedgehog with a fox’s control of details.

But perhaps there is another model at work here—that of the “hidden-hand” golfer. This was Fred I. Greenstein’s description of President Dwight D. Eisenhow- er’s management style. Outwardly Eisenhower appeared to the public to be an amiable golfer, a president who would rather spend his days chasing after golf balls than chasing after legislators to get them to implement his agenda. He left office in 1961 with a reputation as a nice man, truly a beloved figure, who didn’t accomplish very much as president except to play a lot of golf. That image changed radically two decades later when Greenstein published the first edition of The Hidden-Hand Presidency. Greenstein had gone into the archives and discovered that Eisenhower’s fingerprints, so to speak, were figuratively all over every major policy issue dealt with by the Congress or the cabinet departments. Eisenhower believed in working behind the scenes, with what Greenstein termed a “hidden-hand,” to bend the leg- islature and bureaucracy to his will. Greenstein’s analysis started a major upward reassessment of Eisenhower’s presidency.

Are there parallels here with the Obama administration? The most obvious is that President Obama also plays so much golf, so publicly, that he is criticized for it now as Eisenhower was then. But political observers also complain that Obama is not as engaged in the policy process as he should be, that he is too laid back. As a result he has been accused by Ryan Lizza (The New Yorker, May 2, 2011) of “leading from behind” in foreign and domestic policy. Other journalists have picked up on the phrase and claimed that “leading from behind” is not leading at all. But this all sounds very much like an Eisenhower-like “hidden-hand.” Whether Obama’s “hand” turns out to be as effective as Eisenhower’s remains to be judged.

For Discussion: Why are the hedgehog and fox analogies so useful as shorthand ways of referring to leadership styles? Have you seen leaders in organizations with which you are familiar who fit the hedgehog and fox analogies?

LEADING FOR PERFORMANCE

There are many characteristics of public sector management that call for knowl- edge and skills somewhat distinct from those required in private sector manage- ment. We have seen how the political context and governance arrangements that exist in the public sector present constraints and frameworks of decision making that must be understood and in many respects “managed” by public officials. We have discussed the special problems in public sector strategic management of con- verting political programs and managerial imperatives into a well-sequenced path to be followed. We have examined how the external and internal structures through which government is managed—intergovernmental relations and the machinery of government—give a framework that public sector managers must acknowledge and accommodate if they are to work effectively.

All of these areas, however fundamental, really amount to parts of the context in which the public sector manager is to operate. It is as though we have examined a theater—its lighting, its marketing arrangements, its ownership, the way the sup- porting cast of actors and dancers are hired and fired. But we have now to turn

394 LeadershipC H A P T E R 1 0

to the heart of the question: how good is the performance going to be? What do the producer and director, the managers, have to do to exact from the cast the best performances of which they are capable?

The word performance is shared here by the world of management and the the- atrical world—it also permeates the sporting world. There, too, the task is to exact a personal best from an athlete or a supreme performance from a team. There, too, issues such as training, team functioning, leadership, comparison with the best, total quality in the sense of trying never to miss a trick, and of course strategy are central ideas. Performance, above all, means the demonstration of a skill, the display of competence. In public sector management there are now many senses in which the term is applied. There are so many because knowing what kind of perfor- mance we are getting and setting up means for individuals and teams to do better are central concerns of public sector leaders. Thus performance management really does begin with leadership.

Defining Leadership

As a callow youth, one of the authors of this book took an undergraduate course in medieval history. Having seen dozens of films in which castles were stormed by a cast of thousands, this student asked the professor, “How do they get large numbers of men in real life to storm castles and the like when it appears to be, and indeed often is, certain death?” The professor’s answer was memorable: “That’s leadership for you!”

Beastly descriptions of leaders have a long lineage in political analysis. Perhaps the best known is Niccolò Machiavelli’s comparison of the lion and the fox in The Prince (1532):

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps and a lion to frighten wolves.

The most famous recent political leader with both of these animalistic traits was President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945). Roosevelt reached the height of political power despite the fact that, after 1921 when he contracted polio, he was basically confined to a wheelchair. Yet, because he was able to stand (with

braces) to give speeches and because reporters were not allowed to take pictures that made him appear to be disabled, much of the American public was unaware of his handicapped condition—even though it was not a secret. His critics attacked him and his wife, Eleanor, as being either socialist or fascist. But he was just being pragmatic in response to his times. He was the President of the United States (1933–1945) whose New Deal policies are often said to have saved the capitalistic system; who led the nation through the Great Depression of the 1930s and to victory in World War II; and who is on every leading historian’s list, along with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, as one of the best US presidents ever. So it was not surprising that historian James MacGregor Burns entitled his 1956 biography of him Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox.

BOX 10.1 The Lion and The Fox

395Leading for Performance

And so it is. The job of the leader of any organization is to get people to do things they have never done before, to do things that are not routine, and to take risks—and sometimes even to die—for the common good. Once the organization accepts the credo of Alexander Dumas’s three musketeers—“One for all and all for one”—then they have been led, and only then have they been molded into an orga- nization. In essence, that is the most basic task of a leader—to create organization out of disorder, to make people more capable as a cohesive group than they are as unorganized individuals.

Leadership is the exercise of authority, whether formal or informal, in directing and coordinating the work of others. The best leaders are those who can simultane- ously exercise both kinds of leadership: the formal, based on the authority of rank or office, and the informal, based on the willingness of others to give service to a person whose special qualities of authority they admire. It has long been known that leaders who must rely only on formal authority are at a disadvantage when compared with those who can also mobilize the informal strength of an organiza- tion or nation. Shakespeare observed this when in Macbeth (Act V, Scene 2) he has Angus describe Macbeth’s waning ability to command the loyalty of his troops:

Those he commands move only in command, Nothing in love: now does he feel his title Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe Upon a dwarfish thief.

Macbeth had become the very definition of an incompetent leader. Once he lost the respect and admiration of his followers, his organization was as doomed as he was.

The power that a leader possesses implies a hierarchy of control of stronger over weaker. J. R. P. French and B. Raven, in “The Bases of Social Power,” suggest that there are five major bases of power: (1) expert power, which is based on the perception that the leader possesses some special knowledge or expertise; (2) refer- ent power, which is based on the follower’s liking, admiring, or identifying with the leader; (3) reward power, which is based on the leader’s ability to mediate rewards for the follower; (4) legitimate power, which is based on the follower’s perception that the leader has the legitimate right or authority to exercise influence over him or her; and (5) coercive power, which is based on the follower’s fear that noncom- pliance with the leader’s wishes will lead to punishment. Subsequent research on these power bases has indicated that the first two (expert and referent power) are more positively related to subordinate performance and satisfaction than the last three (reward, legitimate, and coercive power).

Leadership and Management

We need to distinguish between leadership and management. The two functions and roles overlap substantially. Management involves power (usually formal authority) bestowed on the occupant of a position by a higher organizational authority. With the power of management comes responsibility and accountability for the use of organizational resources. In contrast, leadership cannot be bestowed on a person

396 LeadershipC H A P T E R 1 0

Napoléon Bonaparte (1769–1821) was a master of modern propaganda. The horsey example in this picture has Napoléon gloriously pointing the way to victory in Italy. Life-sized pictures such as this were commissioned for public display to influence popular feelings and perceptions of Napoléon. Of course, this picture by Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) is a lie. Note that the rider has a great-looking long leg. But if Napoléon had legs that size, he would not have been the subject of so many “short” jokes. And, unlike generals such as George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant, who were among the best horsemen of their age, Napoléon was a notoriously poor rider—often falling off his horse, especially if it had reared up as in the picture. This is why he much preferred traveling by coach. But the greatest misrepresentation here is that Napoléon crossed the Alps not on a fleet-footed steed but on a sure-footed mule. Thus this picture is a good example of Napoléon’s policy of never telling the truth when a lie would do him more good. After all, a diminutive Napoléon on a rearing mule would hardly have had the same emotive punch. The French wouldn’t have it. The only people ever to be inspired by mules are members of the Democratic Party in the United States.

Of course, American presidents don’t do propaganda. They do photo opportunities. This President George W. Bush action figure toy was not authorized by the White House. But it was inspired by President Bush’s visit to the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003. He landed on the flight deck as a passenger in a military aircraft so all the world would see him exit in full “top gun” regalia—just like the action figure. While the photos were optimal, he was severely criticized for imitating a real warrior when it was totally unnecessary. After all, the carrier was within sight of the California coast and his regular helicopter could have transported him without the need of a photogenic costume. While he also gave an internationally televised speech to the crew of the carrier, the “warrior” photos of the commander in chief in wartime were the major reason for the trip. Unfortunately, the photos also reminded his critics that when Bush had the opportunity to be a real warrior as a young man during the Vietnam War, he conspicuously avoided combat by joining the National Guard. Nevertheless, both Bush and Napoléon knew that whatever their critics said, all that mattered was their posturing pictures. And pictures never lie—or do they?

BOX 10.2 Leading Through Public Relations

397Leading for Performance

by a higher authority. Effective managers must also be leaders, and many leaders become managers, but the two sets of roles and functions differ.

The subject of leadership raises many complex issues that have plagued the behavioral sciences for generations. For example, what gives a manager or a leader legitimacy? Simply put, legitimacy is a characteristic of a social institution, such as a government, a family, or an organization, whereby it has both a legal and a perceived right to make binding decisions. Thus managers presumably have legiti- macy because of the legal and perceived rights that accompany their organizational positions. In contrast, the legitimacy of a leader—separate and distinct from the legitimacy of a manager—cannot be addressed without introducing the concept of charisma, leadership based on the compelling personality of the leader rather than on formal position.

This last concept was first articulated by Max Weber—who distinguished char- ismatic authority from the traditional authority of a monarch and the legal authority one receives by virtue of law, such as the authority that legitimizes organizational executives. The word charisma is derived from the Greek word for divine grace. Charismatic leadership, if it is to survive, must eventually be institutionalized or rou- tinized. Thus the founder of a movement or organization may be a charismatic spell- binder, but his or her successors are often, of necessity, comparatively dull bureaucrats.

Despite the differences and the unresolved questions, two things are evident: first, leadership involves a relationship between people in which influence and power are unevenly distributed on a legitimate basis; and second, a leader cannot function in isolation. In order for there to be a leader, someone must follow.

Perhaps the most accepted pure definition of the organizational leadership func- tion comes from Chester I. Barnard. In his 1938 study The Functions of the Execu- tive, he defines three essential functions of leaders or executives:

1. To provide a system of communication. 2. To promote the securing of essential efforts. 3. To formulate and define the purposes and goals of an organization.

Note how he was decades ahead of his time in arguing that the most critical function of a chief executive is to establish and communicate a system of organiza- tional values among organizational members. “The formulation and definition of purpose is then a widely distributed function only the more general part of which is executive. In this fact lies the most important inherent difficulty in the operation of cooperative systems: the necessity for indoctrinating those at the lower levels with general purposes (Barnard p 233).” Here Barnard is referring to the necessity for top management to develop and instill a strategic vision for the organization. “Without that up-and-down-the-line coordination of purposeful decisions, general decisions and general purposes are mere intellectual processes in an organization vacuum, insulated from realities by layers of misunderstanding. The function of formulating grand purposes and providing for their redefinition is one that needs sensitive systems of communication, experience in interpretation, imagination, and delegation of responsibility.” Barnard knew, in part because he was a real executive, that if the value system of the organization was clear and strong, the day-to-day concerns would take care of themselves.

398 LeadershipC H A P T E R 1 0

Trait Theories

The trait approach to leadership assumes that leaders possess traits—personality characteristics—that make them fundamentally different from followers. Advo- cates of trait theory believe that some people have unique leadership characteristics and qualities that enable them to assume responsibilities not everyone can execute. Therefore they are “born” leaders.

It is no longer fashionable to contend that people will be effective leaders because they possess certain traits—without also considering other variables that influence leadership effectiveness. The arguments against trait theory are persuasive and come from a number of points of view. First, trait theory has largely fallen out of favor because reality never matched the theory. Instead, starting in the late 1950s, it has become standard practice to view leadership as a relationship, an interac- tion between individuals. The interaction was called a transaction, so that the term transactional leadership has become the umbrella label encompassing many theo- ries of leadership. Second, the situation strongly influences leadership. The situation is now viewed as an enormous influence in determining the qualities, characteristics, and skills needed in a leader. There is even a law of the situation that deals with this.

Probably the most damaging criticism of trait theory, however, has been its lack of ability to identify which traits make an effective leader. Even among the traits that have been most commonly cited—intelligence, energy, achievement, dependability, and socioeconomic status—there is a lack of consensus across studies. The most obvious proof that leadership involves more than possessing certain traits is the simple fact that a leader may be effective in one setting and ineffective in another. It all depends on the situation.

Transactional Approaches

While the central question for the trait approach was who was a leader, transac- tional approaches sought to determine how leadership was established and exerted. Leadership-style-oriented transactional approaches all follow in the tradition of the famous K. Lewin, R. Lippitt, and R. K. White (1939) studies of the effectiveness of leadership styles on the group efforts of 10-year-old children engaged in hobby activities. The leader in each group was classified as having an authoritarian, a democratic, or laissez-faire orientation.

Authoritarian leaders determined all policies, set all work assignments, were personal in their criticisms, and were product (or task) oriented. Democratic leaders shared decision-making powers with subordinates, left decisions about assignments up to the group, and participated in group activities but tried not to monopolize. They exhibited high levels of consideration for others. Laissez-faire leaders allowed freedom for individual and group decision making, provided information (or sup- plies) only when requested, and did not participate in the group except when called upon. They functioned more as facilitators.

Groups with democratic leaders were the most satisfied and productive. The authoritarian-led groups showed the most aggressive behavior and were the least satisfied, but they were highly productive (possibly because of fear of the leader). The groups with laissez-faire leaders showed low satisfaction and low production, and they were behaviorally aggressive toward group members and other groups.

399Leading for Performance

Thousands of subsequent studies have essentially presented the same findings. Democracy, meaning participative management, works.

Managers with authoritarian personalities and styles value order, precision, consistency, obedience, rules, law, and organization. To them, the power that flows from structure is supreme. Relationships are hierarchical, based on dominance and dependence. Authoritarianism, control through structure, is rigidly unbending. Yet authoritarians, while often initially successful, cannot survive over the long term. Whether large scale (such as Hitler or Stalin) or pint sized (such as an oppressive supervisor), authoritarians will ultimately fail because “democracy is inevitable.” It is inevitable not just because it is good but because it is more effective—especially in the modern world, with its high-tech workforce. In the meanwhile, however, authoritarians cause considerable psychic damage in individuals and generate lost productivity in the internal organizational polity while often sustaining authoritar- ianism in the outside polity.

Because it is so easy and tempting for authoritarian personalities to rise to power, they must be all the more resisted because of their inherent tendencies toward destruction. People, groups, and organizations must evolve and adapt to their envi- ronment. Authoritarians do not adapt willingly to changing circumstances and new ideas. They are conservative in the worst sense of the word. Thus their need to pro- tect and preserve the past and to inhibit constructive change leads to organizational rigidity and incompetence. Authoritarians dominate; their disciples obey. Organiza- tional authoritarians and democrats cannot coincide; they are mutually exclusive.

Democracy, whether it takes the form of representative government or par- ticipative management, is in marked contrast. It allows for a peaceful evolution and change. Dissent is not suppressed; it is instead used as a creative force leading to greater effectiveness and less incompetence. The Soviet Union and its Commu- nist Party disintegrated in 1991 because its authoritarian command economy was increasingly unable to provide its citizens an adequate standard of living. Demo- cratic institutions are more competent because they allow for inevitable mistakes to be corrected in an evolutionary manner—before they lead to revolution.

Authoritarian rigidity is an important structural cause of organizational incompetence. It inhibits an organization’s ability to learn and adapt to its envi- ronment. It concentrates decision making and responsibility in too few places and individuals. It denies others the right and opportunity to influence or to grow as employees and as people. Rigidity is illustrated by the British contingent of sol- diers continuing to march in formation between Lexington and Concord, Massa- chusetts Colony, in 1775 despite colonial sharpshooters diminishing their ranks. Why did the dedicated targets keep on marching in file? Because the structure (the rules, lines of authority, the policies and procedures) said that was how wars were to be fought and soldiers were to behave. British structural rigidity—in all aspects of its eighteenth-century relationships with its American colonies—not only caused the American Revolution, but also led to the British defeat as they tried to suppress it.

Transactional leadership approaches assumed that leaders could be trained to act in the appropriate way as called for by their organization. This has proved to be wishful thinking. When leaders return to their organization after leadership training sessions, they seldom exhibit behavior changes. Despite training, department heads

400 LeadershipC H A P T E R 1 0

will not necessarily act considerately toward subordinates if their own supervisors do not act supportively toward them. One obvious implication is that changes must be introduced into an organization as a whole—not just to certain employees. In practice, leaders apply different styles in different situations. Thus the “pure” lead- ership style emphasis has given way to contingency approaches.

Contingency Approaches

We have all seen examples of the heroic leader: the general who leads troops from the front lines is the managerial cousin to the supervisor who leads from the assem- bly line. Each finds it almost impossible to delegate responsibility and, by trying to do it all alone, ultimately fails. This inherently theatrical style of leadership was appropriate for ancient armies when an Alexander the Great, sword in hand, would be the first to engage the enemy. This lead worker (or lead killer) approach had by the middle of the twentieth century become discredited. True, there will always be organizational heroes, but their heroism will be more situational, a response to an urgent need or crisis—not a way of organizational life.

Heroic-style managers are stress carriers. They create high levels of stress for themselves and transmit it to others around them. Such managers typically will give a secretary a handwritten letter to type and then stand there and watch, with ever-increasing nervousness, as it is typed. He will give an assignment to subordi- nates and then tell them exactly how to do it. She will insist on being the center and controller of all organizational communications, creating information bottle- necks and corresponding organizational incompetence. When heroic leadership is allowed by the organization’s top managers, it is reinforced and imitated by lower- level managers. While no organization would advocate self-destructive leadership styles, tolerating them amounts to the same thing. Modern organizational leader- ship is inherently more situational or contingent than heroic.

Unlike the trait theory and transactional leadership approaches, contingency approaches take into consideration the many factors that may influence a leader’s style. There is a recognition that a successful leader in one type of organization may not be successful in another simply because it differs from the previous one.

“Who says organization says oligarchy.” This is Robert Michels’s “iron law of oligarchy,” stated in his Political Parties, which holds that organizations are by their nature oligarchic because majorities within an organization are not capable of ruling themselves:

Organization implies the tendency to oligarchy. In every organization, whether it be a political party, a professional union, or any other association of the kind,

the aristocratic tendency manifests itself very clearly. The mechanism of the organization, while conferring a solidity of structure, induces serious changes in the organized mass, completely inverting the respective position of the leaders and the led. As a result of organization, every party or professional union becomes divided into a minority of directors and a majority of the directed.

Source: Michels (1949) Political Parties p 401.

BOX 10.3 Oligarchic Leadership

401Leading for Performance

Its situation (or context) is different, and the choice of a style needs to be contin- gent on the situation. As leadership historian Ralph Stogdill notes, the contingency theories stress:

1. The type, structure, size, and purpose of the organization. 2. The external environment in which the organization functions. 3. The orientation, values, goals, and expectations of the leader, his or her supe-

riors, and subordinates. 4. The expert or professional knowledge required of the position.

The contingency approaches assert that different leadership styles will differ in their effects in different situations. The situation (not traits or styles themselves) determines whether a leadership style or a particular leader will be effective. Thus, contingency theorists maintain that there is no “one best way”—as in the scientific management of Frederick Taylor—of effective leadership. Just think of Ulysses S. Grant, the victorious general of the American Civil War. On the basis of his war record, he was elected president in 1868, but as good as he was a general, he was bad as president. He is rated among the best generals in American history, but historians almost universally concede that he was one of the very worst presidents. Other American generals were able to make the leap from military to civilian lead- ership: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Dwight D. Eisenhower being the most famous examples. But poor President Grant just did not have it in him. He wasn’t able to spontaneously retool his mind as a civilian leader. While Grant him- self was honest, he consistently showed blind loyalty to corrupt friends.

Professors Robert Tannenbaum and Warren Schmidt conducted one of the first studies that actually indicated a need for leaders to evaluate the situational fac- tors prior to the implementation of a particular leadership style. They concluded that “the successful manager . . . can be primarily characterized neither as a strong leader nor as a permissive one.” Indeed, he or she “is one who maintains a high batting average in accurately assessing the forces that determine what his most appropriate behavior at any given time should be and in actually being able to behave accordingly (p 170).”

While Tannenbaum and Schmidt assert that leaders should adjust their styles to accommodate followers, University of Washington professor Fred Fiedler found that the opposite was often true. It is sometimes easier to change the work environ- ment, the situation, to fit a leader’s style. The underlying leadership style depends on personality. According to Fiedler, a leader’s personality is not likely to change because of a few lectures or a few weeks of intensive training. Therefore, an organi- zation should not choose a leader who fits a situation but should change the situa- tion to mesh with the style of its leader. But this is easier said than done. The choices are clearly expressed by the new boss who tells the staff, “We can do things my way, your way, or the company’s way. If you do things my way, we’ll get along just fine.”

Transformational Leadership

A transformational leader is one with the ability to change an embedded organi- zational culture by creating a new vision for the organization and marshaling the

402 LeadershipC H A P T E R 1 0

appropriate support to make that vision the new reality. The best-known trans- formational leader is General George S. Patton Jr., who during World War II took charge of a defeated and demoralized American Army in North Africa and trans- formed it into a winning team. The task was different but no less difficult for Lee Iacocca when he took charge of a Chrysler Corporation on the verge of bankruptcy and disintegration in the late 1970s and brought it back into profit. Similar chal- lenges faced the leadership of AT&T in 1984 when it went from a monopoly public utility to a company that had to change its corporate culture to compete in the open market.

Edward G. Rendell faced a similar problem (but different in its content) when he became mayor of Philadelphia in 1992. Philadelphia was a “loser”—in just about every way—in the eyes of employees, potential employers, bondholders, sup- pliers, and citizens. It was simply assumed that the city could not compete head-on with comparable cities. Rendell had to change not only an organizational culture, but also just about everybody’s perception of that culture. He effectively told the municipal unions to get with the plan or “kiss off.” After a brief strike that was notable for its lack of public support, they got with the plan. Philadelphia needed and got in Rendell a transformational leader, a person who transformed an embed- ded organizational culture by creating a new vision of and for the organization, and successfully selling that vision—by rallying commitment and loyalty to make the vision become a reality.

Social scientists Noel Tichy and David Ulrich describe transformational leaders as those rare individuals who can lead employees through their fears and uncertain- ties to the realization of the new vision. This requires strategic leadership that suc- cessfully changes people’s perceptions of the organization. Transformational change is more than a rational, technical, incremental approach to change. The leader’s primary function is to lead and support through carefully conceived change stages, acting as a cheerleader and as a belief model—verbally and nonverbally communi- cating belief in the benefits to all that will accrue from the changes.

Whereas the transactional theories of leadership apply primarily to leadership roles, functions, and behavior within an existing organizational culture, transfor- mative leadership is about leadership to change a culture. Transactional leadership focuses on incremental change. Transformative leadership is about radical change. Sometimes the radical changes call for co-optation, the inclusion of new, potentially

From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved more than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting. . . . And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself

loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligation which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.

Source: Machiavelli (1513).

BOX 10.4 Machiavelli on Leadership Style

403Leading for Performance

dissident group members into an organization’s policymaking process to prevent such elements from being a threat to the organization or its mission. More often it is the implementation of a new strategic vision.

It is interesting to observe that transformational leadership theories have many similarities with the trait theories of leadership. Transformational leadership borders on “great man” theory—the belief that leaders are born, not made. In many ways, leadership theory is once again involved in seeking to find the basis of leadership in traits—rather than in relational and cultural factors. We have come full circle!

The Importance of Optimism

At the beginning of the World War II Battle of the Bulge the Americans were reeling from a German counterattack and things seemed quite desperate. As matters went from bad to worse, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (later to be president) called a meeting of his leading commanders and announced: “The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not of disaster. There will only be cheerful faces at this conference table.” His newly “cheerful” commanders went on to win the battle.

Historian Stephen E. Ambrose wrote that Eisenhower felt it was critical that he, no matter what his personal feelings at the time, maintain an air of absolute confidence. He knew that confidence, or “cheerleading,” at the top would permeate down through every level of his immense organization. Eisenhower instinctively knew, as social science now proves, that a confident organization is far more likely to succeed than a doubtful one—even if its leader in reality has doubts. Optimism or positive thinking works—even when the leader has to fake it.

Throughout history the most successful leaders—whether generals, managers, or football coaches—have been those who were the most optimistic. Was there ever a more optimistic politician than President Franklin D. Roosevelt who in the depths of the Great Depression told his nation in his 1933 inaugural address that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”? Here was a man who in his prime was crippled by polio. Yet he only succumbed to physical paralysis. He didn’t let his affliction prevent him from becoming governor of New York and then president of the United States. His optimism was infectious. People around him caught it. This was a communicable “disease” that was good for the country.

Effective leaders have long known the importance of instilling a winning opti- mism in their followers. Even though it may not be warranted by circumstances, it is a far more potent force in leading than logic would dictate. What is certain is that the opposite of optimism, pessimism, depression or what social psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman has called “learned helplessness,” will tend to lead to failure both of the mission at hand and eventually of health. When people find themselves in situations where they feel that they have no control and that their best efforts are futile, they “learn” from this repeated experience that they are “helpless” and thus become pessimistic and depressed. Seligman uses the example of American prisoners of war in Korea. Those who retained an optimistic outlook were far more likely to survive their ordeal. Those who felt helpless and consequently depressed were far more likely to die in captivity even though they got the same food and treatment as the others.

404 LeadershipC H A P T E R 1 0

Optimistic attitudes on the part of leaders often become self-fulfilling proph- ecies. This Pygmalion effect, causing something to happen by believing it will, has been often demonstrated with both teacher/student and manager/worker rela- tionships. If the teacher or manager believes his or her students or workers are capable (or not capable), they will tend to live up (or down) to expectations. This helps to explain why optimistic leaders are more likely to have successful followers.

Remember the advice traditionally given to actors: always be sincere—once you can fake that, you’ve got it made. It’s the same with leadership. Always be optimistic and fake it if you don’t feel it. New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani admitted as much when discussing his inspiring leadership after the terrorist attacks that destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001: “I wonder how much of it [his leadership] was bluff. A lot of it had to be bluff. . . . Look, in a crisis you have to be optimistic. When I said the spirit of the city would be stronger, I didn’t know that. I just hoped that” (Time, December 31, 2001). And do you think President Franklin D. Roosevelt really thought that the only thing we had “to fear was fear itself”? All who knew him agree that he was a great actor. Of course, all politicians are actors. Some just get better reviews than others.

TOO MUCH LEADERSHIP

Structural rigidity often causes managers to overmanage—to lead too much. Micromanage is the pejorative term for supervising too closely. Any manager may be guilty of micromanagement for refusing to allow subordinates to have any real authority or responsibility, thereby ensuring that subordinates can neither function as, nor grow into, effective managers. Furthermore, the managers are kept so busy micromanaging that they never have time to do what managers are supposed to do—like develop long-term strategy and overall vision. Legislators at all levels of government are frequently practitioners of micromanagement. By writing detailed rules for programs into legislation, by demanding that particular items be procured from suppliers in their districts, or by mandating that certain employees be hired or promoted for patronage purposes, they deny public managers a large measure of the real administrative discretion that all effective managers need.

Micromanagement

An apt example of legislative micromanagement is provided by Philip Howard. In The Death of Common Sense, his denouncement of governmental micromanage- ment, he recounts the story of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity’s attempts to build a homeless shelter in New York City. A group of nuns from the orga- nization proposed refurbishing an abandoned four-story building that would house 64 residents. But all four-story buildings in New York must, by law, have an elevator—which would have added $100,000 to the cost. This lack of amenities did not deter the nuns, who shun modern conveniences and did not want an elevator anyway. It was to be a no-frills basic shelter. But regulations are regulations. When the Mother Teresa group could not find anyone who had the authority to waive the

405Moral Leadership

elevator requirement after 18 months of navigating the hallways of the municipal bureaucracy, they gave up and went on to other good works.

While there is some legitimate justification for micromanagement by legislators and directors (after all, they are the legitimate representatives of the owners of the government or corporation), there is no justification for micromanagement along the traditional chain of hierarchical authority. While close supervision is appropri- ate for a trainee, it is insulting and disabling for any employee who is presumably able. And it can be dangerous. Micromanagement can drive employees over the edge into violence. For example, in recent years the US Postal Service has had a spate of enraged workers go berserk and murder their supervisors. These tensions are common in many industries. But according to journalist Peter Kilborn, in post offices they “fester[ed] within an archaic, Army-like culture in which many top managers communicate by directive, and front-line supervisors often hover over their charges, waiting for a mistake and timing workers’ trips to the bathroom.” Shootings killed three dozen people in US post offices from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. In 1994 the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that murder was the second leading cause of death on the job for postal workers.

Micromanagement will not make a competent employee more competent; it only makes things worse by wasting time, by damaging interpersonal relationships, by demonstrating that the micromanagers themselves are not competent supervi- sors, and by distracting managers from the kinds of activities that can prevent orga- nizational incompetence. Instead, micromanagement—and overmanagement—lead to overcommitment and bureaucratic overcontrol, two of the classic symptoms of organizational incompetence.

Overmanagement

Having too many managers for the nature of the organization or task— overmanagement—is related to and inevitably leads to micromanagement and orga- nizational rigidity. Overmanagement has become a particularly important problem in recent years as computer-driven information systems render once-useful layers of middle management obsolete. These threatened managers struggle to find new roles for themselves and ways to retain their long-standing sources of authority, which have depended on their exclusive control of organizations’ knowledge bases. They get in the way of more productive organizational units until periodic down- sizing efforts permanently remove them. But until they are sought out and expelled, they are among the major structural causes of organizational incompetence.

MORAL LEADERSHIP

Political scientist Garry Wills in the Atlantic Monthly warns that “if the leader is just an expediter of what other people want, a resource for their use, the people are not being led but serviced” (Wills, 1994). Thus it is moving people in new directions—taking them to places where they did not know they wanted or needed to go—that is the essence of leadership and has been since ancient times. Thucy- dides, in his History of the Peloponnesian War, describes Pericles, the leader of ancient Athens, as someone who, because he was so “clearly above corruption, was

406 LeadershipC H A P T E R 1 0

enabled, by the respect others had for him and his own wise policy, to hold the mul- titude in a voluntary restraint.” Thus “he led them, not they him; and because he did not win his power on compromising terms, he could say not only what pleased others, but also what displeased them, relying on their respect.”

The Bully Pulpit

Pericles exercised moral leadership. He was able to send people in new directions of action and thought because it was the right and decent thing to do. During the presidential campaign of 1932, then New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke for all political executives when he said, “The presidency is not merely an administrative office. That’s the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, effi- cient or inefficient. It is preeminently a place of moral leadership. All our great presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.” Presidents have traditionally used what President Theodore Roosevelt called their “bully (meaning “first-rate”) pulpit” to provide this clarification.

Rhetorical Leadership

Political scientists James Caeser, Glen Thurow, Jeffrey Tulis, and Joseph Bessette, in their 1981 article “The Rise of the Rhetorical Presidency,” argue that, historically, leadership through rhetoric was suspect, that presidents rarely spoke directly to the people, and that, in any event, presidents relied much more heavily on party and political leadership in the Congress for their electoral and programmatic sup- port. But today’s presidents attempt to move mass opinion by speeches that exhort the public to support their policies and programs. Presidents are obliged to do this for three reasons: (1) the modern doctrine of the presidency, which avers that the presidency is a place of moral leadership and should employ rhetoric to lead public opinion; (2) the advent of the modern mass media, especially television, which facil- itates the use of rhetoric; and (3) the modern presidential campaign, which blurs campaigning and governing.

According to Caeser et al. (1981), “Popular or mass rhetoric, which presidents once employed only rarely, now serves as one of their principal tools in attempting to govern the nation. Whatever doubts Americans may now entertain about the limitations of presidential leadership, they do not consider it unfitting or inappro- priate for presidents to attempt to ‘move’ the public by programmatic speeches that exhort and set forth grand and ennobling views (p 159).” But just as it was with ancient Pericles, their views are only accepted as “grand and ennobling” if they themselves are perceived as noble, worthy, and above corruption.

The “two-presidencies” phenomenon is telling here. This is Aaron Wildavsky’s division of the presidency into two differing spheres of influence: foreign policy and domestic policy. Wildavsky contended that presidential leadership in foreign policy will, generally speaking, find greater support among the public than leader- ship in domestic policy. To test his hypothesis, Wildavsky examined congressional action on presidential proposals from 1948 to 1964. For this period, the Congress approved 58.5 percent of the foreign policy bills; 73.3 percent of the defense policy

Moral leadership

Leading people in specifi c directions of action and thought based on morals and decency.

407Moral Leadership

bills; and 70.8 percent of general foreign relations, State Department, and foreign aid bills and treaties. During this same period, the Congress approved only 40.2 per- cent of the president’s domestic policy proposals. Thus the two-presidencies thesis was confirmed. Wildavsky’s work has spawned a bevy of research articles. While Wildavsky himself in “Reconsidering the Two Presidencies” would in 1989 con- cede that his thesis was decidedly “time and culture bound,” nothing has materially diminished the essence of his original thesis put forth in 1966. The reason the pres- ident is so much more successful in foreign policy is that he comes to the table with cleaner hands. He is less the conniving politician and more the noble statesman.

But more people than presidents can offer moral leadership. For example, Sec- retary of Health and Human Services Louis W. Sullivan was considered one of the most ineffectual members of the Bush administration until 1990, when he started attacking cigarette companies for targeting the marketing of cigarettes to minori- ties and women. His popularity and stature immediately soared. More import- ant, he was effective. R. J. Reynolds, one of the largest US tobacco companies, was test-marketing a new brand called “Uptown,” which was specifically aimed at African-Americans. Sullivan said, “This brand is cynically and deliberately targeted toward black Americans. . . . At a time when we must cultivate greater responsibility among our citizens, Uptown’s slick and sinister advertising proposes instead a great degree of personal irresponsibility.” After Sullivan’s attack, the brand was withdrawn. While moral leadership may not move mountains, it can sometimes move cigarette companies.

A CASE STUDY Transforming the Postal Service

Ever since the nineteenth century when stamps were first used as postage on letters, people have collected them for their artistic merit and their investment value. The United States first issued adhesive postage stamps in 1847. These stamps had portraits of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Governments have produced a multitude of commemorative stamps for the collectors’ market. After all, a stamp purchased and saved is almost pure profit to the post office.

When the US Postal Service decided to issue a stamp commemorating the rock ‘n’ roll star Elvis Presley, it created publicity by asking Americans to “vote” on stamp designs featuring either the young or old Elvis. When the “polling” was complete, the young Elvis design won by four to one. More importantly, this created a ready audience—a ready market—for the stamp when it was released in 1992. Nevertheless, the Postal Service was surprised at the depth of the public’s enthusiasm. People who had never saved stamps before suddenly become collectors—at least of this stamp. The Postal Service could barely keep up with the initial demand for the Elvis stamp. Because

(continued)

408 LeadershipC H A P T E R 1 0

A CASE STUDY Continued

hardly anyone bought the first Elvis stamps to use on letters, the Postal Service, from its point of view, was almost literally printing money.

Taken by surprise by the public’s tremendous response to the Elvis stamp, the Postal Service was determined that the next time it would be ready— ready with more stamps to sell. But stamps of what? Most commemorative stamps are issued, bought by collectors or people who prefer stamps with some distinction, and then forgotten. The Postal Service searched for another dead national icon with a following comparable to Elvis’s. “Dead” was an important consideration here. Contrary to the philatelic policies in monarchies and dictatorships, only the likenesses of the deceased are allowed on American stamps. Marilyn Monroe, dead since 1962, had never faded from the public’s mind. As with Elvis, her face and persona were instantly recognizable. Both had died prematurely of drug overdoses when they were still enormously popular.

Realizing the market potential, the Postal Service gave the Marilyn stamp a lavish publicity send-off. Postmaster General Marvin Runyon made the rounds of the TV and radio talk shows as if he were hawking a book. He scheduled visits to shopping malls where he would judge Marilyn Monroe look-alike contests. They even advertised her on TV. Over old news clips of Marilyn, an announcer asks, “When is a stamp not just a stamp? The Marilyn stamp [picture of stamp replaces news film] now at your post office.” Many people give great patriotic service to their government when they are alive; to do so after death as Marilyn has done—and is still doing—is patriotism indeed.

Today’s Postal Service was created by the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970. This federal statute converted the Post Office Department into an independent establishment—within the executive branch of the government— to own and operate the nation’s postal system, thereafter known as the US Postal Service. The old Post Office Department was “reinvented” (before this term was in common usage in government) as a public enterprise because the Nixon administration was unhappy with its poor management and constant need for public subsidies.

Amid a dramatic postal strike in the spring of 1970, the government for the first time in history agreed to allow wages, which hitherto had always been set through the legislative process, to be negotiated between union and government representatives. That ended the strike. Subsequently, the Postal Reorganization Act was passed, establishing the corporate framework sought by Nixon and providing for collective bargaining with postal employees in the future. The Postal Service remains the only federal agency whose employees are governed by a collective-bargaining process that permits negotiations over wages.

The chief executive officer of the Postal Service, the postmaster general, is appointed by the nine governors of the Postal Service, who are appointed

409Moral Leadership

by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, for overlapping nine-year terms. The ambiguous legal status of the Postal Service has been the source of political controversy since it was established in 1970. It does not report to the president and is only indirectly responsible to Congress. Even though it is an “independent” government corporation, it cannot even set its own prices for services. A Postal Rate Commission, created by the 1970 Reorganization Act, must approve all postage rates, fees, and mail classifications. The commission also has appellate jurisdiction to review Postal Service determinations to close or consolidate small post offices. There have been a number of bills introduced in recent congresses to return the Postal Service to the status of a regular executive department—and to greater political control. Such proposals tend to increase dramatically whenever local post offices are forced to merge or close.

Despite perennial criticism, what the Postal Service (USPS) does is impressive: in 2006 more than 213 billion pieces of mail were delivered to 146 million residences and businesses by almost 700,000 career employees in 37,000 post offices. With annual revenues of more than $72 billion, and the largest civilian fleets of vehicles on the planet, it delivers more than 46 percent of the world’s card and letter mail each day. But the USPS is changing rapidly. Because of the decline in mail volume due largely to the Internet and text messaging, by 2011 there were 5,000 fewer post offices. Employees were down to 532,000. Physical mail peaked in 2006 with 213 billion pieces; by 2010 it was 20 percent lower and declining.

While most Americans do not realize it, their daily mail is cheap, comparatively speaking. The United States has the lowest first-class postage of any industrialized state. For the price of a first-class stamp, even one with Marilyn or Elvis on it, the Postal Service will take your letter—if properly addressed—to the bottom of the Grand Canyon by mule, to the Arctic Circle in Alaska by bush pilot, or to ships on America’s remote rivers by mail boat. The current motto of the Postal Service is “We Deliver for You.” It knows that if it doesn’t, that if there are too many complaints, Congress may change its mandate.

The Postal Service’s worst nightmare is that Congress will jeopardize the service’s solvency by allowing others—maybe Federal Express (FedEx) or United Parcel Service (UPS)—the right to deliver first-class mail. Such totally private corporations could then easily skim off the easy and profitable urban delivery routes and leave the Postal Service with all the unprofitable and difficult ones. Thus “express mail” overnight delivery was created in 1977 specifically to compete with Federal Express, and the Postal Service has conducted quarterly performance evaluations since 1990 to monitor the timeliness of its first-class mail delivery. And with perpetual fears of losing its monopoly and viability, the Postal Service is hustling to improve its core services, to create new products, such as the 2005 Muppet stamps and the

(continued)

410 LeadershipC H A P T E R 1 0

A CASE STUDY Continued

2006 “Forever” stamp that can be used to mail a standard first-class letter anytime in the future.

The Marilyn and Elvis stamps are indicators of a major new trend in public administration in general, and the Postal Service in particular: the concern for marketing. Marketing, entrepreneurship, and promotional management are relatively new areas of interest in the public and nonprofit sectors. The first published argument (that we have been able to locate) that nonprofit organizations should engage in marketing even though they face somewhat unique circumstances is in Philip Kotler and Sidney Levy’s 1969 article “Broadening the Concept of Marketing.” The first textbook on the subject, also by Kotler, was not published until 1975. Although some nonprofit organizations have engaged in business-enterprise-type activities at least since the beginning of the twentieth century—for example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City opened its first official sales store in 1908—only scattered attention was paid to such income-generating activities prior to 1980.

Entrepreneurial-type business ventures by agencies of the public sector are not limited to the Postal Service. Creating and capitalizing on chances to make money—the core of entrepreneurship—are becoming increasingly fashionable. Thus organizations as diverse as the Chicago Public Library and the Los Angeles County coroner’s office sell a wide range of memorabilia.

The result of entrepreneurial forays by the Postal Service and other public sector entities is to raise revenue through non traditional methods rather than increasing taxes or user fees (or stamp prices). Entrepreneurship is a frame of mind, a willingness to create and to be receptive to opportunities, an orientation toward risk-taking ventures. But nonprofit organizations cannot allow the current interest in entrepreneurship to allow them to forget their traditional purposes. Business ventures can be dangerous when they compromise the organization’s original mission. Marilyn and Elvis stamps, pins, and other souvenir items are like best selling books. They generate tremendous income when first offered for sale and even have comfortable backlist sales, but they are no substitute for the organization’s core function: selling a service.

So what’s the lesson here? The public sector can benefit from some entrepreneurial techniques. If stamps with Washington, Franklin, and other dignitaries do not sell well enough as collectibles, then sell what sells. Sell Marilyn, Elvis, and even Miss Piggy. Well, not always.

The Postal Service, by being made a public enterprise, has simply used its discretion to branch out into the entertainment industry. In so doing, it has found a way to improve its financial health so as to better fulfill its primary purpose: delivering the mail. While its long-term survival is still very much in question, the USPS appears to be making a good-faith attempt to keep itself a player in the twenty-first-century world of communication.

411Review Questions

For Discussion: The steps taken by the Postal Service will reduce the number of jobs by over a third- how should leadership inform and engage its workforce with such a drastic downsizing? How has the fear of increased competition from FedEx and UPS motivated the Postal Service to reform? and rethink its brand?

The Postal Service overproduced 2.1 billion commemorative and special issue stamps during CYs (calendar year) 2009 and 2010. For example, the Postal Service forecast:

A need for 1 billion Simpsons stamps. However, PRUs (PRU is postal retail units) only sold 318

million of these stamps during CYs 2009 and 2010. Accordingly, the Postal Service over-produced 682 million stamps (215 percent), incurring unnecessary manufacturing costs of $1.2 million.

A need for 500 million Flags of our Nation (Series 4) stamps. However, PRUs only sold 120 million during CYs 2010 and 2011, resulting in over-production of 380 million stamps (317 percent), thus incurring unnecessary manufacturing costs of $716,000.

Source: USPS Inspector General (2012).

BOX 10.5 Excessive Commemorative and Special Issue Stamps

SUMMARY

Leadership is the exercise of authority, whether formal or informal, in directing and coordinating the work of others. The best leaders are those who can simultane- ously exercise both kinds of leadership: the formal, based on the authority of rank or office, and the informal, based on the willingness of others to give service to a person with special qualities of authority.

There is a difference between leadership and management: management involves power (formal authority) bestowed on the occupant of a position by a higher organizational authority. Leadership, in contrast, cannot be bestowed by a higher authority but must be earned by creating trust in the relationship between the leader and the followers.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What is the difference between leadership and management? 2. Which leadership style is more likely to be successful over the long term: authoritarian

or democratic?

412 LeadershipC H A P T E R 1 0

3. Why are transformational leaders so essential in times of organizational crisis? 4. Why is micromanagement a trap into which so many leaders fall? 5. Under what circumstances can moral leadership be effective?

KEY CONCEPTS

Authoritarianism Rule by an individual whose claim to sole power is supported by subor- dinates who sustain control of the system by carrying out the ruler’s orders and by a public that is unwilling or unable to rebel against that control. The ruler’s personality may be a significant element in maintaining the necessary balance of loyalty and fear. Authoritari- anism differs from totalitarianism only in that the latter may have a specific ideology that rationalizes it, although it may require a leader who embodies that ideology to sustain public support. An authoritarian state may be further distinguished from a totalitarian one by the fact that under some circumstances an authoritarian state could allow limited freedom of expression and political opposition, as long as the regime does not feel threatened. Charisma Leadership based on the compelling personality of the leader rather than on formal position. The word charisma is derived from the Greek word for divine grace. The concept was first developed by Max Weber, who distinguished charismatic authority from both the traditional authority of a monarch and the legal authority given to someone by law. Contingency theory An approach to leadership asserting that leadership styles will vary in their effects in different situations. The situation (not traits or styles themselves) determines whether a leadership style or a particular leader will be effective. Law of the situation A notion developed by social psychologist Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) that one person should not give orders to another person, but both should agree to take their orders from the situation. If orders are simply part of the situation, the question of someone giving and someone receiving does not come up. Rule of law A governing system in which the highest authority is a body of law that applies equally to all (as opposed to the traditional “rule of men,” in which the personal whim of those in power can decide any issue). Trait theory An approach to leadership that assumes leaders possess traits that make them fundamentally different from followers. Advocates of trait theory believe that some people have unique leadership characteristics and qualities that enable them to assume responsibil- ities not everyone can execute. Therefore they are “born” leaders. Transactional approaches Any means of analyzing leadership style that focuses on how leaders interact and how they treat those they seek to lead. Transformational leadership Leadership that strives to change organizational culture and directions. It reflects the ability of a leader to develop a values-based vision for the organiza- tion, to convert the vision into reality, and to maintain it over time.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ambrose, Stephen E. (1994) D-Day. New York: Simon and Schuster. Barnard, Chester I. (1938) The Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-

versity Press. Berlin, Isaiah (1953) The Hedgehog and the Fox. New York: Simon and Schuster. Caeser, James, Glen Thurow, Jeffrey Tulis, and Joseph Bessette (1981) “The Rise of the Rhe-

torical Presidency,” Presidential Studies Quarterly (Spring). Cohen, Jeffrey E. (1982) “A Historical Reassessment of Wildavsky’s ‘Two Presidencies’ ,”

Social Science Quarterly (September).

413Bibliography

Dynes, Michael, and David Walker (1995) The New British State. London: Times Books. Edelman, Murray (1967) The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Edwards, George C., III (1986) “The Two Presidencies: A Reevaluation,” American Politics

Quarterly (July). Fiedler, F. E. (1967) A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill. Fiedler, F. E., and M. M. Chemers (1974) Leadership Style and Effective Management. Glen-

view, IL: Scott, Foresman. Fiedler, F. E., M. M. Chemers, and L. Mahar (1976) Improving Leadership Effectiveness: The

Leader Match Concept. New York: Wiley. Fink, S. L. (1992) High Commitment Workplaces. New York: Quorum Books. French, J. R. P., and B. Raven (1959) “The Bases of Social Power.” In D. Cartwright and

A. Zander, eds. Studies in Social Power. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Institute of Social Research.

Greenstein, Fred I. (1994) The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisnehower as Leader. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Howard, Philip K. (1995) The Death of Common Sense. New York: Random House. Ignatieff, Michael (1998) Isaiah Berlin: A Life. New York: Henry Holt. Kilborn, Peter T. (1993) “Inside Post Offices, the Mail Is Only Part of the Pressure,” New

York Times (May 17). Kotler, Philip (1982) “The Responsive Organization: Meeting Consumer Needs.” In

D. Gies, ed., Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Kotler, Philip, and Sidney J. Levy (1969) “Broadening the Concept of Marketing,” Journal of Marketing (January).

Lewin, K., R. Lippitt, and R. K. White (1939). “Patterns of Aggressive Behavior in Experi- mentally Created Social Climates,” Journal of Social Psychology 10.

Levitz, Jennifer (2011) “Postal Service Eyes Closing Thousand of Post Offices,” Wall Street Journal (January 24).

Light, Paul C. (2005) “Rumsfeld’s Revolution,” Govexec.com (August 8). www.govexec. com/dailyfed/0805/080805ol.htm.

Livingston, J. Sterling (1969) “Pygmalion in Management,” Harvard Business Review (July–August).

Machiavelli, Niccolò (1513) The Prince. London: Penguin. Marinucci, Carla (2001) “Gingrich Says GOP Has a Handle on High Tech,” San Francisco

Chronicle (January 27). Metcalf, Henry C., and Lyndall Urwick, eds. (1940) Dynamic Administration: The Collected

Papers of Mary Parker Follett. New York: Harper. Michels, Robert (1915, 1945) Political Parties. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Morgan, Arthur E. (1974) The Making of the TVA. New York: Prometheus Books. Morris, Dick (2001) Column, New York Post, January 2, 2001. Mustafa, Husain, and Anthony A. Salomone (1971) “Administrative Circumvention of Public

Policy,” Midwest Review of Public Administration 5, No. 1. Myers, Steven Lee (1995) “City Hall’s Going Retail in Wholesale Fashion,” New York Times

(July 9). Oldfield, Duane M., and Aaron Wildavsky (1989) “Reconsidering the Two Presidencies,”

Society 26 (July–August). Pooley, Eric (2001) “ Time Magazine Person of the Year 2001: Mayor of the World,” Time

Magazine , Monday, December 31. Popkin, James (1993) “Wasteline: By the Book,” US News & World Report (May 24). Rosenbloom, David H. (1993a) “Have an Administrative Rx? Don’t Forget the Politics!”

Public Administration Review 53 (November–December).

414 LeadershipC H A P T E R 1 0

Rosenbloom, David H. (1993b) Public Administration, 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Sayre, W. (1948) “The Triumph of Techniques over Purpose,” Public Administration Review

8 (Spring). Slater, Philip E., and Warren Bennis (1964) “Democracy Is Inevitable,” Harvard Business

Review 42 (March–April). Stogdill, Ralph M. (1974) Handbook of Leadership: A Study of Theory and Research. New

York: Free Press. Tannenbaum, Robert J., and Warren H. Schmidt (1973) “How to Choose a Leadership Pat-

tern,” Harvard Business Review 51 (May–June). Tichy, N. M., and D. O. Ulrich (1984) “The Leadership Challenge—A Call for the Transfor-

mational Leader,” Sloan Management Review 26. Time “Person of the Year: Rudi Giuliani Tower of Strength”, December 31, 2001. USPS Inspector General (2012) Stamp Manufacturing and Inventory Management Audit

Report, July 23, Report Number MS-AR-12-006. Wildavsky, Aaron (1966) “The Two Presidencies,” Trans-Action (December). Wills, Garry (1994) “What Makes a Good Leader?” Atlantic Monthly (April).

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

Barnard, Chester I. (1968) The Functions of the Executive, 30th anniversary ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. The classic analysis of organizations as cooperative sys- tems wherein the function of the executive was to maintain the “dynamic equilibrium” between the needs of the organization and the needs of its employees.

Burns, James MacGregor (1982) Leadership. New York: Harper & Row. Uses history and biography to distill the essential elements of leadership.

Goleman, Daniel, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee (2002) Primal Leadership. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. A demonstration of how current behavioral science research validates the doctrine of optimism for leaders.

Harari, Oren (2002) The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell. New York: McGraw-Hill. How-to-do-it advice from one of America’s most successful leaders.

Klitgaard, Robert, and Paul Light (2005) High Performance Government: Structure, Lead- ership, Incentives. Washington, DC: Rand Corporation. An examination of the contem- porary role of leadership in relation to organizational structure.

Wren, J. Thomas (1995) The Leader’s Companion: Insights on Leadership through the Ages. New York: Free Press. Sixty-four selections of the best writing on leadership, from ancient classicists to modern social scientists.