malcom x leadership project

NAME:

Leadership Project: Eva Perón

1. Give the title of the book a brief biography about the leader and why I choose the leader (1) page.

Evita: The Real Life of Eva Perón written by Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro

documents the life of Eva Perón from childhood until her death. Eva María Ibarguren was born on May 7, 1919, as an illegitimate child in Los Toldos, Argentina. At the age of fifteen, Eva traveled to Argentina’s capital city, Buenos Aires, with the hope of pursuing an acting career. In 1944, she met her future husband and the future president of Argentina, Juan Domingo Perón. Eva helped Perón win the support of the working-class and the descamisados (the shirtless ones). She earned the heartfelt nickname “Evita” (meaning “Little Eva”) from her affectionate followers. After Perón was elected President of Argentina, Evita became the First Lady of Argentina and gained the power to form The Eva Perón Foundation and The Perónist Women’s Party. At the height of her political career, Evita died of uterine cancer on July 26, 1952, at the age of 33. Evita was given the title “The Spiritual Leader of the Nation” upon her death by the Argentine Congress. Due to her influence, Evita’s body was not kept in Argentina for many years for fear that its presence would spark a revolution by her followers. Today, Evita is still viewed as a pivotal figure in Argentina’s history and no woman has ever attained Evita’s level of power and influence in Latin America. Evita was idolized by her followers—to an extent close to sainthood. I choose Evita as my leader because she was a transformational woman who championed social and economic justice for the working-class, women, and the descamisados. She also challenged military leaders and state institutions, unheard of at that time, and was hated by many in the higher social classes.

A summary of the book focusing on the main themes (1 page).

Evita: The Real Life of Eva Perón is regarded as the most complete and the most neutral account of Evita’s life. The authors focus on revealing the truth about Evita’s life in an unbiased manner. The book follows the life of Eva Perón from childhood until her death, when she was at the height of her power. The book begins in the dusty Argentine town of Los Toldos, where Evita was born. According to the authors, the roots of Evita’s hatred of social injustice stem from the fact that she was an illegitimate child and was often treated unfairly. The closest she ever came to speaking of her feelings was to elicit “a sense of outrage against injustice. As far as I can remember the existence of injustice has hurt my soul as if a nail was being driven into it. From every period of my life I retain the memory of some injustice tormenting me and tearing me apart” (Fraser 5).

When Evita moved to Buenos Aires at the age of fifteen, she was very poor and did not succeed as an actress. She was able to observe the lack of connection between what government said it stood for and what it actually accomplished. When Evita met Perón, she boosted his presidential campaign by dedicating herself to the social injustice of the Argentine working-class, gaining Perón many followers, which allowed him to win the presidential election of 1946. Evita assumed the risk of advocating social justice as a champion for the working-class and accepted the hatred of the higher social classes. She gained power by giving back to the people of Argentina and remained humble in doing so until her early death in 1952.

Fraser and Navarro tell Evita’s story in a neutral and unbiased way, unveiling the myths and preconceptions about Evita and Perón throughout their book. Evita was a woman of many myths, and in spite of the poor technology and the meager public record system Argentina had during Evita’s life, the authors were dedicated to uncovering as much of the truth as they could about Eva Perón.

2. Of the effective leadership traits discussed in class, which of the three are most related to the leader? Describe the three leadership traits that are most related to the leader and give two examples of each of the three traits (2 pages).

Three leadership traits that Evita possessed were surgency, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. The surgency personality trait includes dominance, extraversion, and high energy with determination. Evita’s trait of surgency was present even before she became such an adored public figure. The day Evita met Juan Perón, he was only a colonel in the military. They were at an ‘artistic festival’ dedicated to raising funds to help those affected by a recent earthquake in San Juan. Local actors and actresses were to walk the streets with moneyboxes, accompanied by members of the armed forces, to collect funds to be used in rebuilding San Juan. Evita had come forward to the Secretariat of Labor to offer advice, and Perón later recalled, “‘We have to get money from those who have it,’ she said. I was impressed: ‘Good, very good,’ I said then, ‘since this is your idea, organize it!’ And so it happened; she organized everything” (Fraser 33). Evita’s political career centers on her accomplishments of The Eva Perón Foundation, the Perónist Woman’s Party, and her connection with the unions formed under Perón’s presidency. Her dominance and determination was displayed when she would “work all night for many nights and come back at dawn, exhausted but satisfied with her work. Eva Perón slept for about two hours and her workday began again” (Fraser 137-138). Neither Juan Perón nor her family had much control over what Evita did because providing for the descamisados filled her life.

The conscientiousness personality trait includes traits of dependability and integrity. Evita displayed the conscientiousness personality trait by being highly dependable – she was loyal and extremely committed to her followers, the descamisados. Before she left for her European Tour in 1947, she stated at the reception, “I am going as the representative of the working-people, of my dear descamisados. I leave my heart behind with them” (Fraser 90). Everything Evita did, she did for her followers. The Foundation built twelve hospitals in Buenos Aires, constructed one-thousand schools in the poorest areas of the country, built and operated four nursing homes, and turned a four-block site of Belgrano, a northern suburb of Buenos Aires, into the “Amanda Allen Children’s City,” named after an Argentine pioneer in healthcare. Evita knew others depended on her for care, and she was very concerned with the quality of care her followers were receiving at the Children’s City. Evita would often “arrive without warning in the middle of the night and walk through the dormitories to see if everything was as it was supposed to be” (Fraser 130). Evita delivered on her promises to the people. She often is considered the link between the descamisados and Perónism because of her activities with The Foundation.

The last trait Evita showed was agreeableness. The agreeableness personality trait includes traits of sociability, sensitivity, and emotional intelligence. Evita was focused on emphasizing the human contact with her followers that was, and still is, rare in bureaucracies. The Eva Perón Foundation began as a response to the poverty Evita encountered daily while working in her office. It eventually grew into a welfare organization, over which Evita maintained total control (Fraser 114). The Foundation addressed her followers’ needs, ranging from handing out fifty-peso notes to providing houses to families. Evita also required that anyone who was in need, come to her office so she could interact with them personally, attending to them “not as a bureaucrat, but as an individual who had chosen such work because she enjoyed it” (Fraser 123). Evita also had high emotional intelligence because she knew what it was like to be poor. Her emotional intelligence was especially evident in the relationship management component. Evita knew what the descamisados needed and had the means to deliver it. The items The Foundation made available – pots and pans, beds, footballs, houses – had great “meaning and usefulness because Evita was aware exactly what difference it made to the life of a poor family to have those things” (Fraser 131).

3. Would you consider the leader to utilize a more job-centered or employee-centered leadership style? Give two examples to support your answer (1/2 page).

Although Evita utilized a mixture of both a job-centered and an employee-centered leadership style, her style is more consistent with an employee-centered approach. In 1948, after the Perónists gained control of the Argentine General Confederation of Labor (CGT), Evita was in a position to do things on behalf of the working-class. The President of the CGT in 1948, Jose Espejo, said, “‘Evita always pressured the employers to give the workers more and it became normal procedure for a union about to strike to make a series of gestures calculated to acquire her support” (Fraser 120).

In 1949, Evita formed the Perónist Woman’s Party, dedicated to resolve the injustices of the working-women in Argentina. One of the first census-takers for the Perónist Women’s Party, Delia Degliuomini de Parodi, recalled, “She was behind us the whole time, pushing us on.” Evita encouraged her employees (‘her women’) by calling them in the middle of the night to ask about their difficulties and sometimes bringing them to Buenos Aires to consult with Evita personally about their troubles (Fraser 108-109).

4. Which of the seven types of power does the leader use to influence his/her followers? Describe the two types of power he/she uses and give two examples of each (1 page).

The main type of power Evita used was connection power. Connection power is

based on the user’s relationships with influential people. She was the First Lady of Argentina, which granted her the “unofficial” power to influence the people of Argentina. One way Evita used her connection power was to obtain resources to help in her crusade against poverty and social injustice. People would come to Evita to ask for favors or financial assistance, and she would act upon these requests because she had the power to do so. According to Fraser and Navarro, “she realized that as the wife of the President she would make prior claim on the meager resources of the bureaucracy for the problems she wished to solve” (79). She wanted to appear to her people, “not as the wife of the President, but as the Evita who declared herself, a ‘woman of the people,’ unlike them in circumstances and power but ineffably still of them and with them” (Fraser 123). When people would come see her for aid, she would smile, ask questions, and make jokes so she could relate to them as a common woman. Evita also used her connection power to deal only with Perón, herself, and the descamisados. She served as the link between Perón himself and his followers. According to Fraser and Navarro, “She would speak on Perón’s behalf to the crowd or on the crowd’s behalf to Perón and then for herself, the person who brought the leader and his people together” (111).

Evita also used referent power throughout her political career. Referent power is based on the user’s personal relationships with others. The leader can use the inspirational appeal influencing tactic by appealing to the values, ideals, and aspirations of the followers by displaying his or her feelings to appeal to the follower’s emotions and enthusiasm. Evita appealed to people with her emotions, and she understood the values, hopes, fears, and goals of her followers. Evita did not speak in “political terminology but in that of her emotions. Her language came from her own feelings and made the notions of love and loyalty to Perón vivid and urgent” (Fraser 112). Evita was a very charismatic leader and it was by this way of communicating that she gained Perón’s support from the working-class and the women of Argentina. She gave numerous speeches in favor of women’s suffrage, and in 1949, Perón signed the law giving women the right to vote (Fraser 106). When she died, Evita could be argued as the most powerful woman in the world. Whether Argentinians loved or hated her, they remember her power as being “emotional and intuitive, violent, mystical, uninstitutionalized. To this, they add a particular emphasis: they describe Evita’s leadership as irrational, unanalyzable, uncontrollable. More than a political authority, she exercised a sway that was mystico-religious, moral, or spiritual” (Taylor 11). After her death, Evita was given the title of the “Spiritual Leader of the Nation” by the Argentine Congress.

5. What are three lessons you learned about being an effective leader after reading the book (1 page)?

Researching Evita and her leadership methods has taught me many lessons about being an effective leader. An effective leader needs to be passionate about what (or whom) they are leading. The people adored Evita because they knew she genuinely cared about them and she showed it. If you were to take Evita’s (or Hitler’s, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, etc.) passion away, she would not have accomplished everything she did.

Secondly, effective leaders are bred, not born. Evita came from nothing—born into a poor, working-class family with little education. She was a common woman who was thrust into a position of power by making the right connections with the right people. She had no formal training and a relatively unimpressive background, yet she was able to mold herself into the kind of leader she felt the people of Argentina wanted. She learned how to use her charisma to capture the attention of crowds. She would repeatedly remind her followers that she was one of them. One of her famous lines, “When the rich think about the poor, they have poor ideas,” illustrates her philosophy.

Thirdly, if you have the passion but are not bold enough to take risks, you will not be an effective leader. Leaders should be champions for what they believe. Evita would not have gained the support of her people if it was not for her audacity and willingness to “stick her neck out on the line” for them. The higher social classes hated her because of the kind of work she did. Evita was also an effective leader because she did what she said she was going to do. She entered her position of power on a crusade against social injustice and died on that same crusade. Having power and money did not corrupt her in the way it does so many leaders. This created the undying devotion and trust Evita’s followers had for her.

Works Cited

Fraser, Nicholas, and Marysa Navarro. Evita: The Real Life of Eva Perón. London: W. W.

Norton & Company, Inc., 1980. Print.

Taylor, J. M. Eva Perón: The Myths of a Woman. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,

1979. Print.