Time to Lead: Lessons for Today's Leaders from Bold Decisions that Changed History

By Jan-Benedict Steenkamp

Where is leadership when we need it? What can today’s corporate, non-profit, military, and public-service leaders learn from daring decisions that changed history?

In Time to Lead, Jan-Benedict Steenkamp presents a fresh examination of history-making leaders by holding a magnifying glass up to a life-changing dilemma each of them faced. What we learn is how powerful the personalities of leaders and their decision-making processes can be in determining the course of human events—and the fates of millions of people.

Steenkamp explains how these great men and women arrived at the solutions to the problems they confronted by virtue of their character traits and whether they were foxes or hedgehogs—as in the ancient parable—or, as he further categorizes, eagles or ostriches.

Sixteen carefully curated case studies hold powerful lessons that today’s leaders can apply in their own professional lives. Readers will recognize Roosevelt, Washington, Mandela, Thatcher, Alexander the Great, and MLK, but other lesser-known leaders, such as Themistocles, Clovis, Peter, Fisher, and Nightingale provide equally valuable insights into how individuals make decisions based upon one of seven leadership styles (adaptive, persuasive, directive, disruptive, authentic, servant, and charismatic) and four personality classifications (hedgehog, fox, eagle, or ostrich).

Steenkamp’s assessment tools provide seasoned and aspiring leaders alike with the means to not only determine their own individual styles, but how to step up when they inevitably come face-to-face with their own moments of truth.

Chapter takeaways, leadership principles, and open-ended, reflective questions will confer encouragement, enrichment, and empowerment on readers when they realize they can utilize the same tactics as these leaders in their own lives.

Time to Lead is about great men and women, their actions in leadership that have withstood the test of time, what we can learn from them—and the lessons that are relevant for us here and now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
• Release date: Sep 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734324839

Book preview

PRAISE FOR TIME TO LEAD

Meticulously researched. Steenkamp shows what today’s managers can learn from past great historical leaders. Each case study is organized around a particular dilemma, and is interesting in its own right. The book is easy to read, yet provides incisive leadership principles that have withstood the test of time. The self-assessment questions and leadership tests make the book highly actionable. A must-read for any (aspiring) corporate and nonprofit leader.

—Hermann Simon, Founder and honorary chairman, Simon-Kucher & Partners Strategy and Marketing Consultants, management guru, 2019 Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inductee, and author of Hidden Champions

Steenkamp has written a remarkable book on leadership that I strongly recommend to all those who might think ‘leadership’ is something mythical and hence ‘too big to study.’ Drawing on his well-renowned knowledge of marketing, he engages in a truly interdisciplinary approach that unveils, on the basis of sixteen cases of impressive leaders, the relevant dimensions of the phenomenon of leaders and leadership. This already makes reading this book worthwhile. On top of that, the book proposes a strong and convincing set of self-assessment tools that can help (aspirant) leaders to reflect on their own style of leadership. And it even helps them to make a decision when their time is over . . . 

—Wim van de Donk, King’s Commissioner (governor) of the State of North Brabant, The Netherlands, Extraordinary Professor of Public Administration, Tilburg University, and former president, European Group for Public Administration

A masterwork of leadership across history and its application for today’s leaders. J. B. Steenkamp takes us through history’s most decisive leaders and events, identifies the essence of their leadership approach, and expertly ties it to well-established, contemporary leadership methods. Most important, Steenkamp provides us with a framework and method to assess our own leadership and reach our leader development goals. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn and apply the lessons of history’s leaders to their own leader growth.

—Colonel Todd Woodruff, Former Director of Leadership and Management Studies, the United States Military Academy at West Point

Ancient models of leadership are an old story, beginning with ancients like Plutarch, but Steenkamp is the first to rival Plutarch by comparing ancient and modern models through the use of psychological categories drawn from Isaiah Berlin and others. Steenkamp’s handling of Alexander the Great is characteristic: The conqueror who wished to become a god proves to be a shrewd evangelist for his own cult. The author’s modern parallel to Alexander is apt: Charles de Gaulle, who sold the greatness of France to the French, but as a way of selling himself.

—Fred Naiden, Professor of history at the University of North Carolina and author of Soldier, Priest, and God: A Life of Alexander the Great

Steenkamp explores the essence of leadership, all of which I have seen displayed in my thirty years in the pharma industry, for good and for bad. My career highs and lows were closely associated with the experiences of a leader that either inspired me or drove me to the depths of despair. Steenkamp reminds us of how a great leader can impact the culture and engagement of any enterprise.

—John Bamforth, Founder of Ciara Biosciences, Director, Eshelman Institute for Innovation, and former Vice President, Eli Lilly and Co.

Backed by great histories and supported by Steenkamp’s own expertise, this is essential reading if you want to improve your personal leadership skills. Managers in private and public organizations alike will be grateful to Steenkamp for this new great book.

—Xavier Orendáin, President, Chamber of Commerce, Guadalajara (Mexico)

Enlightening and inspiring! There’s a lot we can learn from leaders of different times and apply in our current companies. Steenkamp found the way to show the reader how to apply all those historic experiences to our times.

—Alejandro Romero, Director General, Geolife Swiss

"I am enlightened after reading Time to Lead. It discusses types of leadership in a concise yet insightful manner. I highly recommend the book as a practical guidance to managers as well as all those who aspire to be in a leadership position. I liked the global scope of the book, pulling in leaders from all parts of the world. Time to Lead is definitely a book worth reading repeatedly."

—Guo Xiuling, Founder, Sand River Cashmere

It is academically gratifying to read a book that uses illustrative examples so well to express a notion that is always in vogue. Leadership has been a topic of great interest for many decades. Of the many styles that deeply resonate with me is servant leadership. Steenkamp dealt with it so eloquently and portrayed it in such a vibrant way. His choice of nurse Nightingale is spot-on, not only for her servant leadership style that could be tangibly seen and felt; but with a great degree of humility she helped save lives and took that as her calling in life. As for Martin Luther King, his style could fall under charismatic leadership par excellence, yet Steenkamp masterfully chose him to better portray servant leadership, as King was willing to give up everything to ensure the survivability of his belief to serve the people and gave his life doing just that! Steenkamp’s book is powerfully illustrated with vivid examples that have stood the test of time and a must-read for people who are interested in the art of leadership.

—Moustapha Sarhank, Servant leader and seeker of enlightenment, Executive Chairman, IBAG, S.A.E., and Senior Fellow, Olsson Center for Applied Ethics at the University of Virginia

J-B Steenkamp has again managed to combine his exhaustive capacity for research (in this case historical) with an almost uncanny ability to distill his knowledge into simple, usable, and practical conceptual frameworks for action in this fascinating treatise on leadership. In this navigation through and synthesis of the very real leadership actions, approaches, and game-changing outcomes of sixteen world leaders spanning more than 2,400 years of history, he has been able to extract seven foundational leadership styles and two fundamental truths around leadership impact—grit (the tenacity to persevere despite obstacles) and clear and consistent vision. Part history book, part academic leadership study, and part personal development guide—it’s a worthwhile journey for anyone who aspires to have true and lasting impact.

—Rob Malcolm, Director, Hershey Company, Senior Adviser, Boston Consulting Group, and former President, Global Marketing, Sales, and Innovation, Diageo

Fast Company Press

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First Edition

To those who shaped my leadership ideas—my late parents, my brothers Thomas and Paulus, my wife Valarie, and my late doctoral supervisor Thieu Meulenberg

ALSO BY JAN-BENEDICT STEENKAMP

Private Label Strategy: How to Meet the Store Brand Challenge, with Nirmalya Kumar

Brand Breakout: How Emerging Market Brands Will Go Global, with Nirmalya Kumar

Global Brand Strategy: World-wise Marketing in the Age of Branding

Retail Disruptors: The Spectacular Rise and Impact of the Hard Discounters, with Laurens Sloot

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Leaders and Leadership Types

PART ONE: ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP —

MODIFY ACCORDING TO THE CIRCUMSTANCES

2. Clovis Attends a Mass

3. Bismarck Unshackles a Nation

4. Deng Seeks Truth from Facts

Reflections on Adaptive Leadership

PART T WO: PERSUASIVE LEADERSHIP —

CHANGE THE MINDS OF YOUR FOLLOWERS

5. Themistocles Erects a Wooden Wall

6. Campbell-Bannerman Shows Magnanimity

7. Roosevelt Lends a Hose

Reflections on Persuasive Leadership

PART THREE: DIRECTIVE LEADERSHIP —

DEFINE THE MARCHING ORDERS

8. Cortés Scuttles His Ships

9. Thatcher Closes a Pit

Reflections on Directive Leadership

PART FOUR: DISRUPTIVE LEADERSHIP —

BREAK WITH THE PAST

10. St. Peter Discards One Thousand Years of Religious Doctrine

11. Fisher Launches a Ship

Reflections on Disruptive Leadership

PART FIVE: AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP —

SET THE EXAMPLE

12. Washington Stops, Twice

13. Mandela Goes to a Match

Reflections on Authentic Leadership

PART SIX: SERVANT LEADERSHIP —

PUT FOLLOWERS FIRST

14. Nightingale Carries a Lamp

15. King Goes MIA

Reflections on Servant Leadership

PART SEVEN: CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP —

BUY INTO THE LEADER, THEN FOLLOW THEIR VISION

16. Alexander the Great Says No

17. De Gaulle Understands the Pieds-Noirs

Reflections on Charismatic Leadership

18. Where Do You Go from Here?

APPENDICES: LEADERSHIP ASSESSMENT TOOLS

Appendix A: Grit Scale

Appendix B: Hedgefox Scale

Appendix C: Steenkamp Assessment Instrument for Leadership Styles (SAILS )

Notes

Index

About the Author

LIST OF FIGURES

   1.1: Hedgehog-like vs. Fox-like Qualities

   1.2: Leadership Styles

   2.1: Germanic Kingdoms in 480 A.D.

   2.2: The Rise of the Franks

   3.1: Europe after the Congress of Vienna

   3.2: Reunification of Germany

   3.3: Dropping the Pilot

   4.1: Deng Xiaoping, 1979

   5.1: Persian Empire in 500 B.C.

   5.2: The Persian Wars, 499–479 B.C.

   5.3: Battle at Salamis

   6.1: Map of Southern Africa in 1899

   6.2: Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 1902

   7.1: Franklin Roosevelt at One of His Fireside Chats

   7.2: Social judgment theory applied to Roosevelt’s persuasive leadership

   8.1: Aztec Empire

   8.2: Route of Cortés

   8.3: The Valley of Mexico

   9.1: Margaret Thatcher, 1983

 10.1: Peter’s Vision

 11.1: Jacky Fisher, 1915

 11.2: Diagram of HMS Dreadnought

 11.3: HMS Dreadnought at Sea

 12.1: George Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army

 12.2: Apotheosis of Washington

 13.1: Nelson Mandela, 1993

 14.1: Florence Nightingale, 1858

 15.1: Martin Luther King Jr., 1963

SL.1: Expectation-Disconfirmation Theory Applied to Servant Leadership

 16.1: Empire of Alexander the Great

 16.2: Battle at Issus

 16.3: Successor (Diadochi) Kingdoms in 301 B.C.

 17.1: Frenemies—Churchill and de Gaulle, 1944

  A.1: Using SAILS for 360-Degree Feedback

LIST OF TABLES

   4.1: Results of Reform and Opening Up, 1978–1988

   7.1: Party Divisions in U.S. Congress, 1928–1940

   7.2: Purchases versus Lend-Lease by Great Britain in World War II (in billions of dollars)

SL.1: Service Leadership in Theory versus in Practice

FOREWORD

LEADERSHIP MATTERS

Leadership is arguably the highest leverage ingredient driving the outcomes of virtually every human endeavor—and has been throughout the ages and across the globe. Effective leaders have harnessed the potential of populations to accomplish the greatest of human achievements and unleashed the depths of human depravity. Speaking for myself and apart from the important outcomes of effective leadership, I also believe that leadership matters because the people I lead matter.

There are literally thousands of books written on the subject. Most practitioners of leadership, including myself, have read dozens of them and attended multiple leadership courses during their careers. Yet I have found through my own experiences as a leader—from the boardroom to the battlefield—that the vast majority of leadership books should be placed gently in the trash can where they belong. Leadership is fundamentally about people, and people are messy creatures. Deterministic leadership recipes promising desired outcomes if only you effectively carry out prescribed steps or credibly exhibit desirable behaviors are, quite simply, hogwash.

LEADERSHIP IS INTENSELY PERSONAL

Leadership is dependent on the leaders themselves, those who would be led, and the context. Every year I host a weeklong seminar for mid-career officers selected for the Air Force’s biggest leadership test—Squadron Command. Throughout the week, they experience storytelling from a number of leaders and hear the expectations the Air Force has of them as they are entrusted with America’s sons and daughters, various leadership tools, and the national security context we all face.

When it is my turn to speak to them directly, many are at first surprised—and then somewhat relieved by the advice I give. I do not focus on what worked for me so they can follow suit. I do not even attempt to provide a definition of a good Squadron Commander. Of all the time they will spend in preparation for command, I urge them to spend the most time learning who they really are as a leader—not who they think the Air Force wants them to be. The Air Force does not look for Squadron Commanders from among the people we have; we look for the right people and make them Squadron Commanders.

There is no one successful leadership style or set of behaviors, and you cannot be someone you are not. You can, however, become more effective as a leader given who you are. The real value of studying other leaders is not in attempting to become more like them. The value in studying other leaders is in deepening your understanding; your understanding of leadership, yes— but also your understanding of yourself.

LEADERSHIP IS A JOURNEY, NOT A DESTINATION

Experienced leaders will want to read Time to Lead more than once and seek to understand why they made the decisions they did in various leadership settings. I have noticed in my own leadership journey that there are many similarities, or at least common threads, in how I approached decisions and situations. These similarities are mostly explained by my own dominant leadership style. The vivid examples within each leadership style and the self-assessment instruments provided by Professor Steenkamp will help cement that understanding. Perhaps even more useful, however, is understanding why you chose vastly different approaches in different leadership situations. Professor Steenkamp’s careful selection of case studies across cultures, situations, and time will help you understand why you applied elements and artifacts of other, non-dominant, leadership styles to different settings. Even the most experienced and successful leaders can, and should, improve.

Through my own journey of self-reflection, I have learned from my successes and failures as a leader. I have also learned as much or more observing other leaders—both good and bad. Within my context as a senior military leader, I have had the honor to lead men and women who have made personal decisions to serve their nation and to serve a purpose higher than themselves. Through the successes, I have always believed the values and quality of the people I lead gives me an unfair advantage—an ace in the hole. For all my shortcomings as a leader, I have found the people entrusted to my care incredibly forgiving. Yet with the sense of service they share, they consistently demand two things from me or any leader—competence and caring—and you can’t fake either one! I have also learned in the organizations I have led, whether in an office setting or a combat zone, that there is a critical social contract between the leader and the led. Loyalty is owed, trust is earned, and the leader trusts first!

YOU ARE IN FOR A TREAT

I had the honor of meeting Professor Steenkamp and his wife during one of my visits to the Kenan-Flagler School at the University of North Carolina (UNC). We immediately hit it off, diving right into discussions of leadership and how proud we both were of the Air Force officer students I had entrusted to their instruction and mentoring. To this day, however, I know more about Professor Steenkamp and his wife through the positive impact they had on my officers, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Landale and Major Dan Finkenstadt, who successfully completed their Ph.Ds studying under the Steenkamps’ leadership. Both Karen and Dan are brilliant officers and leaders in their own right, yet I can see Professor Steenkamp’s fingerprints on them—both in terms of the agility and discipline of their thinking and in the sense of indebtedness and endearment both officers feel for the Steenkamps. I have encountered few scholars like Professor Steenkamp. Not only does he understand leadership as a theoretical construct of styles and traits and behaviors, he has a rare intuition about leadership within the context of history as an interpersonal pursuit that can be forged and honed and deepened experientially if properly examined.

In Time to Lead, Professor Steenkamp actually practices effective leadership himself to guide us; not simply on what to think about leadership, but how to think about leadership. He leads us to consider singular decisions that changed the course of history— decisions made by 16 leaders applying their own dominant tendency of the seven leadership styles presented within a full diversity of contexts—time, culture, followers, situation, and leader identity. In this way, Professor Steenkamp leads us to optimize our own sense-making ability. His disciplined storytelling within a well-conceived theoretical framework produces a vivid mental map to deepen our understanding of who we really are as leaders. This book will give you the tools to deepen your wisdom, clarify your thinking, and improve your outcomes as your own story of leadership unfolds. Enjoy!

—Major General Cameron G. Holt

Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force,

Washington, D.C.

PREFACE

I MAKE EXTENSIVE use of principles of leadership in my teaching, executive work, and the business cases I have written. This is only logical, as marketing and leadership are closely aligned. The core of marketing is getting customers (your followers) to do what you want—also the essence of leadership. In marketing, this goal can be achieved in at least seven different ways: (1) product adaptation to local needs (discussed in my book Global Brand Strategy); (2) persuasion (discussed in my book Private Label Strategy); (3) putting pressure on the customer (a well-known salesperson technique); (4) offering a product that disrupts the competition (discussed in my book Retail Disruptors); (5) creating an authentic brand story (discussed in my book Brand Breakout); (6) going out of your way to serve your customers (discussed in my wife’s book Services Marketing); (7) imbuing your brand with a higher purpose that customers buy into (discussed in Global Brand Strategy).

Leaders adopt these seven approaches too. Here, they are called leadership styles. You will encounter all of them in this book. While my work as a marketing professor has been enriched by my study of leadership, in this book I will use my marketing knowledge to deepen our understanding of leadership. Don’t get me wrong. This is not a book about marketing leadership. It is about leadership in general, be it in corporate, military, public, or nonprofit organizations. Rather, where relevant, I will use marketing principles to further elaborate on a particular leadership style.

In this book, I explore these seven leadership styles and bring them to life using great historical leaders. History has fascinated me for as long as I have been able to read. I have always been interested in historical events and even more in the underlying causes behind these events, seeking to understand why and how things happened as they did. This has been of profound benefit for my academic career. Studying history in this manner has greatly enhanced my conceptualization skills, that is, the ability to relate often seemingly disparate ideas and events to each other. That is not an innate capability. I credit my intensive study of history for this.

In my teaching, I use lessons from history to guide present action, across different audiences—undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, executive development, and PhD teaching—as well as in my consulting and in my work with the military. I have explained to U.S. special ops how they can change opinions abroad through a stepwise process, pioneered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and elucidated to the U.S. Army how the Thucydides Trap (outlined by the Greek historian Thucydides in the fifth century B.C.) can be used to understand strategic challenges in relation to present-day China. I use the epochal Battle of Gaugamela in 331 B.C. to instruct PhD students around the world how to navigate the review process of their articles, an ordeal that makes a root canal treatment feel like a pleasant massage.

Since reading biographies of Alexander the Great and Roosevelt at the tender age of ten, I have believed in the role of great people in shaping the course of history (the great man theory). History is not only shaped by the outcomes of anonymous social and economic forces, penetratingly analyzed in such seminal works as Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, David Landes’s The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, and William McNeil’s The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community. Great leaders have played a critical role in history since the dawn of civilization.

Recall the immense impact of Buddha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, and Muhammad. The course of world history would also have been very different if Alexander the Great had not refused an offer no sane man would refuse. Or if General George Washington had followed the example of Oliver Cromwell and the urgings of his fellow officers. Imagine if Deng Xiaoping had stuck to the teachings of the Great Helmsman, Mao Zedong. This raises intriguing questions. Why were these leaders so successful? How did they get others on board? What was their primary leadership style and what was behind that, and how can we learn from them today? Which leadership insights can we acquire through the lens of history? These questions motivated me to write this book.

Everybody can improve their leadership qualities by reading about other leaders, how they resolved their dilemmas, and why they were successful. Take Alexander the Great and Dr. Martin Luther King. Both drew inspiration, and learned, from historical examples—Achilles and Xenophon in the case of Alexander, Mahatma Gandhi for King. If these men, who routinely are ranked among the greatest leaders of all time, turn to the lives and leadership example of previous leaders to improve their leadership skills, then so can we, lesser mortals, to an even greater extent. Niccolò Machiavelli understood that well. In Il Principe (The Prince), one of the most important political treatises ever written, he wrote that among all his possessions, none was prized as much as a knowledge of the actions of great men. In the second century A.D., in his seminal book Parallel Lives, Plutarch drew leadership lessons from a series of concise biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in tandem. President Harry S. Truman kept a copy of Parallel Lives at hand in the White House. He said that in Plutarch’s book, he could find everything worth knowing about the leaders of his time—how they behaved, what made them tick.

This book is about the actions of great men and women, and what we can learn from them. It is not a theoretical treatise on leadership; rather, it illustrates leadership through the actual lives of great leaders—and derives lessons that are relevant for us here and now. Having taught for nearly forty years, I recognize that most people learn more, and better remember what they have learned, from case studies than from theoretical expositions. You will encounter real people making real decisions, and experience the struggles they faced and the hurdles they had to overcome.

Still, you may wonder what you can learn from historical leaders. Is not everything different today? Actually, it is not. As the French say, l’Histoire se répète (History repeats itself). As of this writing, I could effortlessly identify leaders of different shades and qualities in politics, business, public service, and nonprofits, ranging from consensus-minded to authoritarian, from deeply ethical to opportunistic, from humble to narcissistic, all mirroring the historical leaders in this book. It is critical to realize that with the test of time, people’s evaluation and understanding of a person’s leadership qualities can change dramatically, making leaders that have endured particularly relevant. Consider three examples of recent hallowed leaders who have fallen from their pedestal.

1. Any leadership book written in 2000 would have included a hagiography of General Electric’s CEO Jack Welch, who in 1999 was named Manager of the Century by Fortune magazine. Yet the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 laid bare the toxic foundations of the edifice Welch built.

2. Mark Zuckerberg was hailed as one of the world’s greatest business leaders only shortly before the scandal over Facebook’s privacy practices broke. His shaky and evasive performance in U.S. congressional and European parliament hearings led many to doubt his ability to run such a powerful company.

3. Carlos Ghosn was regarded as a visionary titan, a man who had the foresight to build the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance into one of the biggest players in the automotive industry. While I was writing this book, he fell from grace and many of the achievements held up during the Ghosn years have been revealed to be smoke and mirrors.

The advantage in turning to historical persons for leadership lessons is that their virtues and vices, their accomplishments and failures, are by now firmly established. My view is inspired by Peter Drucker, whom many regard as the most influential management thinker and consultant of the twentieth century. In a 2016 article in the Harvard Business Review, entitled Why Peter Drucker’s Writing Still Feels So Relevant, Hermann Simon, founder of the global strategy consultancy Simon-Kucher & Partners and a management guru in his own right, asked Drucker whether he considered himself more a historical writer or a management thinker. More a historical writer, Drucker answered. He explained that the human being has changed relatively little during the known course of history. We therefore gain more valuable leadership insights from historical analogies and examples rather than by embracing the latest management fads.

Drucker’s view is echoed in an insightful article called History Lessons that appeared in August 2018 in The Economist. The article argued that running a country is a greater test than running a corporation, and those who have passed through the fire surely have something to teach modern-day [corporate] managers. The article briefly discussed leadership lessons that can be gleaned from great historical figures, and concluded, Bosses should read more history books. This is sound advice but history books are not generally written with leadership lessons in mind, and biographies tend to be long—for example, a recent biography of Deng Xiaoping is nine hundred pages.

This book fills the void by providing compact descriptions of multiple past great leaders and the leadership lessons today’s (corporate) managers can learn from their actions.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS BOOK IS a product of five decades of my study of great leaders— reading countless biographies, studying them in a wider context in general history books, observing others in action, and applying these leadership lessons in practice—in the multitude of leadership positions I have held in many organizations in various countries and continents. I am grateful for my colleagues in all these and other organizations.

My greatest mentor on everything concerning leadership was my late father. I am supremely fortunate to have had a role model who was a successful leader in every domain he was active in, from politics (president of the Netherlands Senate, founder of the Christian Democratic Party) to business (CEO of our family’s food company De Hoorn, independent director of a dozen companies, including KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and ING), from academia (dean at Eindhoven University of Technology) to nonprofits (chairman of the Pastoral Council of the Catholic Church in the Netherlands, vice chairman of Catharina Hospital). My father took his leadership cues from historical leaders, and before I was even a teenager he spent his (admittedly limited) spare time explaining to me what we can learn from historical figures. He would have loved to read this book.

My late mother tutored me on the importance of ethics and to never compromise on my core beliefs. My eldest brother, Thomas, was a mayor for more than twenty-five years, and he demonstrated the importance of developing and nurturing relationships with followers. My middle brother, Paulus, was a senior manager at Royal Dutch Shell and a board member of the Shell-BASF joint venture, and is vice president of the Navigators Europe, a nonprofit organization. He taught me some of the challenges posed by leading very different organizations. My wife, Valarie Zeithaml Steenkamp, was chairman of the American Marketing Association and senior associate dean at the Kenan-Flagler Business School. She taught me how to read people and understand what makes them tick. Her undergraduate degree in psychology nicely complements my undergraduate degree in economics. My Doktorvater (PhD supervisor) Thieu Meulenberg instructed me on the rigors of academic thinking. I have benefited tremendously by learning from all my mentors, testing my ideas, and observing their behaviors.

I am deeply grateful to all the executives, leadership experts, and history scholars with whom I have discussed my ideas and whose valuable feedback made the book much stronger. I want to acknowledge with special gratitude my brother Paulus, who read the entire manuscript, line by line, and gave me unvarnished Dutch-style comments. He also served as an invaluable sounding board for my ideas, and provided many invaluable recommendations to make them better. Tojin Eapen (University of Missouri) also gave incisive suggestions spanning the entire book. I thank Dave Hofmann, senior associate dean at UNC and renowned leadership expert, for his encouragement and his willingness to generously share his deep knowledge on the theory and measurement of leadership with me.

I thank Kate Bollinger (independent medieval historian), Steven M. Burgess (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa), Maj. Dan Finkenstadt (Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey), Fiona Fitzpatrick (Fiona Fitz Consulting), Lt. Col. Karen Landale (United States Air Force), Miguel Angel Lopez Lomeli (ITESM, Mexico), Mark McNeilly (Lenovo), Markus Saba (Eli Lilly), and Col. Todd Woodruff (West Point) for providing feedback on parts of the manuscript. I thank Erin Mitchell for proofreading the manuscript and Frank Wagenknecht for preparing all the maps. Finally, I thank Sabrina Baker, my personal trainer at the Meadowmont Wellness Center, who always reminds me of the old Roman wisdom mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body).

Finally, I want to acknowledge all those who hold leadership positions in companies, nonprofit organizations, and the public sector. If they find this book useful, it is worth all of my efforts.

1

LEADERS AND LEADERSHIP TYPES

LEADERSHIP HAS BEEN a feature of humanity since its early beginnings. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, our ancestors hunted big animals for survival. When hunters faced prey that could overpower them, coordination was needed, and coordination required leadership. Leadership became ever more important as the complexity of human societies increased: from small bands of hunter-gatherers (twenty to fifty people) to villages (several hundreds of people) to cities (several thousands of people) to kingdoms encompassing many cities (several hundreds of thousands of people) to empires (millions of people).¹ And, as human complexity increased, the number of leaders, and the complexity of the demands placed upon them, increased.

Today’s complex society would come to a standstill without leadership. It is not an exaggeration to state that leadership is one of the key issues of our times. Countless people occupy leadership positions, whether in government, companies, churches, nongovernmental organizations, schools, nonprofit organizations, or elsewhere. Leadership courses and programs are among the most popular offerings in the executive development programs of many business schools. For example, at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, programs for which the majority of content is about leadership account for two-thirds of the total revenue of Executive Development. When I did a Google search on leadership, I got over five billion hits! Clearly, leadership is on the minds of many people.

WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?

Leadership is the ability of an individual to influence others to achieve a common goal.² This definition contains five components. First, leadership is relational. It exists only in relation to followers. Without followers, there is no leader. Second, leadership involves influence. Without influence, leadership does not exist. But where does influence come from? The most obvious source is positional authority. The CEO of a corporation has more influence than an assembly-line worker. Yet, you can also influence followers over whom you have no authority by methods such as rational persuasion, inspirational appeal, consultation, ingratiation, personal appeal, forming a coalition, or relentless pressure.³

Third, leadership is a process. Leadership usually does not happen in just one particular instance, but often involves a complex system of moves/ actions to accomplish a goal over a period of time. Fourth, leadership includes attention to common goals. By common, I mean that leader and followers have a mutual purpose. Leaders direct their energies toward others to achieve something together. This requires awareness of the current state, some vision of a desired future, and an ability to move from where you are to where you want to be.

Finally, leadership is about coping with change. The common goals are often different from what the organization has done hitherto. Part of the reason why leadership is so important is that the (business) world has become more competitive and volatile. Major changes occur ever more often and are more and more necessary to survive and compete effectively in this new environment. As leadership thinker John Kotter puts it, More change always demands more leadership.⁴

LEADERSHIP TRAITS

Leadership scholars have long debated what makes great leaders. Do great leaders need to have particular traits? Academic research has identified a long list, which includes the following core qualities:

•Intelligence: a person’s ability to learn information, to apply it to life tasks, and solve complex problems.

•Self-confidence: the ability to be certain about one’s own competencies and skills. It includes a sense of self-esteem and self-assurance and the belief that one can make a difference.

•Integrity: the quality of honesty and trustworthiness. Leaders that have integrity are believable and worthy of our trust.

•Sociability: the inclination to seek out and develop relational networks. Leaders who show sociability are friendly, courteous, tactful, and diplomatic.

•Emotional intelligence: the ability to identify, control, and express one’s own emotions, as well as the ability to handle relationships with others judiciously and empathetically.

•Humility: the quality of not thinking you are better than other people. It does not imply low self-esteem but rather a keen sense of one’s own