Christopher Bones is Professor of Creativity and Leadership at Manchester Business School. He is also Dean Emeritus of Henley Business School. In the course of his 22 year career in business, he has worked at companies including Cadbury Schweppes, Shell and Diageo. He is also a highly-regarded public commentator on leadership, management and HR.

He is the author of one previous book The Self-Reliant Manager.

The Cult of the Leader

A Manifesto for More Authentic BusinessBy Christopher Bones

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-66604-3

Chapter One

Practically Perfect in Every Way The Making of the Modern Leader

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LEADER

The Modern Leader is, like all of us, a result of inheritance. Our genetic forefathers shaped our physical strengths and weaknesses and our intellectual potential. Much of who we are in these dimensions is as a result of history (and pre-history). What we do with this inheritance, however, is not pre-determined. Today’s leaders are the product therefore of two specific things: the historical development of leadership and the environment in which they operate. This chapter deals with the historical development of the cult of the leader, the two that follow will deal with the current environment: combined they present a proposition as to why the modern leader has failed.

In the cult of the leader, history matters. We have an inherited way of living in tribes which is at the heart of the way that we, as a species, have evolved. As with other primates, pecking orders and leadership roles have always been with us. What differentiates us from other primates is our ability for rational thought and as this has developed so we have applied it to leadership as we have to so many other aspects of our lives. From the earliest beginnings of recorded thought man has reflected on the nature of success in leadership. The earliest civilizations recorded and celebrated the achievements of their leaders and in those civilizations where deities took human forms, they too were given attributes associated with the human experience of leaders in real life. Not just in the writings of historians, writers and poets but also in the pictures and sculptures of each tradition we have built through time an image of leaders and their characteristics: whether these were good, bad or indifferent.

Clearly whilst alive, powerful leaders went out of their way to ensure that stories about them and the images that were employed to portray them reinforced their right to lead and the basis of their power. In a world where the majority did not read or write and where brute force, superstition and religion played as much as role in the acceptance of a leader as any sophisticated justification of hereditary, judicial or democratic right, portraiture developed a very significant role in communicating and reinforcing the role of the leader.

Since the early renaissance, art developed a very sophisticated ability to reflect upon the nature of leadership. Arguably this came about initially as a result of patronage in that those with the wealth from positions of economic, social or religious power retained and sponsored artists and in return were portrayed by them in return. Over centuries, as artists continued to be sponsored by the powerful they developed an iconography and a presentation of power that has shaped a significant part of the inheritance of leaders in modern organizations. The history of the representation of the leader in art shows us the degree of conditioning within which leaders have grown up and how the continuing sense of their own position and perspective of many of those in leadership roles has been shaped. Leadership became embodied in a single leader and as the leader became the embodiment of the state so this set the scene for the leader in other contexts to become the embodiment of their own organization.

European art was transformed with the development of new understandings of perspective that transformed the flat, Byzantine-style two dimensional representations of the dark ages into the figurative, three dimensional realism that appeared in the 13th century. Art historians have identified the pioneering techniques of Giotto Di Bondone and his followers as a significant transformation which enabled a shift in subject matter for the visual arts from the predominantly religious to embrace far more realistic representations of the secular. As art techniques progressed and as artists became more sophisticated in their representation of the human condition so they were able to tell much more sophisticated and complex stories in their pictures. Leaders become flattered by those artists whom they patronized and were placed at the heart of society and at its highest point. What finally developed was the presentation of the leader as next only to God, the leader as God’s representative on earth, the leader as the embodiment of us all and as above all others bar God. In the 14th and 15th centuries even renaissance leaders in supposedly democratic Florence and other city-states found way of reinforcing themselves as ‘primus inter pares’ (first amongst equals) whilst later, more autocratic leaders firmly dispensed with this humility and had themselves presented as the apotheosis of human achievement.

Renaissance painters used heavy symbolism to underline the importance of the secular power at a time when the power of the church was significantly greater than that of any secular leader. One of the leading practitioners of this approach was Sandro Botticelli (c. 1446–1510) and the most famous representation of his approach hangs in the Uffizi gallery in Florence: “The Adoration of the Kings’. This shows the story of the Christian Holy Family receiving the adoration of the magi. Here, however, is not only an image of a story known by everyone who would have seen the picture when it was first displayed, but also a stark representation of the power and importance of the Medici family, the first and foremost of the merchant princes of Florence. For the magi kneeling at the feet of Christ is the most powerful man in Florence, Cosimo Medici. By placing him next to the Son of God himself Botticelli is telling everyone in Florence to whom they have to pay homage as leader. The representation does not stop here, but goes on to reinforce the power of the dynasty by including in the painting two further generations of Medici: Cosimo’s son Piero and grandson Giovanni.

As the renaissance developed its fascination with things classical, the pre-industrial age in Europe often used Greco-Roman or local mythology to portray its kings, generals and grand citizenry in the guise of the Caesars, or with allusions to local and well understood legends such as those from Arthurian, Germanic or Norse tales. As the 18th century progressed so the leader moved from a paragon of virtues associated with Aristotle’s leader (learned, artistic, a sportsman as well as a general) to being portrayed as the source of power. The symbols and trappings of the state (crowns, sceptres, orbs, ermine and the like) as representations of the power of armed force came to the fore. So much so that revolutionaries once in possession of power employ exactly the same allusions as those whom they have deposed.

The renaissance leader, informed by the counsel of Machiavelli, developed into a leader who presented himself as the source of all: ‘L’Etat c’est moi’ said Louis XIV to the Parlement de Paris in 1655. This reflected the philosophical proposition that directly connected kings to God and made them the dispenser of justice, of position in society and ultimately of wealth. He is portrayed in a series of paintings by all of the great artists of the day. The most famous is probably by Henri Testelin (1616–1695) and is an example of how the artist was able to tell this story through a single image. Louis commands his throne with a firm grip on the symbols of power. At his feet is the world, represented by the globe, showing his dominance even over other kings and images of learning, of wisdom (the Greek head) and of scientific understanding (the trigonometry instruments). His hand rests on a child, representing him as the father of the nation as well as the father in the family.

Whilst in England this belief in the inherited right from God of kings to rule without let or hindrance cost Charles I his head and the monarchy its primacy over parliament, in much of Europe this leadership model was reinforced during the latter part of the 18th century by the Hapsburgs, the Hohenzollerns, the Bourbons (in Spain and in France) and the Romanovs. This era of the enlightened autocrat developed the theme of ‘father or mother of the nation’ acting on behalf of their children as all parents do because they knew best. This leader was benign, a leader who was committed to the well-being of the nation, who was forward-looking and interested in the life of every subject. They were wise and all powerful. For those who accepted this settlement of power within the state the enlightened autocrat protected them from injustice within and from enemies without. They were reformers, yet in no sense were they democrats nor were they interested in sharing power. They controlled the reins of central power and were ruthless in removing privileges from provinces, representative assemblies and religious organizations, especially those associated with taxation or with exercising any degree of control or restraint over the monarch’s ability to enact legislation and dispense justice. For those who attacked the state, and the status quo within in it, there was to be neither tolerance nor mercy. They ran highly disciplined police forces and secret services, they employed informers and used their power to imprison without trial, to exile (internally and externally) and to murder. They often ascended their thrones as a result of violence and many died violently. As well as brute force, these leaders employed extravagant display, wealth and external show to demonstrate their power and their permanence. Their courtiers, cardinals and catamites did likewise.

Joseph II of Austria (1741–1790) was arguably the greatest exponent of Enlightened Autocracy. His portrait by Joseph Hickel (1736–1807) is a wonderful example of the development of the cult of the leader in the 18th century. It shows Joseph in his finery, wearing his honours next to a sculpture of Minerva the goddess of wisdom and between them an owl representing knowledge. Here is the leader as all wise, all knowing and all powerful, utilizing these super-human attributes for the good of those he rules over. Despite the shifts in the balance of power between the rulers and the ruled in the intervening two hundred and fifty years and the introduction of the concept of a universal franchise for the appointment of people to executive office the presentation of many modern leaders in all walks of life is not much different.

In some ways this shouldn’t surprise us. If one looks at the development of the business leader in generation after generation we can see a progression from the economic radicalism of the entrepreneur to the social conservatism of the respected elder. As societies developed and the ownership of land became the defining attribute of power so those in ‘trade’ and later in ‘production’ looked to acquire social standing with the wealth they created. In so doing they aped the pretensions and the practices of those with political and social power in society. The industrial revolution may well have brought a radical shift in power and influence in favour of those who owned capital rather than land, but it didn’t change the leadership paradigm. To confirm their status in 18th and 19th century society these newly rich bought estates, acquired aristocratic titles, sat in parliaments and presented themselves as leaders in the same way as those who were born into leadership roles. The acceptability of business came much later to society’s leaders than that of the church or parliament or the professions. Whilst no-one could doubt the economic muscle, it was conforming to social norms of leadership status that eventually secured these new men their acceptance. Business leaders shaped themselves in the mould of the formerly omnipotent.

The modern inheritors of this tradition of faithful representation of the person, both in painting and in photography, show the leaders of today as thoughtful, considered and as socially conservative as their predecessors. They sit in solid chairs reminiscent of the thrones of the kings of old. They often hold representations of their power or achievements or appear against backgrounds that tell their story. These representations are used to communicate leadership traits that people want to see: reliability, prudence and trustworthiness. Even with the advent of television and radio these images continue to play as significant a part in the public relations agenda for today’s leaders as they have ever done. They are consistently presented in ways that remind us of their importance, their insightfulness and their infallibility. The difference in today’s less deferential world is that these images can be used to undermine the pretensions of leadership just as much as they can reinforce them.

In recent times the image and positioning of the leader as the incarnation of the state has been used to great effect, most notably in the UK where a recent report on the removal of democratic accountability of the government was presented under a cover showing Tony Blair’s face superimposed on the famous portrait of Louis XIV, with the title: ‘L’ etat, c’est moi?’. If art is a mirror of society then what it tells us is this: whilst we may want to see changes to how leaders behave, one of the big constraints we face is that our leaders still carry the expectations set by their predecessors. We want them to know the answers, to understand our needs and aspirations, to solve our problems and to protect us from ourselves as much as from others. In fact, the model of leadership still expected and applied in the early part of the 21st century is that of parent. From renaissance princes through imperialism to the 20th century’s dictators so many of history’s leaders have styled themselves as ‘fathers’ or ‘mothers’ of the nation (the modern tribe). Leaders within these tribes (such as leaders in organizations) sit in organizational structures that reinforce these expectations. They are still judged by performance models that reinforce the importance of infallibility.

Malcolm Higgs offers us an historical assessment of the development of the understanding of leadership taking Plato’s proposition that ‘society values whatever is honoured there’ as his starting point. He usefully divides mankind’s exploration of leadership into four historical phases: classical, renaissance, industrial and modern, recording the dominant discourse and defining each age through the eyes of the major thinkers on the nature of the leadership of the day.

This modern concept of leadership is not that promoted by Aristotle of a virtuous leader as the servant of the state, democratically (however restricted the franchise) appointed and accountable to others for their leadership. Nor does it resonate fully with Machievelli’s renaissance prince where coalition, alliance and the search for common ground drives achievement of ambition for the city-state. It is the direct inheritor of the concept of enlightened absolutism where the leader is firmly established as the state appointed by birth and accountable to themselves and of course God. Importantly, as they were God’s appointed representative on earth they were the only person apart from the Pope – mercifully far less powerful by this time – who could articulate with assurance whatever the divine purpose was. So for all intents and purposes they were it.

Whilst birth has been replaced in political leadership – though not expunged if we consider the Kennedys in America, the Mitterands in France and the Churchills and the Pakenhams in the UK – it still plays a role in business, especially in financial services and in the media where family dynasties run their organizations with the same streak of ruthlessness as an 18th century despot. Even if the appointment process has been more open, once appointed, chief executives in public as well as private companies can and do exhibit the same characteristics and behaviour.

The global financial crisis has exposed the hubris and despotic tendencies of the leaders of many of the world’s largest banks and insurance companies. Before them came the leaders of Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat and others such as Robert Maxwell, all of whom lived like kings and many of whom behaved like tyrants. Elected political leaders too, regardless of their position on the left – right spectrum, seem to have the same propensity as their counterparts in business to assume the mantle of the enlightened autocrat. In Europe most French Presidents since DeGaulle have upheld the autocratic tradition and today Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are examples of the historical autocratic leadership traditions in their own cultures. In the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s use of executive power has ensured his place in history as one of the most controlling leaders of government in the last 100 years.

(Continues…)

Excerpted from The Cult of the Leaderby Christopher Bones Copyright © 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Excerpted by permission of John Wiley & Sons. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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