'Strong' Leadership - an overrated quality? Some lessons from the political realm

Why do we have a fashionable bias toward 'strong' or tough leaders versus effective leaders? What about leaders that appear not so tough according to conventional wisdom, but are effective and contribute in far more significant ways? Perhaps leaders for whom being 'strong' is not their most unique quality, or those who may even appear 'seemingly weak', are more likely to be consultative with colleagues and work for the betterment of her/his team, constituents, society or whomever s/he is accountable to.

Oxford Professor Emeritus of Politics, Archie Brown in his book The Myth of the Strong Leader analyzes the record and performance of world leaders from the 20th century from across the globe and makes the case that the notion of a seemingly strong leader is a myth, and that true strength is not what it often appears to be at the surface. The allegedly weak leader, who consults with colleagues and moves with caution in his assessment often yields greater success. Prof. Brown explores the apparent strength and performance of a broad range of leaders from Lincoln (the only pre-20th century leader in the book) to Churchill, Thatcher, Blair, De Gaulle, FDR, LBJ, Stalin, Gorbachev, Putin, Kohl, FW de Klerk and Mandela, just to name a few.

While his examples and conclusions are from the political realm, assuming you buy into his thesis, I would argue that in the context of leadership there is much to glean from these insights, as they relate to our own perceptions of leaders and CEOs in the business or other realms.

Professor Brown’s book also made it into Bill Gates’ top 5 books he read in 2016, according to gatesnotes.com. Others included String Theory (David Foster Wallace), Shoe Dog (Paul Knight), The Gene (Siddhartha Mukherjee) and The Grid (Gretchen Bakke).