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The Power of Collegial Leadership
Harry Truman exemplifies effective leadership without domineering control. Though initially distrusting the State Department as working "against the best interests of the US," Truman evolved to cede substantial authority to Secretaries Marshall and Acheson, treating them with respect. Truman recognized the limits of presidential power, famously noting: "I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them."
Despite his collegial style, Truman showed decisive leadership when necessary, dismissing Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace in 1946 for pursuing an independent foreign policy, and recalling General Douglas MacArthur in 1951 for "rank insubordination" despite massive public backlash. Truman's greatest foreign policy achievement-the Marshall Plan-characteristically bears his Secretary of State's name rather than his own, demonstrating his collaborative approach.
While political careers often end in failure-through electoral defeat or being forced out by colleagues-there persists a widespread assumption that concentrating power in one individual's hands is beneficial in a democracy. This occurs despite evidence that both countries and such leaders eventually pay a price. Some individual leaders like Margaret Thatcher can make enormous differences in public policy, even redefining political debates, though their leadership style may ultimately lead to hubris and downfall.
Economic depression often strengthens the myth that a strong, charismatic individual will provide answers to serious problems, as illustrated by the rise of Mussolini and Hitler during the interwar period. However, leadership defies simple dichotomies like "charismatic vs. bureaucratic" or "strong vs. weak." This book particularly challenges the notion that domineering leadership is desirable, as many such leaders have failed monumentally.
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The Context of Leadership
Leadership must be understood within specific contexts-historical, cultural, psychological and institutional. What constitutes appropriate leadership varies dramatically between wartime and peace, crisis and calm periods, and different political circumstances. "Strong" leadership is not synonymous with good leadership, as effectiveness depends on appropriate responses to particular settings and times.
The evolution of government and thinking about leadership has been dramatic over centuries. Adam Smith criticized the concept of "superiority of birth" as a source of authority, noting that "all families are equally ancient" and that family antiquity merely signifies wealth. He was deeply skeptical of concentrating vast power in individuals, arguing that absolute monarchs create only illusory stability. Single rulers, Smith contended, are more prone to "perverse and unreasonable behaviour" than collective governments.
Britain represents the classic case of gradual transformation from absolute monarchy to limited constitutional rule-what some call "democracy on the installment plan." This evolution wasn't smooth but saw dramatic interruptions, most notably during the Civil War (1642-1649) when parliamentary forces defeated and executed Charles I. The subsequent republic under Oliver Cromwell's leadership was short-lived, but left a lasting impression on monarchical power, making kings aware "they had a joint in their neck."
The American Revolution represented one of history's most momentous breaks with monarchy. The Constitution's framers were united in establishing a republican government, though not a democratic one-it preserved slavery and denied voting rights to women, African-Americans, and Native Americans. The presidency was deliberately insulated from "popular majorities and congressional rule," with the electoral college designed to place the choice of president in the hands of exceptional men rather than common citizens.
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Democratic Leadership: Myths and Realities
The widespread belief that leaders' personalities decisively determine election outcomes is largely unfounded. While leaders matter somewhat, their influence is consistently overstated in both media coverage and popular discourse. Despite declining party membership and increased media focus on personalities, comprehensive research across stable democracies finds no clear evidence that leader evaluations have grown more important for voter choice over time. Surprisingly, party loyalists-not swing voters-show stronger leader support, suggesting party identification shapes leader perception rather than vice versa. This pattern holds true across different electoral systems and political cultures.
In British post-war elections, leader evaluations rarely determined outcomes, despite the media's tendency to frame campaigns as presidential-style contests. Harold Wilson may represent the rare exception, potentially making the crucial difference in two extremely close elections-the 1964 contest (when Labour won by just 0.7%) and February 1974 (when Labour led by only 0.8%). These cases are notable precisely because they are unusual, occurring in exceptionally tight races where small factors could tip the balance. Parties can win elections even when their leaders are less popular than opponents-Edward Heath won in 1970 despite trailing Harold Wilson in popularity, and Margaret Thatcher trailed James Callaghan by 24 points just before her 1979 victory. Similar patterns emerge in other Westminster democracies, where parties frequently triumph despite having less charismatic or popular leaders.
Tony Blair's claim that "he won three elections" is particularly questionable and exemplifies the tendency of politicians to overstate their personal impact. Detailed studies show his personality impact on the 1997 election was "negligible." Labour's 1997 landslide owed more to Conservative unpopularity after 18 years in power, their economic mismanagement following "Black Wednesday," and an electoral system that magnifies modest vote increases into large seat majorities. The Conservative Party's internal divisions over Europe, the lasting damage to their economic credibility from the ERM crisis, and voter fatigue with long-term Conservative rule were far more significant factors than Blair's personal appeal.
Recent research has identified several structural factors that typically outweigh leader effects in determining election outcomes: economic performance, term-limit fatigue, major policy failures, and shifting demographic patterns. Even in an era of social media and personalized politics, the fundamental drivers of electoral behavior remain remarkably consistent with patterns observed in the mid-20th century. This suggests that while effective leadership matters for governance, its electoral impact is more limited than commonly assumed.
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Redefining Leadership in Democracies
Redefining leaders in democracies stretch political possibilities and introduce radical policy change. While not all heads of government make significant differences, those who do often reshape the political landscape. Though redefining leadership can come from collective effort or from team members other than the head of government, presidents and prime ministers possess greater opportunities to set government tone and priorities.
The twentieth-century American presidents with the strongest claim to be redefining leaders were Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. Both achieved unusual legislative success by maximizing their political resources within a system that presents formidable impediments to radical domestic policy change.
Roosevelt was a notable redefining leader rather than a transformational one, as he didn't attempt systemic change but instead revitalized the existing economic and political system through imaginative responses to the Depression. FDR consolidated presidential power by creating the Executive Office of the President in 1939, was reluctant to delegate authority, and often played officials against each other to maximize his influence. Though many New Deal measures were conceived by others and required congressional approval, Roosevelt's popularity and political skill made them possible.
Despite his presidency ending in failure due to Vietnam, Johnson achieved remarkable domestic reforms. Though Johnson had previously voted against civil rights legislation as a Southern Democrat, he unexpectedly pushed through a modest Civil Rights Act in 1957 as Senate Majority Leader, paving the way for his landmark legislation of 1964-65. Johnson was notoriously deceitful but possessed "political genius," telling different groups contradictory things with equal conviction. When he became president, his ambition no longer conflicted with his compassion, allowing him to become "a master at transmuting sympathy into governmental action."
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Transformational Political Leadership
Transformational political leadership involves introducing systemic change to a country's political or economic system, or occasionally to the international system itself. Unlike revolutionary leadership, which often employs violence to seize power and coercion to maintain it, transformational leadership achieves profound change without resorting to physical force against opponents.
General Charles de Gaulle strengthened French democracy rather than undermining it, despite his disdain for politicians and parties. Driven by an indomitable belief in France's grandeur and his own destiny, de Gaulle emerged as France's leader-in-exile during World War II after rejecting Marshal Petain's collaboration with Nazi Germany. After briefly heading the post-war provisional government, de Gaulle resigned in 1946, returning to power twelve years later during the Algerian crisis. By 1958, the Fourth Republic was paralyzed by governmental instability and the Algerian war. De Gaulle seized this opportunity to create the Fifth Republic with a powerful presidency and a two-round electoral system that reduced party fragmentation.
Adolfo Suarez, appointed prime minister by King Juan Carlos in 1976 following Franco's death, transformed Spain from dictatorship to democracy through remarkable consensus-building. His most daring achievement was legalizing the Communist Party in 1977-a move that infuriated the military but proved essential for democratic stability. Through skillful negotiations with Communist leader Santiago Carrillo, Suarez secured the party's acceptance of the monarchy, flag, and Spanish unity. Even more remarkably, he persuaded Franco's appointed parliament to vote for its own dissolution, winning a 425-59 vote for his Law on Political Reform.
Mikhail Gorbachev's leadership style was characterized by democratic collegiality and tactical flexibility. In Politburo meetings, he allowed everyone to speak and listened carefully to arguments, often making tactical retreats when facing opposition. Despite never having a majority of like-minded allies in the Politburo, Gorbachev skillfully navigated the conservative membership. As Aleksandr Yakovlev observed, Gorbachev was "the greatest reformer of the century," particularly remarkable for attempting this in Russia "where from time immemorial the fate of reformers has been unenviable."
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The Dangers of Revolutionary Leadership
Transformational leaders aren't the only agents of systemic change-successful revolutionary leaders also create fundamental shifts. However, far more revolutionary leaders fail than succeed. In authoritarian regimes, failed revolutionaries face execution or imprisonment, while in democracies, they typically face only marginalization.
Revolution must be clearly distinguished from other political phenomena. True revolutions involve: (1) large-scale popular involvement; (2) overthrow of existing institutions; (3) establishment of a new legitimizing ideology; and (4) violence before, during or after regime change. After successful revolutions, new leaders often establish regimes no less authoritarian than their predecessors, though differently structured.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 was actually two distinct upheavals-February (March by Western calendar) and October (November)-that transformed the world's largest country. Though sometimes dismissed as merely a coup, this was a genuine revolution that changed both political and economic systems through violent insurrection with substantial popular backing. When the Constituent Assembly election showed stronger support for non-Communist socialists, Lenin simply had the assembly forcibly dissolved after its first session.
The Communist revolutions in Asia proved far more consequential for global politics than those in southeastern Europe, though they shared similar patterns of combining national liberation struggles with revolutionary power seizures. China became the first successful indigenous Communist revolution in Asia (apart from Soviet-puppet Mongolia). Mao skillfully combined Communist ideology with nationalist sentiment, promising to restore Chinese pride after a century and a half of humiliation. When declaring the People's Republic in October 1949, he proclaimed that the Chinese people had "stood up."
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Totalitarian and Authoritarian Leadership
Benito Mussolini was the first dictator to explicitly embrace the term "totalitarian," proudly speaking of "our fierce totalitarian will" and describing his system as lo stato totalitario. The concept gained significant academic and political traction in the 1930s when observers noted striking similarities between Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany, despite their seemingly irreconcilable ideological opposition. Both regimes featured hierarchical single-party systems that positioned themselves superior to governmental institutions, employed extensive political police networks utilizing systematic terror, promoted comprehensive ideological doctrines explaining all aspects of history and society, advanced utopian visions to justify present repression, and cultivated elaborate personality cults around their leaders.
The Soviet Union experienced a period of collective leadership for roughly a decade following the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. While Vladimir Lenin was undoubtedly the most influential figure during this period, he primarily relied on political prestige and ideological persuasion within the party rather than the brutal coercion he readily employed against opponents outside the party structure. However, Lenin's actions created the fundamental preconditions for Stalin's later tyranny through several critical decisions: the systematic destruction of political pluralism, the extreme centralization of power within a single party apparatus, the wholesale rejection of parliamentary politics and judicial independence, and the establishment of the Cheka (political police) as an instrument of state control.
Stalin's rise to absolute power was a gradual process throughout the 1920s, becoming the predominant leader by 1929 and establishing himself as an unquestioned personal dictator by 1933, reaching a point where his proposals went completely unchallenged in the Politburo. He methodically eliminated potential rivals through a combination of political maneuvering and outright violence - exiling Leon Trotsky (who was later assassinated in Mexico on Stalin's orders), executing Nikolai Bukharin and other old revolutionary leaders in carefully orchestrated show trials, and systematically purging party ranks of any perceived opposition. Stalin's aggressive industrialization drive made significant progress in transforming the Soviet Union into an industrial power during the 1930s, but at a staggering human cost in terms of lives lost and suffering endured.
The dictator maintained the political police under his direct personal control, meticulously supervising a massive campaign of repression that saw approximately 1.7 million people arrested during the Great Terror of 1937-38 alone, with at least 818,000 executed. This system of terror extended beyond just political opponents to encompass entire social classes, ethnic groups, and anyone deemed potentially disloyal to the regime. The NKVD (secret police) maintained an extensive network of labor camps known as the Gulag, where millions of Soviet citizens were imprisoned in brutal conditions, providing slave labor for Stalin's industrial projects while simultaneously removing perceived threats to his rule.
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Foreign Policy Illusions of 'Strong Leaders'
Leaders who fancy themselves strong and uniquely insightful are particularly prone to foreign policy errors. Their tendency to discount expert knowledge and discourage uninhibited discussion leads to poorer decisions than those made through more collaborative processes. Authoritarian regimes, especially autocratic ones where dissent from the leader's views is prohibited, typically make worse foreign policy decisions than democracies. This pattern becomes particularly evident in crisis situations, where the isolation of leadership and the suppression of contrary views can lead to catastrophic miscalculations. Historical examples from Mussolini's disastrous entry into World War II to Stalin's initial refusal to believe reports of German invasion plans illustrate this dangerous dynamic.
Hitler's foreign policy successes fed his growing hubris. His takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1939 violated the Munich Agreement and revealed the falsity of his claim to merely unite German peoples. By 1938, as "the most ardent believer in his own infallibility," Hitler grew increasingly reckless, leading Europe into disaster. His most catastrophic mistake was invading the Soviet Union in June 1941, despite the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed just ten months earlier. This decision, driven by his obsessions with gaining Lebensraum and destroying "Jewish Bolshevism," ultimately led to Germany's defeat. Hitler's dismissal of his generals' concerns about a two-front war and his refusal to consider strategic retreat during the Russian winter of 1941-42 exemplified how personal ideology and stubborn self-belief can override military logic.
When examining democracies, Britain provides striking examples of prime ministers who disastrously overvalued their own foreign policy judgment. The clearest cases are Anthony Eden's collusion with France and Israel to invade Egypt in 1956, and Tony Blair's participation in the 2003 Iraq invasion. Both leaders engaged in self-deception, believing what they wanted to believe and disregarding expert advice about likely consequences. While public opinion initially supported these military actions, both leaders misled the public, with Eden's deception being particularly blatant. Eden ignored warnings from his diplomatic corps about the international reaction to seizing the Suez Canal, while Blair dismissed intelligence assessments that questioned claims about Iraq's weapons programs. The Foreign Office's institutional expertise was sidelined in both cases, replaced by small groups of loyal advisers who reinforced the leaders' predetermined views. These cases demonstrate how even democratic systems can fail when leaders become convinced of their superior judgment and create echo chambers that reinforce their beliefs.
The pattern extends beyond Britain and Germany. Modern examples include Putin's miscalculation of Western responses to his actions in Ukraine and George W. Bush's certainty about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In each case, leaders surrounded themselves with agreeable voices and dismissed contradictory evidence, leading to significant strategic errors with long-lasting consequences.
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What Kind of Leadership is Desirable?
American leadership studies often implicitly favor a "great man" view of politics, measuring success by whether presidents get their way. This has influenced assessments of political leaders generally, with dominance mistaken for strength and success, while collaborative leadership is deemed weak. Yet truly transformational leaders who produce systemic change are rare, distinct from redefining leaders who merely stretch political possibilities.
Setting leaders far above their colleagues serves to maximize personal power rather than good governance. In democracies, this often stems from vanity, which Weber called "the deadly enemy of all matter-of-fact devotion to a cause." While Thatcher was more concerned with power as means to uphold values than seeking limelight, she centralized authority in Downing Street. Blair attempted to outdo her, with his chief of staff Jonathan Powell wanting "to move from a feudal to a Napoleonic system" of governance.
The myth of the "strong leader" contains a kernel of truth but is deeply misleading. Dictators like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao did wield enormous power, but the fabrication lies in the idea that such concentrated authority benefited their countries. In reality, their tyrannical rule proved disastrous.
A qualitative difference exists between democratic and authoritarian leadership. Democratic leaders remain accountable to electorates, while authoritarian systems become less dangerous when led by oligarchies rather than autocrats. Yet democracies sometimes unconsciously echo authoritarian leadership principles when politicians and commentators advocate concentrating more power in a single leader's hands.
Leaders in democracies who bypass colleagues, rely on personal attendants rather than their party, and attempt to dominate decision-making across policy areas do a disservice to good governance. They deserve critics, not followers. Electoral victories and policy outcomes are frequently misattributed solely to premiers, when rarely has the leader alone made the difference between victory and defeat.
