1A. Immature Leadership: President Trump?
Peter Milhado, an American psychologist, identified about 10 years ago characteristics of men who never grow up. First, I will summarize what he describes as their key attributes. Subsequently, I will explore Theo Veldsman’s view of immature leadership. The reader can determine the extent to which these analyses describe Trump and help to explain the nature of his leadership.
Milhado’s puer aeturnus
To Milhado, a puer aeturnus believes masculinity is vitally important. This sense of masculinity must be won by struggle, by taking a stand, overcoming inertia, deciding and acting more by gaining muscle and competence in the world of men.… Read the rest
1B. Immature Leadership: President Trump?
A very recent paper by Scott Allison and others from the University of Richmond focuses directly on immature leadership and Donald Trump. The paper explores what it means for a person to show maturity as a leader. It also describes the developmental stages required to demonstrate mature leadership. The authors suggest the pinnacle of mature leadership is what they label as heroic transforming leadership. Two characteristics mark such leadership: unitive consciousness and non-dualistic thinking.
Unitive Consciousness
In Western society the authors suggest one becomes a mature leader by a process of becoming a hero. At the conclusion of this journey the hero is transformed into a wise elder.… Read the rest
Intellectual Humility
What might be a good candidate for a necessary personality characteristic for leading in complex, uncertain, and ambiguous times? I would nominate intellectual humility. IH involves recognizing that one’s beliefs and opinions may be incorrect. I note its resemblance to the notion of fallibilism in pragmatic philosophy, where one acknowledges that a personal belief may be fallible.
Psychological research sees intellectual humility as independent, different, from low self-confidence and even from the general notion of humility. Intellectual humility (IH) deals with how people think about themselves and the world. One might consider it a meta-cognitive that involves how one thinks about one’s thoughts.… Read the rest
Hubristic Leadership and Trump (1 of 2)
The media most prominently mention narcissism as Trump’s key personality characteristic. I will discuss this topic in a later post. Although Trump’s narcissism influences the way he leads, I think the hubris personality characteristic best explains Trump’s leadership. Unlike narcissism hubris does not have a common, clear definition. Hubris, however, has enough clarity to allow its use in connection with leadership. Hubris also has some similarity to two other concepts found in the leadership literature, core self-evaluation and intuition.
The research literature sees hubris as an acquired personality disorder characterized by recklessness, contempt, and lack of attention to details. This disorder becomes manifest in the holding of largely unfettered power.… Read the rest
Hubris, Trump, and Leadership (2 of 2)
Given the dangers, sometimes very significant, of hubristic decision making and leadership, what can minimize or prevent dangerous overreach by leaders? Unfortunately, the very adverse consequences of hubristic leaders are often not known ahead of time, which makes for a particularly difficult challenge. Also, the past successes of hubristic leaders often make them unwilling or unable to change.
In political circles doubt often becomes a luxury the hubristic leader sees as unaffordable. This adverse belief about doubt becomes compelling when the leader surrounds himself or herself with “yes” persons. Trump faces an especially difficult situation because he operated his real estate and branding businesses as a small family business where he alone made all the key decisions.… Read the rest
Sane Leadership
The title of Margaret Wheatley’s new book, Who Do We Choose to Be? Facing Reality Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity intrigued me enough to read it. Facing reality means knowing where we are now and how we got here. Claiming leadership means determining the role of leaders now. And restoring sanity means creating islands of sanity. As with her prior books, one cannot easily summarize it. Rather, I will try focus on the leadership core of her book.
Sane leadership and local leadership comprise the major threads of her leadership discourse. If I had to pick out her core focus it would be this: Sane leadership is the unshakeable faith in people’s capacity to be generous, creative, and kind.… Read the rest
Leading through Wise Reasoning
Wisdom and leading might seem an obvious pairing. However, the subject index in the Sage Handbook on Leadership (2011) identifies the word “wisdom” exactly zero times. Perhaps scholars and practitioners just assume that effective leaders are also wise leaders. Perhaps the difficulty of either measuring the concept or even having near consensus concept’s dimension prevents scholarly research on the possible link between leading and wisdom. (A good overview of these issues can be found here.) Yet most people possess a certain understanding or view of wisdom. Wisdom in this common sense often means knowledge and experience that produces a set of abilities in a person.… Read the rest
The 2016 Election through a Leadership Theory Lens
Donna Ladkin, an American citizen, currently teaches at the Graduate School of Management at Plymouth University in Plymouth, United Kingdom. I find her leadership theory, perhaps best described as a framework for analyzing leadership, very useful. She is one of my favorite leadership scholars because of the way her “leadership moment” sees leadership. This post focuses on a recently published article entitled “How did that happen? Making sense of the 2016 US presidential election through the lens of the ‘leadership moment.'”
The leadership moment framework
Ladkin sees leadership as a dynamic and lived experience, not a set of traits or behavior.… Read the rest
A Follower-Centric Approach to Trump’s Election
To the extent that leadership scholars examine Trump as a leader, followers play a significant role in studying Trump and leadership. This post continues that theme. Carsten, Bligh, Kohles, and Wing-Yan Lau analyze how Trump’s rhetoric may have attracted followers with certain characteristics.
Trump’s rhetoric and behavior leading up to his election bewildered many people. Dictionary.com added the phrase “fake news” into its lexicon for the first time largely based on Trump’s usage of that term. Some see in Trump’s election the full-blown advent of the “post-truth era.” Truth blurs into falsity and vice-versa in this era. Emotions and one’s personal beliefs become more important than hard facts.… Read the rest
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