The young chief executive sat silently for a minute or two as he studied his notes. ‘Necessary conditions,’ he said. ‘So far we have explored the Qualities of Leadership and identified them as being necessary but not in themselves sufficient. Is that going to be true of the second path up the mountain that you mentioned – the Situational Approach?’
‘In essence this approach answers our key question “Why does one person become accepted as leader?” by declaring that it is not so much on account of any inherent qualities of personality or character, but because of a person’s appropriateness to the given situation. It is memorably expressed in a well-known play by J M Barrie called The Admirable Crichton (1902), where a polymath manservant emerges as the leader of a party that includes his employers in London, shipwrecked on a desert island. In other words, put a person in one situation and they will be accepted as leader; change the situation and they won’t.’
‘What made Crichton so admirable among the castaways?’ the young chief executive asked.
‘Doubtless some qualities such as being cool, calm and collected. But essentially it was because he revealed an encyclopaedic knowledge –he knew what to do when his employers were out of their depth and at a loss. So the critical factor here, as Socrates was the first to identify, is knowledge. There are basically three forms of authority in human affairs, in no order of importance:
positional – when you hold a superior position in a social or organizational hierarchy and have authority within defined limits over what others do;
personality – an inner subjective kind of authority that some individuals possess, which in modern times has been labelled charisma;
knowledge – the authority that stems from technical or professional knowledge, possessed for example by a doctor or an engineer.
The last is best summed up in the saying: Authority flows to the one who knows.’
‘Didn’t you mention Socrates, in connection with Xenophon, as a teacher of leadership?’ asked the young chief executive. ‘Did he discover the Situational Approach?’
‘Difficult to say, as he wrote no articles. But two of his young disciples – Plato and Xenophon – did write articles in the form of dialogues between Socrates and various individuals. How far these later- published dialogues represent actual remembered conversation is a matter for scholarly speculation, but we can be sure that Socrates was the first to teach the Situational Approach, for both Plato and Xenophon teach it and both use the same example of the ship’s captain, who has authority over sailors because he has mastered the skill of navigation, so it must go back to the lips of Socrates.’
‘It must have been quite a revolutionary idea in those days. I suppose he saw democracy as the mechanism that allowed citizens to elect to the various offices those whom they judged to be the best or most knowledgeable candidates?’
‘Absolutely. The corollary is, of course, that you needed an intelligent and discerning electorate as well as well-qualified candidates. Hence the emphasis upon the need to educate for leadership, a philosophy to which one lasting memorial is Plato’s Republic.
‘Socrates’ concept of the knowledge appropriate to a leader – at least through the lens of Xenophon’s mind – is a wide one. It potentially includes, as we have seen, knowledge or understanding of human nature, and knowing how to encourage and enthuse or inspire others with a love of work. But the models Socrates had in mind were the artists and craftsmen of Athens, especially those known for their technical or professional mastery.’
‘I can see the importance of the latter,’ said the young chief executive. ‘But it’s clearly more a necessary condition than a sufficient one, for we all know people who have it in abundance and yet they are not accepted as leaders. It is necessary as a leader to have it, though we could debate how far it has to be specialist or generalist knowledge in the field. Would you agree?’
‘Yes, indeed. The degree of technical or professional knowledge a leader needs depends on the field and their level of responsibility. It is not necessary, for example, for an orchestral conductor to have achieved excellence as a solo instrumentalist, though many have done so.’
‘I am surprised you haven’t told me the origin of the word authority,’ smiled the young chief executive. He reached out and took another slice of gingerbread.
‘A temporary reprieve! My own profession as an author is the clue. An author is someone who begins, begets, originates or creates something. It comes from the Latin verb augere, to grow or to increase. I like the idea that the Roman imperial title Augustus originated from this verb and acquired other meanings later on, so that it was given to the leader who showed that he could grow the empire. But I wouldn’t put money on that piece of etymology.’
‘I can see the link with knowledge. An author or creator has a unique knowledge of the product, how it grew from the seed of an idea to the mature end-result. A conductor has authority, sure, but the true authority on a Mozart symphony must be Mozart. Likewise, a mother is always the chief authority on her child, or as far as any human being can be on another.’
‘You can see, too, why an entrepreneur who builds up a large organization over years, growing it out of the seed of an idea, has a unique authority in that business. Of course that doesn’t make him or her infallible, but that is another matter.’
‘That’s been useful,’ said the young chief executive. ‘Where next? I suppose we have now reached the third approach – Functional Leadership.’