Keohane's foundational concepts in leadership theory and practice

¶ … Leadership by Nannel O. Keohane 2010

Nannel Keohane's book, Thinking about Leadership, is an excellent treatise regarding some of the most fundamental concepts of leadership. To the author's credit she is able to corroborate many of her viewpoints with a plethora of sources. Additionally, she discusses both classical and contemporary issues affecting leadership. As such, readers are able to get a comprehensive overview of this topic from a variety of different perspectives and sources. Moreover, the vast majority of the material discussed in this book is directly applicable to issues of decision-making, policy and management. These factors and others make Keohane's manuscript an excellent starting point for individuals looking to study the true science at the core of the phenomenon of leadership.

One of the most salient boons of this narrative is the cohesion and the clarity of structure the author provides. Thinking about Leadership addresses a different notion regarding leadership in each of its six chapters, and brings together the most salient implications of each in a concluding section. The chapters provide a surplus of information regarding the definition of leadership -- which perhaps is alluded to most succinctly in the author's definition that leadership involves setting or clarifying goals for a group and mobilizing energies of others to pursue them. Leaders engage in a number of different kinds of activities to accomplish this work, including making decisions, implementing strategies, and assembling resources (Keohane, 2010, p. 47).

Such a definition naturally places a good deal of emphasis on the role of followers, which is why the second chapter is dedicated to varying types of models used to establish and maintain followership. Other eminent themes in this work are specifically tailored to conventional literary themes, such as the role of gender and the relevance of leadership in a democracy. However, by outlining each chapter with a clear theme (all of which are implied by questions in the titles of the chapters), Keohane ensures a degree of clarity and organization that makes the narrative relatively easy to follow.

Another extremely valuable asset of this book is the wide range of sources tha the authors utilizes to support her notions. Essentially, Keohane stresses the fact that efficacious leadership is based upon temperance. Leaders have a variety of different models that they can employ to strike this balance of judgment in their decision-making process, but such a temperate approach is largely the objective of worthy leadership which requires any combination of "persuasion, strategic calculation, example, incentives, threats, sanctions and rewards" (Keohane, 2010 p. 49). In clarifying this concept through the book's different chapters, Keohane draws on several relevant sources which attest to the veracity of such a position. One of her most frequently cited sources is personal experience. A brief overview of the author's extensive role as a leader for both public and private organizations (which encompasses more than 10 years as president of Wellesley College and Duke University) demonstrates that she certainly has the credentials to offer insights regarding leadership. Additionally, Keohane makes use of political theory, biographies (and some autobiographies) of noted leaders, as well as examples form literature and the scholastic world. Her decision to use such different sources certainly aids to the overall conviction of the book.

The author's primary theme that the best form of leadership involves temperance runs concurrent through the majority of the book's chapters. It certainly is present in her thoughts on the notion of gender in leadership, in which she posits the notion that female leaders tend to embrace collaboration and a sense of caring for their followers more than males do. These proclivities are certainly suggestive of a more balanced form of leadership than what males are known for. One of the most compelling contexts in which she is able to discuss aspects of this theme is in the chapter on democracies. Most Americans are so used to the fact that they live in a democracy that they automatically think such a political system represents the apex of freedom. However, some noted political philosophers (such as Aristotle), have noted that democracies actually are somewhat akin to mob rule. To her credit, Keohane addresses this negative capability of democracies which can become evinced in oligarchies as further evidence that the best forms of leadership temper the seductions and rewards of power with the needs of and compassion for one's followers (Keohane, 2010, p. 175).