Comparing Leadership Styles: Eight Historical Leaders

Introduction: The Nature of Leadership

Politics and social history are dominated by the views of those who shape movements and events. These views include not only the basic assumptions of leaders regarding ideas of human and civil rights, religious values and beliefs, and thoughts on right conduct and appropriate moral behavior, but also the attitudes of those leaders toward how such goals should be attained.

Some leaders espouse only the most peaceful of paths, while others advocate violence. For still others, the pragmatic offers the only solution — they hold in contempt those who cling to high ideals at all costs. Leadership can be gained in numerous ways. It is earned and it is inherited. It is acknowledged only after long struggles, or it is easily won. A leader can appear who guides only his co-religionists, or who frees an entire people or race. Leaders may be heads of governments, or those who strive to oppose those same institutions of coercive control. Indeed, instead of paving a new path, a leader may actually typify — even embody — the ideals of his or her time and place, providing an example that is emulated down through the generations.

Certainly one of the primary qualities of a leader is that individual's ability to serve as an exemplar of a set of ideals. These ideals inspire followers and encourage further action, much of which might require great personal courage and sacrifice. Yet not all leadership requires a loss of the advantages of one's original standing in society. While almost inevitably adding to his or her stature, the natural leader may build upon an already high social rank, using that great advantage. Miyamoto Musashi, Queen Elizabeth I, Jack Welch, Confucius, Niccolò Machiavelli, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are all great leaders whose actions and ideas have inspired human beings in different places and times, and who continue to attract new admirers and believers in their special talents and goals.

Miyamoto Musashi: The Lone Hero

Miyamoto Musashi is an excellent example of the leader as lone hero. Musashi, one of the greatest swordsmen and martial artists in Japanese history, gave to posterity his Book of Five Rings, in which he described his tactics, technique, and martial strategy. An expert with the samurai sword and a truncheon-like, spiked weapon called the jitte, he traveled across Japan engaging his rivals and adversaries in bold feats of combat, always alone, and always outdoing his opponents in skill and cleverness. A follower of Zen Buddhism as well as a master of the sword, Musashi demonstrated that one's state of mind was as important as — if not more important than — one's skill with the blade. The Book of Five Rings stands as a testament to his ability to understand the inner psychology of combat and of striving in all one's endeavors:

"In the science of martial arts, the state of mind should remain the same as normal. In ordinary circumstances as well as when practicing martial arts, let there be no change at all — with the mind open and direct, neither tense nor lax, centering the mind so that there is no imbalance, calmly relax your mind, and savor this moment of ease thoroughly so that the relaxation does not stop its relaxation for even an instant." (Hanh, 2000, p. 128)

Musashi's philosophy and lifestyle were well in tune with the Japan of his day, and continue to serve as inspirations to those who admire the values of traditional Japanese culture. Traditional Japan was a world in which loyalty, devotion to duty, perseverance, and integrity were highly prized. Musashi showed how, by understanding one's own inner being and remaining in tune with the outer world — including the far greater world of the spirit — one could accomplish monumental things for oneself and one's people.

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