History of Leadership
Understanding Leadership
By:
Crawford, Brungardt, and
Maughan
Eras of Leadership
Tribal
 Pre-Classical
 Classical
 Progressive
 Post-Progressive

Tribal Leadership
Role of coordinator and skilled expert
 Directive and task-oriented
 Leaders were “elected” based on size,
strength, and agility
 Leadership based on fear
 Family leadership

Implications for Tribal Leaders
Brute force accepted, fear-based
 Survival skills rule, but social skills are a
plus
 Coordinator, skilled expert

Implications for Tribal
Followers
Failure to follow leads to death
 Follower’s role important for tribal
success
 Long-term power derived from survival
skills

Pre-Classical Leadership
Concerned with spirituality
 Claimed divinity
 Death was feared
 Kings and queens

Implications for Pre-Classical
Leaders
Spiritually or magically endowed
 Male dominant
 Kings and church in collusion
 Brutality and oppression justified

Implications for Pre-Classical
Followers
Subservient role
 Vessels to be filled with spiritual
teachings or law
 Subhuman treatment accepted
 Follow because of or through fear

Classical Leadership
Production at minimal costs
 Stability
 Workers are inefficient
 Do what it takes to get the job done
 Division of labor
 Organize, control, command, decide,
and manipulate for results

Implications for Classical
Leaders
Production at all costs
 Labor is infinite
 Leaders lead and divide labor
 Organize, control, command, decide,
and manipulate for results

Implications for Classical
Followers
Hard work expected, and “builds
character”
 Chaos is the downfall of the policydriven organization
 No one is indispensable
 Workers considered lazy and inefficient

Progressive Leadership
The change game
 Increase quality
 Total Quality Management (TQM)
 Empowerment

Implications for Progressive
Leaders
Stability no longer the key
 Change game, TQM, and re-engineering
 Change agent, visionary for
transformational change
 Empowerment is the mantra, “Unlock
the potential of everyone”

Implications for Progressive
Followers
Everyone has a worth value
 Collaboration means more power for
followers, shared power
 Intimate involvement with total
organizational change
 Needs met on management’s terms

Post-Progressive Leadership
Addresses the post-industrial world
 Must be sensitive to the demands of the
information society and post Cold War
world
 Social change models

Implications for PostProgressive Leaders
Answers to issues in the post-industrial
world
 New democratic agenda
 Social change, collaboration, and risk
leadership models

Implications for PostProgressive Followers
Collaboration and agenda building are
the new roles of the follower
 Equal partner in the leadership
relationship
 Followers’ needs met
