A Collective Biography of Twelve World-Class Leaders: A Study on Developing Exemplary Leaders (review)

The foundation of A Collective Biography of Twelve World-Class Leaders was a study intended to develop a holistic view of the influences in the life of an exemplary leader, thus providing a road map for the development of more leaders who are exemplary. The primary objective of the book is to discuss the lives of 12 prominent historical figures and connect their stories to leadership development. Faculty from the disciplines of political science, military science, business management, education, and religious studies were surveyed and asked to each nominate six leaders throughout history who they believed are, or have been, "influential and widely recognized for their accomplishments" (p. 16). In addition, the nominators were asked to identify from their nominations those leaders "whose personal character and values make them truly exemplary" (p. 16). What resulted were two lists of leaders: competent and exemplary. The top two competent and exemplary leaders from each of the disciplines were chosen for the study. The nominations from education and religious studies were discarded because not enough leaders were nominated frequently enough to establish comparison groups. The resulting competent leaders were identified as MacArthur and Patton (Military), Hitler and Mao (Politics), and Ford and Gates (Business). The exemplary subjects were: Marshall and Powell (Military), Gandhi and F. D. Roosevelt (Politics), and Walton and Welch (Business).

The author reviewed biographies and autobiographies of these individuals in order to investigate themes in their life experiences that contributed to their emergence as competent or exemplary leaders. Seven influences that the leaders had in common emerged from the narrative analysis: involved parents, a happy childhood, formal and informal education, prodigious patrons, critics and adversaries, apprenticeships/sequence of successes, and a favorable fate. The largest of these influences was the role of prodigious patrons, or individuals who supported and impacted the leaders throughout their lives. The largest difference that emerged between the competent and exemplary leaders was the presence of a religious influence, whether through formal religious training or connection to a prodigious patron with a strong moral voice. Based on his discoveries, the author built a three-stage model of leadership development.

The book succeeds as a biographical picture of twelve men who had successful and interesting lives. The themes that emerged from their life experiences are interesting, but not entirely surprising. Shoup does an effective job of consolidating volumes of information, and the reader leaves the text with new insights about these individuals. Synthesizing lives and biographies towards the end of examining leadership is a unique contribution to leadership studies.

Shoup also makes very interesting points about the complex nature of leadership (comparing it to facets in a diamond.) He is also one of the few scholars to address early childhood development and its relationship to leadership. This is an area that needs much more examination. Despite this, the book is not effective as a volume on leadership and the development of leaders. The author spends several pages describing the nature of leadership studies, and how the previous paradigms of thinking that focused on Great Men have evolved into more complex views that take personality, situations, and relationships into account. Unfortunately, the book offers a larger contribution to the former than the latter. The underlying and unstated themes of leadership which pervade the book are industrial and individualistic.

Readers may be challenged by the methodology of the study, in that it set up a narrow picture of leadership. Surveying only scholars in only select disciplines was an interesting and somewhat satisfying approach, although flawed (the author utilizes only tier-1 institutions because he believes that "tier-1 university scholars have a broader and deeper knowledge base that makes them much more informed" [p. 16]). The subjects of the book are all men, largely because the academic disciplines are male-dominated. Thus, women and individuals in disciplines like education, fine arts, and social sciences may not connect well with...