On Leadership by John W. Gardner

Looking back with a bit of surprise, I had not heard of John W. Gardner before I picked up this book at a used book sale. I read a lot of books about leadership, but most are either contextualized into a certain realm-- business, education, ministry-- or they are memoir-esque in their reflection on the experiences of leaders. Books that address leadership from a more theoretical perspective are hard to find, so when I came across On Leadership I quickly bought it.

As I said, I wonder now that I had not heard of Gardner before. Servant and advisor to five U.S. Presidents, Gardner also served as president of the Carnegie Corporation and Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Chairman of the National Urban Coalition, and as the director of several corporations, including Shell Oil, the New York Telephone Company, American Airlines, and Time, Inc. He served as a professor at Standford, the University of California, Connecticut College, and Mount Holyoke College. He was founder of Common Cause and co-founder of Independent Sector. He was the author of seven other books and the editor or co-author of three. He also served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps in World War II. John W. Gardner was a man of distinction nearly unmatched in our day. After his death in 2002, the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities was established in his honor.

Clearly, if ever there was a man qualified to write about leadership, Gardner was that man. And his book rises to meet and exceed expectations.

On Leadership is a textbook for leaders and leaders-in-training. Beginning with a history of leadership, Gardner moves to a summary of the tasks of a leader. From there, he unpacks these tasks in detailed form, examining and defining them through historical and personal anecdote, example, and counter-example. He goes on to discuss how leadership can be developed, and what the current generations must do to fortify the leadership of the future.

Gardner parses the elements of leadership with a precision and clarity that I've rarely encountered. He breaks the attributes of a leader down, for example, into 14 concise descriptions. His confidence is noteworthy: "There is no reason why, with appropriate prudence, we should not discuss attributes often associated with one or another kind of leadership." They are:

1. Physical vitality and stamina
2. Intelligence and judgment-in-action
3. Willingness (eagerness) to accept responsibilities
4. Task competence
5. Understanding of followers/constituents and their needs
6. Skill in dealing with people
7. Need to achieve
8. Capacity to motivate
9. Courage, resolution, steadiness
10. Capacity to win and hold trust
11. Capacity to manage, decide, set priorities
12. Confidence
13. Ascendence, dominance, assertiveness
14. Adaptability, flexibility of approach

While these 14 are, indeed, a healthy list of attributes, Gardner is bold in asserting such a list-- surely his claim has been disputed many times over. Gardner disclaims that his list cannot be held fast as an absolute standard: "the attributes... are not present in every leader. The importance of the attribute to effective leadership varies with the situation." Still, disclaimers aside, Gardner's list strikes me as accurate-- and I can't help but wonder if such accuracy would be possible from a lesser leader.

Far from the cynicism that often permeates the comments about the coming generations, Gardner's words are full of hope mixed with trepidation: he clearly believes that the infant generations of our day have great promise, but fears that the current leadership is not doing enough-- or, in some ways, doing too much of the wrong thing-- to strengthen the leadership of tomorrow. Gardner offers helpful advice for today's leaders to effect better leadership in their proteges. In fact, he practically lays out a syllabus for teaching leadership-- something I might seriously consider proposing at the school where I work.

Though Gardner wrote it in 1990, On Leadership has aged well. I count it as one of the most significant books about leadership that I have read.