Whenever I approach any of the numerous treatises on leadership available nowadays, I always refer to my time teaching at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates. There, the then leader of the country Sheikh Zayed laid a charge upon all faculty and administrators to develop and apply models of leadership suitable for the students, who were Islamic women. For cultural reasons, the women must remain literally in the background but, for developmental reasons, their role was absolutely crucial for the future of the country. As a result, I look for leadership to be more than simple machismo – it must be a quality that can deal with complexity, ambiguity and the need to lead from behind.

Judged on this basis, then, Aaron M. Henderson’s new book, Building Effective Leadership from the Ground Up is a failure. Only one model of leadership is seriously considered: that inspired by the myth of the military – an individual, male, who leads all not just by order but by example. The appearance of various attributes is required but their presence is not. Consider, for example, the list of leaders “who emerged during our lifetime”: Norman Schwarzkopf, Oliver North, Tommy Franks, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ronald Reagan, Joe Montana and Mickey Mantel [sic]. This is a curious list of people to hold out as examples of notable leaders: alcoholics, incompetents, criminals and those who used high office to commit illegal acts. Which of these would be a suitable role model for my daughter?

Henderson continues his book with the twelve virtues he considers necessary in a leader – and they are qualities he appears to have learnt in the American Boy Scouts movement – being loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. These may or may not be desirable characteristics (who are the thrifty leaders?) but while they may make a good boy scout, they are more likely to make a sheep to be slaughtered rather than a leader.

John Walsh, Shinawatra International University, December 2004