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Great Man theory

Teori “The Great Man theory” adalah usaha menjelaskan impak manusia-manusia hebat pada sejarah. Samada melalui karisma peribadi mereka, kebijaksanaan atau Machiavellianism, mereka telah menggunakan kuasa mereka untuk memberi impak pada sejarah.

Machiavellianism menurut kamus oxford adalah penggunaan tipu muslihat dalam urusan negara atau sikap seharian.

Doctrin politik Machiavelli, menafikan kaitan moral dalam urusan politik dan tipu muslihat adalah dibenarkan malahan digalakkan dalam mengekalkan kuasa dan kedudukan politik. Mengambil namanya dari Penulis dan Diplomat Zaman Kebangkitan Itali, Niccolò Machiavelli, yang telah menulis Il Principe (The Prince) dan kerja-kerja lain.

Seseorang pengkaji teori The Great Man theory” ini akan mengkaji perang dunia kedua dengan mengfokus pada personaliti besar dalam konflik tersebut seperti, Sir Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Charles de Gaulle di pihak Berikat; Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Hideki Tojo di pihak Pakatan Paksi. Pengkaji akan menumpukan perhatian kepada keputusan yang dibuat individu tersebut yang akhirnya memberi kesan yang besar pada sejarah.

1 Introduction 2 Criticisms 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit]

Pengenalan

Pandangan ini beranggapan bahawa para pemimpin hebat dilahirkan dan bukan dibentuk dan seorang pemimpin hebat akan bangkit tatkala dunia memerlukannya. The Great Man Theory sering dikaitkan dengan sejarahwan kurun ke 19 Thomas Carlyle, yang menyatakan bahawa ‘Sejarah dunia adalah tidak lebih dari kisah hidup manusia-manusia hebat yang mencerminkan kepercayaannya bahawa tokoh-tokoh ini telah membentuk sejarah samada melalui sikap dan kekuatan peribadi mereka. Dalam bukunya, On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, Carlyle menegaskan pandangannya tentang sejarah dengan memberi analisa terperinci tentang keputusan dan pengaruh beberapa manusia hebat termasuk, Nabi Muhammad SAW, Shakespeare, Luther, Rousseau, and Napoleon. Carlyle juga merasakan bahawa dengan mengkaji sejarah hidup manusia hebat sebegini adalah menguntungkan kerana dalam mengkaji, proses tersebut mampu membangkitkan kehebatan dalam diri kita sendiri.

Kajian awal dalam bidang kepimpinan berdasarkan kajian atas orang-orang yang sudahpun menjadi pemimpin yang hebat. Orang-orang ini sering datang dari golongan bangsawan. Ini telah mendorong pandangan bahawa kepimpinan berkait rapat dengan keturunan. Tambahan pula hampir tiada pembaca dari kalangan petani dan buruh untuk menyangkal pendapat ini.

Pandangan ini juga mengambil aspek yang agak mistik dengan pendapat bahawa di masa-masa bila mana mereka diperlukan, seorang manusia hebat akan bangkit secara ajaib untuk memimpin orang ramai ke arah kejayaan. Pandangan ini mudah ditentu-sahkan dengan melihat kebangkitan Churchill dan Eisenhower dan pada peringkat awalnya Hitler dan Mussolini.

Isu jantina tidak langsung timbul apabila teori ini dicadangkan kerana kepemimpinan kaum wanita adalah dianggap sebagai ‘absurd’. Majoriti pengkaji adalah lelaki dan bias jantina diterima sebagai perkara biasa pada masa itu.

This theory is usually contrasted with a theory that talks about events occurring in the fullness of time, or when an overwhelming wave of smaller events cause certain developments to occur. The Great Man approach to history was most fashionable with professional historians in the 19th century; a popular work of this school is the Encyclopedia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1911) which contains lengthy and detailed biographies about the great men of history, but very few

general or social histories. For example, all information on the post-Roman "Migrations Period" of European History is compiled under the biography of Attila the Hun. This heroic view of history was also strongly endorsed by some philosophical figures such as Hegel, Nietzsche, and Spengler, but it fell out of favor after World War II.

In Untimely Meditations, Nietzsche writes that: "...the goal of humanity lies in its highest specimens" [2].

[edit] Criticisms

One of the most vitriolic critics of Carlyle's formulation of the Great Man theory was Herbert Spencer, who believed that attributing historical events to the decisions of individuals was a hopelessly primitive, childish, and unscientific position.[3] He believed that the men Carlyle called "great men" were merely products of their social environment. To quote Spencer, from "The Study of Sociology":

[Y]ou must admit that the genesis of a great man depends on the long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he appears, and the social state into which that race has slowly grown....Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.[4]

The editors of the influential 18th century French encyclopedia Encyclopedie were ideologically opposed to biographies because they believed too much ink had already been spilled on hagiographies of church fathers and deeds of kings, and not enough about the average person or life in general. To this end Encyclopedie had almost no biography articles. However, this policy was contentious among the encyclopedists and so some biographies were "hidden" inside articles; for example, the article on Wolstrope, England is almost entirely about the life of Newton.[5]

An opponent of the great man theory in its own time was Leo Tolstoy, who devoted the entire non-fictional beginning of the third volume of War and Peace to critiquing it, using the Napoleonic wars as an example.

Today the great man theory is out of favor as a singular explanation for why things happen. Historians look at other factors such as economic, societal, environmental, and technological which are just as or more significant to historical change. Many historians believe that a history which only follows around single persons, especially when their significance is determined primarily by political status, is a shallow view of the past, and that sometimes such a view excludes entire groups of people from being parts of the study of history. A broader view is provided by a people's history approach.

This critique has spread to other fields such as literary criticism, in which Stephen Greenblatt's New Historicism argues that societies play roles in creating works of art, not just authors.

Master Harold...and the Boys and Crime and Punishment offer critiques of the great man theory.

[edit] See also

Philosophy of history Annales School and New History Max Weber 's charismatic authority People's history Prosopography Übermensch Whig history

[edit] References

1. ̂ Hirsch, E.D. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Third Edition), Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 2002.

2. ̂ Carlyle, Thomas. On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, Fredrick A. Stokes & Brother, New York, 1888. p. 2.

3. ̂ Segal, Robert A. Hero Myths, Wiley-Blackwell, 2000, p. 3.4. ̂ Spencer, Herbert. The Study of Sociology, Appleton, 1896, p. 34.5. ̂ [1]

[edit] External links

"Twilight of the Idols" , by Peter Dizikes, from The New York Times, November 5, 2006. "Do changes in science mean the traditional great-man science biography is going the way of the dodo?"

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory"Categories: Historiography | Philosophy of history | Theories of historyHidden categories: Articles that may contain original research from March 2009 | All articles that may contain original research

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Great Man Theory 

Disciplines > Leadership > Leadership theories > Great Man theory

Assumptions | Description | Discussion | See also

 

Discussion

Gender issues were not on the table when the 'Great Man' theory was proposed. Most leaders were male and the thought of a Great Woman was generally in areas other than leadership. Most researchers were also male, and concerns about androcentric bias were a long way from being realized.

Great man theory

Related: auteur theory - genius - greatness - human - history

Compare with: social history

Definition

The Great man theory is a theory held by some that aims to explains history by the impact of "Great men", ie: highly influential individuals, either from personal charisma, genius intellects, or great political impact.

For example, a scholarly follower of the Great Man theory would be likely to study the Second World War by focusing on the big personalities of the conflict, ie: Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, etc.

It is often linked to 19th century philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle, who commented that "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." This theory is usually contrasted with a theory that talks about events occurring in the

fullness of time, or when an overwhelming wave of smaller events cause certain developments to occur.

Today the great man theory is out of favour. Most historians today believe that economic, societal, and technological factors are far more important to history than the decisions made by any individual.

This has spread to other fields such a literary criticism where the New Historicism of Stephen Greenblatt argues that societies create works of art, not just authors.

When this theory is applied to film theory, this theory tends to explain film history and the evolution of film almost exclusively in terms of "Great Men", with some notable directors. It however, neglects the efforts of crews, assistants and outside constraints. It could be described as the film history equivalent to the star system or the auteur theory. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory [May 2005]

Trait Theory 

Disciplines > Leadership > Leadership theories > Trait Theory

Assumptions | Description | Discussion | See also

 

Assumptions

People are born with inherited traits.

Some traits are particularly suited to leadership.

People who make good leaders have the right (or sufficient) combination of traits.

Description

Early research on leadership was based on the psychological focus of the day, which was of people having inherited characteristics or traits. Attention was thus put on discovering these traits, often by studying successful leaders, but with the underlying assumption that if other people could also be found with these traits, then they, too, could also become great leaders.

Stogdill (1974) identified the following traits and skills as critical to leaders.

 

Traits Skills

Adaptable to situations Alert to social environment Ambitious and

achievement-orientated Assertive Cooperative Decisive Dependable Dominant (desire to

influence others) Energetic (high activity

level) Persistent Self-confident Tolerant of stress Willing to assume

responsibility

Clever (intelligent) Conceptually skilled Creative Diplomatic and tactful Fluent in speaking Knowledgeable about

group task Organised (administrative

ability) Persuasive Socially skilled

 

 

McCall and Lombardo (1983) researched both success and failure identified four primary traits by which leaders could succeed or 'derail':

Emotional stability and composure: Calm, confident and predictable, particularly when under stress.

Admitting error: Owning up to mistakes, rather than putting energy into covering up.

Good interpersonal skills: Able to communicate and persuade others without resort to negative or coercive tactics.

Intellectual breadth: Able to understand a wide range of areas, rather than having a narrow (and narrow-minded) area of expertise.

Discussion

There have been many different studies of leadership traits and they agree only in the general saintly qualities needed to be a leader.

For a long period, inherited traits were sidelined as learned and situational factors were considered to be far more realistic as reasons for people acquiring leadership positions.

Paradoxically, the research into twins who were separated at birth along with new sciences such as Behavioral Genetics have shown that far more is inherited than was previously supposed. Perhaps one day they will find a 'leadership gene'.

See also

Preferences

Stogdill, R.M. (1974). Handbook of leadership: A survey of the literature, New York: Free Press

McCall, M.W. Jr. and Lombardo, M.M. (1983). Off the track: Why and how successful executives get derailed. Greenboro, NC: Centre for Creative Leadership

Interest in leadership increased during the early part of the twentieth century. Early leadership theories focused on what qualities distinguished between leaders and followers, while subsequent theories looked at other variables such as situational factors and skill level. While many different leadership theories have emerged, most can be classified as one of eight major types:

1. “Great Man” Theories:

Great Man theories assume that the capacity for leadership is inherent – that great leaders are born, not made. These theories often portray great leaders as heroic, mythic, and destined to rise to leadership when needed. The term “Great Man” was used because, at the time, leadership was thought of primarily as a male quality, especially in terms of military leadership.

2. Trait Theories:

Similar in some ways to “Great Man” theories, trait theory assumes that people inherit certain qualities and traits that make them better suited to leadership. Trait theories often identify particular personality or behavioral characteristics shared by leaders. But if particular traits are key features of leadership, how do we explain people who possess those qualities but are not leaders? This question is one of the difficulties in using trait theories to explain leadership.

3. Contingency Theories:

Contingency theories of leadership focus on particular variables related to the environment that might determine which particular style of leadership is best suited for the situation. According to this theory, no leadership style is best in all situations. Success depends upon a number of variables, including the leadership style, qualities of the followers, and aspects of the situation.

4. Situational Theories:

Situational theories propose that leaders choose the best course of action based upon situational variable. Different styles of leadership may be more appropriate for certain types of decision-making.

5. Behavioral Theories:

Behavioral theories of leadership are based upon the belief that great leaders are made, not born. Rooted in behaviorism, this leadership theory focuses on the actions of leaders, not on mental qualities or internal states. According to this theory, people can learn to become leaders through teaching and observation.

6. Participative Theories:

Participative leadership theories suggest that the ideal leadership style is one that takes the input of others into account. These leaders encourage participation and contributions from group members and help group members feel more relevant and committed to the decision-making process. In participative theories, however, the leader retains the right to allow the input of others.

7. Management Theories:

Management theories (also known as “Transactional theories”) focus on the role of supervision, organization, and group performance. These theories base leadership on a system of reward and punishment. Managerial theories are often used in business; when employees are successful, they are rewarded; when they fail, they are reprimanded or punished.

8. Relationship Theories:

Relationship theories (also known as “Transformational theories”) focus upon the connections formed between leaders and followers. These leaders motivate and inspire people by helping group members see the importance and higher good of the task. Transformational leaders are focused on the performance of group members, but also want each person to fulfill his or her potential. These leaders often have high ethical and moral standards.

The Great Man Theory of History

Russian style.

BY Cathy Young

January 26, 2009, Vol. 14, No. 18

ShareThis

William Faulkner once said that the past isn't dead, it isn't even past--and that's certainly proving true in post-Soviet Russia. Vladimir Lenin still lies in his grand mausoleum on Red Square. And meanwhile, Tsar Nicholas II and his family, murdered by Lenin's revolutionary government, were lavishly commemorated last summer in churches and the state media on the 90th anniversary of their deaths.

So when a television production called "Name of Russia," a knockoff of a 2002 BBC series, invited viewers to select the greatest Russian in several rounds of telephone and Internet voting, it's no wonder the project quickly became a minefield.

Controversy first erupted last July with the news that Joseph Stalin, arguably the biggest mass murderer of the 20th century, was leading in the semifinal vote. Most of the media reacted with dismay. Series producer Alexander Lyubimov issued an appeal to the public to say no to Stalin by voting instead for Nicholas II, who briefly took the lead. Yet mere days later, Stalin was back in first place.

Eventually finalists were chosen, and a series of debates on these 12 was televised. The winners were announced on December 29. Top honors went to Alexander Nevsky, the 13th-century warrior prince, saint of the Russian Orthodox Church, and hero of Sergei Eisenstein's eponymous 1938 film. The two runners-up were Petr Stolypin, the reformist prime minister assassinated in 1911--and Stalin.

The common view in Russia is that the vote was rigged to produce a socially acceptable result. The Communists are convinced that Stalin really won, and pessimistic liberals assume so too. But even the official results are hardly encouraging, at least for anyone who wants to see Russia move toward freedom, limited government, and individual rights. Take the semi-mythic Alexander Nevsky, whose military exploits against Teutonic crusaders were probably greatly exaggerated by Russian chroniclers--and who collaborated with another invading force, the Mongol-Tatar Horde. Alexander received his principality from one of the Mongol khans and brutally suppressed rebellions in Russian cities that refused to pay tribute to the Horde. His defenders explain that Alexander made his deals with the khans out of necessity and saved Russia from devastation; other historians argue that he used the Mongols to gain leverage against rival Russian princes.

The vote for Alexander Nevsky, moreover, can be read as militantly anti-Western. The Russian Orthodox Church canonized Alexander as a defender of the faith because he reportedly turned down an offer of alliance with the Catholic Church against the Mongols--a decision that helped usher in 200 years of rule by the Horde, viewed as disastrous to the tradition of liberty in Russia by both Russian liberals and pro-Western conservatives. Perhaps the best-case scenario is that the people who chose Alexander as the "greatest Russian" were simply voting for a charismatic movie hero symbolizing Russian might and patriotism.

Runner-up Stolypin is a more complex case: A genuine reformer, he tried to modernize Russia with far-reaching political and economic measures that promoted local self-government and family farming. Indeed, many historians believe that if Stolypin's reforms had not collapsed under pressure from both left and right, the 1917 revolution might have been averted. Yet his name is also associated with authoritarianism and repression. He repeatedly tried to bully the recently instituted Russian parliament, and he responded to a wave of revolutionary violence by setting up tribunals whose sentences were carried out in 24 hours without appeal; 1,000 to 3,000 people were executed over a six-month period, and the hangman's noose became known as "the Stolypin necktie."

Interestingly, some media reports claimed that Prime Minister Putin had privately endorsed Stolypin in the contest. Indeed, Stolypin's advocate in the TV debates was film director Nikita Mikhalkov, a friend and strong supporter of Putin. And Stolypin's biography on the "Name of Russia" website seems to emphasize parallels to Putin, from a background in the "security services" to harsh action against "terrorists" to the claim that his reforms were known as "the Stolypin Plan" (the ruling United Russia party touted its "Putin Plan" in the parliamentary elections of 2007).

As for Stalin, the death toll under his rule--counting the terror-famine of 1932-33, the firing squads, and the millions worked and starved to death in the camps of the gulag--has been estimated at 20 to 40 million. One posting on a Russian online forum noted that for

Russians to choose Stalin as the greatest man would be akin to Israelis' giving that honor to Hitler.

No less depressing is the fact that the historical figures associated with Russia's frail tradition of liberty fared quite badly in the "greatest Russian" vote. In the semifinals, the physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov received about 275,000 votes, dwarfed by Stalin's more than a million. In the final round, the most "liberal" of the candidates--Tsar Alexander II, who abolished serfdom and made the first attempt at broad liberal reforms in Russia--came last.

While the "greatest Russian" vote was in no way scientific, serious polls have found that about half of Russians view Stalin's role in history as mostly positive (though fewer than one in ten say the terror was justified). He is widely credited with defeating Nazi Germany in World War II, one of Russia's few genuine achievements in the 20th century--even though Russia's horrific losses in the war can be blamed largely on Stalin's failure to prepare for the German invasion and his prewar purges, which decimated the officer corps. Many Russians also see Stalin as the man who turned the Russian state into a leviathan feared around the world--even if it was equally feared by Russians themselves.

In today's Russia, plainly, the Stalin legacy is ambiguous. Stalinism and its crimes stand officially condemned; in July, Dmitry Medvedev became the first Russian president to lay a wreath at a memorial to Stalin's victims. Yet at the same time, there is a strong trend in official propaganda, from the media to history textbooks, to treat Stalinism as a mix of bad and good: terror on one side, industrialization and the victory in World War II on the other.

The growth of Stalin's popularity has been partly a response to the economic and social chaos of the 1990s. But in the Putin era, state propaganda is feeding the trend--emphasizing Russia's greatness and imperial power and cultivating the image of "Fortress

Russia" surrounded by enemies, while downplaying the idea, embraced under Yeltsin, that the totalitarian Soviet past should be rejected as evil. The semi-exoneration of Stalin was evident, for instance, in June when the national NTV channel aired the program Who Was 'Asleep at the Wheel' at the Start of the War?, challenging the notion of Stalin's responsibility and presenting him as a wise leader whose decisions were undercut by feckless underlings.

In early December, Russia hosted its first-ever scholarly conference on Stalinism, which drew both Russian scholars and Western historians such as Hélène Carrère d'Encausse. Such an event, supported by official institutions, could be seen as a positive step. Yet the conference also generated some disturbing news. According to a report by Nikita Sokolov on Grani.ru, the panelists included two high-ranking Russian academics who acted as near-apologists of Stalin. One observed that many Roman emperors also did evil things but nonetheless built a great empire; the other noted that Stalin's nationalities policy resulted in the survival of virtually every small ethnic group in the Soviet Union, in contrast to the near-extinction of Native Americans in the United States. The Russian minister of education defended a textbook that whitewashes Stalin on the ground that it meets demand from both instructors and students.

For that matter, even if the organizers of the "greatest Russian" project were eager to distance themselves from their bronze-medal winner, there were signs that officialdom was not entirely displeased with Stalin's success in the vote. The series' segment on Stalin was introduced by Mikhalkov, who noted that the very fact of a public debate on Stalin was "a victory for society"--presumably an improvement on unambiguous condemnation--and then spoke of Stalin's "magic" and the reverence he inspired.

The day after the results of the vote were announced, the pro-government paper Izvestia ran a "pro and con" feature on Stalin's third-place finish. For the "pro" side, the newspaper's deputy editor in chief, Elena Yampolskaya, argued that, awful though the late tyrant may have been, the vote was not an endorsement of "blood, paranoia, and barbarism," but a rejection of liberalism, political correctness, and consumerism and an embrace of "victory, power, indifference to monetary gain, statecraft, and imperial ambition (a phrase that is, at last, no longer considered pejorative)."

The Stalin who today enjoys semi-official approval, then, is not so much a Communist leader as a great Russian nationalist, a patriot who rebuilt the strong state torn down by internationalist Communists. Many of Stalin's supporters also praise him for restoring the nearly exterminated Russian church in the war years; on the fringes of Stalin worship, a small, bizarre cult regards the Communist dictator as a closet Christian and even advocates his canonization.

Today, when economic crisis looms over Russia, there is a widespread sense that the Putin era has truly ended, its "stability" having collapsed with the price of oil. If this is true, Russia may soon find itself once again at a crossroads, facing a choice between integration into the free world and authoritarian isolation. Perhaps it could start by exorcising some of its undead heroes.

Cathy Young, a contributing editor to Reason, is the author of Growing Up in Moscow: Memories of a Soviet Girlhood (1989).