Leadership, Management & Life in the Workplace
  • Blog
  • About John
  • Decoding the Workplace
  • Dr. Juran AIG Archival Project
  • Contact
  • Disclaimers

On Leadership: Coach Knight, The Example of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

2/26/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
In a 1977 Harvard Business Review article (reprinted in 1992), Abraham Zaleznik suggested leaders are simply different from managers just as managers are different from entrepreneurs. Leaders just think and act differently.  Retired basketball coach Bobby Knight would probably agree. When David Cawthon was teaching at Indiana University, he got Coach Knight to be a guest speaker in his management class. The topic was leadership. The day came. Coach Knight took the podium and spoke to the business students, “The first thing you people need to know about leadership is that most of you simply don’t have it in you.”

House and Baetz  several decades ago argued some individual differences should play a role in differentiating leaders. That is because leadership is a social process. It occurs with respect to others. Therefore people with great social skills or superb speakers are more likely to be seen as leaders. Who cannot listen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech and not be moved.

But great leaders lead by the power of their ideas – and their ability to listen. In 1963 a church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed killing four young girls, all African-American. Prominent players of the Civil Rights Movement met in the home of the Rev. Ralph Abernathy. When Dr. King arrived, he sat on the sofa and listened to others arguing that they should meet violence with violence. Dr. King listened intently. After an hour he spoke and said this is not our way, not our path, not violence — but he had listened.  He was a great leader.


Zaleznik, A. (1992). Managers and leader: are they different? Harvard Business Review, 70 (2), 126-135. (Originally published 1977).

Cawthon, D.L. (1996). Leadership: the great man theory revisited. Business Horizons, May-June, 1-4 

House & Baetz. (1979). Leadership: Some empirical generalizations and new research directions. In B. M. Staw (Ed.), Rsearch in Organizational Behavior,1: 341-423. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.


 Story about Dr. King, Jr. Personal communication. Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth
.  


Image from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMartin_Luther_King%2C_Jr..jpg
By Nobel Foundation (http://nobelprize.org/) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons



0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012

    RSS Feed