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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"

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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  Clever (intelligent)
 Alert to social environment  Conceptually skilled
 Ambitious and  Creative
achievement-orientated  Diplomatic and tactful
 Assertive  Fluent in speaking
 Cooperative  Knowledgeable about
 Decisive group task
 Dependable  Organised (administrative
 Dominant (desire to ability)
influence others)  Persuasive
 Energetic (high activity  Socially skilled
level)
 Persistent  
 Self-confident
 Tolerant of stress
 Willing to assume
responsibility

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).