Content area
Full Text
Robert W. Terry, Authentic Leadership: Courage in Action (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993), 315 pp.; $29.95 hardcover.
As a political scientist, with extended service in academe and government, I have long approached the study of political leadership through the works of such figures as James David Barber, James MacGregor Burns, Erik H. Erikson, Alexander and Juliette George, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Harold D. Lasswell, Richard E. Neustadt, and Arnold M. Rose. The approach and focus was largely behavioral in nature with a decided psychological bent. What did these particular leaders do and how well did they do it? Elements of charisma and character played a large part in these studies. Power was seen as necessarily corrupting.
Authentic Leadership: Courage in Action by Robert W Terry is a significant if not drastic departure from the studies just cited. To begin with, Terry sees political leadership as only one of a number of schools of leadership. For Terry, the emphasis is not upon action, but rather upon reflective thought which can lead to effective action.
Terry purports to provide a study in leadership theory and practice, but he emphatically adds that his quest is driven in large part by his own personal struggle against racism. Terry sees his work as a "personal odyssey of reflective action," in which he proposes a "philosophy of leadership and a philosophy of life." It would not be inaccurate to characterize Terry's leadership model as...