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Leadership lessons untold: A new history of Robert McNamara’s World Bank
Leadership ( IF 2.2 ) Pub Date : 2021-04-22 , DOI: 10.1177/17427150211010600
John Richard Heath 1 , Leo McCann 2
Affiliation  

Leadership education can be reductionist and facile. Recent scholarship in management and organizational history has reexamined many of the most established business school concepts and literatures, rethinking the ‘lessons’ taught from – among others – Taylor, Maslow and the Human Relations School. This study similarly uses historical methods (oral historical and archival) to analyse the career of Robert S. McNamara, a major figure often portrayed simplistically in leadership literature. McNamara is often characterized as a ‘good manager but poor leader’, notorious for failures associated with micromanaging by questionable metrics. While this picture is partially accurate, it is far from complete. McNamara’s career – for all its management failures and weaknesses – also featured many traits associated with celebrated concepts of ‘leadership’, especially during his long tenure as President of the World Bank (1968–81). We develop an historical narrative that reevaluates and updates our understanding of this comparatively unexplored latter stage of McNamara’s career. The article argues against the construction of simplistic ‘leadership lessons’ that suffer from three weaknesses: (1) a poor grasp of historical events, (2) a weak understanding of history as a discipline and (3) a reliance on artificial constructs and dichotomies, such as leadership (good) versus management (bad). We suggest that there is much to learn from deepening the scholarly relationship between critical leadership studies and management history.



中文翻译:

领导力课程不胜枚举:罗伯特·麦克纳马拉(Robert McNamara)的世界银行的新历史

领导力教育可以是简化主义的,也可以是轻而易举的。最近在管理和组织历史上的奖学金重新审视了许多最成熟的商学院概念和文献,重新考虑了泰勒,马斯洛和人际关系学院等人的“教训”。这项研究类似地使用历史方法(口头历史和档案)来分析罗伯特·麦克纳马拉的职业,罗伯特·麦克纳马拉(Robert S. McNamara)是领导文学中经常被简单描绘的主要人物。麦克纳马拉(McNamara)通常被描述为“好经理,但领导能力很差”,因与可疑指标相关的微观管理失败而臭名昭著。尽管这张图片有些准确,但还远远不够完整。McNamara的职业生涯(尽管存在管理上的失败和弱点)也具有与“领导力”这一著名概念相关的许多特征,特别是在他担任世界银行行长(1968-81)的任期内。我们开发了一种历史叙事,重新评估和更新了我们对McNamara事业这一相对未曾探索的后期阶段的理解。该文章反对构建具有以下三个弱点的简单的“领导力课程”:(1)对历史事件的掌握不足,(2)对历史作为一门学科的理解不足,(3)对人为构造和二分法的依赖,例如领导力(好)与管理力(差)。我们建议,从深化批判性领导力研究与管理历史之间的学术关系中可以学到很多东西。我们开发了一种历史叙事,重新评估和更新了我们对McNamara事业这一相对未曾探索的后期阶段的理解。该文章反对构建具有以下三个弱点的简单的“领导力课程”:(1)对历史事件的掌握不足,(2)对历史作为一门学科的理解不足,(3)对人为构造和二分法的依赖,例如领导力(好)与管理力(差)。我们建议,从深化批判性领导力研究与管理历史之间的学术关系中可以学到很多东西。我们开发了一种历史叙事,重新评估和更新了我们对McNamara事业这一相对未曾探索的后期阶段的理解。该文章反对构建具有以下三个弱点的简单的“领导力课程”:(1)对历史事件的掌握不足,(2)对历史作为一门学科的理解不足,(3)对人为构造和二分法的依赖,例如领导力(好)与管理力(差)。我们建议,从深化批判性领导力研究与管理历史之间的学术关系中可以学到很多东西。(2)对历史作为一门学科的理解较弱;(3)对人为建构和二分法的依赖,例如领导力(好)与管理力(差)。我们建议,从深化批判性领导力研究与管理历史之间的学术关系中可以学到很多东西。(2)对历史作为一门学科的理解较弱;(3)对人为建构和二分法的依赖,例如领导力(好)与管理力(差)。我们建议,从加深批判性领导力研究与管理历史之间的学术关系中可以学到很多东西。

更新日期:2021-04-22
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