Transforming Leadership: The Pursuit of Happiness [Hardcover]

James MacGregor Burns (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2003

In 1978, James MacGregor Burns published Leadership, his seminal examination of how leaders shape the course of history by transforming followers into creative new leaders. The book quickly became the cornerstone of the emerging field of leadership studies, which has spawned over nine hundred academic programs as well as leadership programs in business and government. Now, twenty-five years later, Burns expands the subject, offering a new vision—Transforming Leadership—focusing on the ways that leaders emerge from being ordinary "transactional" brokers and deal makers to become true agents of principled social change who empower their followers to achieve freedom and happiness.

As a historian, Burns illuminates the evolution of leadership structures, from the chieftainships of tribal African societies, through Europe's absolute monarchies, to the blossoming of the Enlightenment vision of liberty that came to full flower with the Declaration of Independence's "Pursuit of Happiness." Along the way he looks at key moments in leadership—including both great triumphs and grand failures—in men and women, from African leaders to Elizabeth I, James Madison, Napoleon, Mao, Gandhi, and many others. The book culminates in a bold and innovative plan to address the greatest global leadership challenge of the twenty-first century: the seemingly intractable problem of global poverty.

Engagingly written, original, and provocative, Transforming Leadership is a powerful book that will fire controversy and conversation in classrooms and boardrooms throughout the country.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Twenty-five years after the publication of Leadership, Burns expands upon his theories about how leaders cultivate their successors to explore how they create environments conducive to social and personal development. He distinguishes between "transactional" leaders, who thrive on cutting deals, and "transforming" leaders, whose sweeping changes totally revamp political institutions. Although the book relies on a variety of historical examples, it devotes particular attention to Franklin Roosevelt, about whom Burns has written extensively in the past (The Lion and the Fox; The Soldier of Freedom). Burns's underlying theory imagines leadership as part of a broader social process in which leaders and followers are closely interrelated. Starting with psychologist Abraham Maslow's theories of the hierarchy of human needs, the book suggests leaders attain their power through their responsiveness to others' desires for security, self-esteem and personal development, putting themselves in a position to "create and expand the opportunities that empower people to pursue happiness for themselves." As such, leadership is an inherently positive process, distinguishable from tyranny by the latter's inability to promote liberty and equality. Amusing asides, in which Burns describes how he attempted to apply his understanding of leadership principles to raising his children, enliven the scholarly consideration of leadership's evolution over the centuries. These accessible anecdotes, as well as Burns's explications of historical examples, will ensure the book's influence extends beyond its most obvious implications for political science.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Burns continues to study the art of leadership in this new examination of what he calls transitional leadership. Taking into account Jefferson's famous words, Burns states that the most successful leaders are those who are conscious of the pursuit of happiness. But what exactly is the pursuit of happiness? Burns believes it begins with the basic human necessities of food and shelter and includes the desire for dignity and respect. Some leaders are just deal makers and opportunists for a select group, but the author defines transitional leaders as those who aim "for the protection and nourishing of happiness, for extending the opportunity to pursue happiness to all people." Analyzing past leaders (FDR, Gandhi, Mao Tse-tung, among others) and changes and revolutions in leadership around the world, Burns gives concise histories behind the subject matters before dissecting the different leadership styles of monarchs, politicians, and social reformers and the impact they have made throughout the world. An excellent examination of the art of motivating, organizing, and directing people for the common good. Michelle Kaske
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; First Edition edition (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871138662
• ISBN-13: 978-0871138668
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #617,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good News: It's Possible; Bad News: Not With Today's Lot, July 26, 2003

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Transforming Leadership: The Pursuit of Happiness (Hardcover)

Edit of 22 Dec 07 to add links.

This is quite a fine book. It will be especially valuable to that very rare breed of all-source intelligence analyst, those responsible for analyzing foreign leaders, and completely fed up with the sterile "biographic" analysis that lists job titles and honors. The author expands substantially on the very immature but promising field leadership analysis by discussing in detail the concepts and practices of "traits-based" or "value" leadership.

The author, himself already established as one of the best writers about leaders and leadership, breaks new ground in exploring the psychology of leadership, and creating a new inter-disciplinary and psychologically-rooted approach to understanding leadership at the national, organizational, and personal levels. He concludes that transformative leadership is all too rare; that it can redirect the fate of nations (Ghandi stands out as an exemplar), and that nurturing true transformative leadership rather than mere industrial-era task-mandating and monitoring leadership, is the core competency for navigating into the 21st Century.

The author is especially brutal when his idea are applied to the charismatic or ideologically-purified forms of leadership that pass for Presidential politics today. "At best, charisma is a confusing and undemocratic form of leadership. At worst, it is a form of tyranny."

He spends a great deal of time examining the founding fathers of America and the process by which they defined both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitute, and his findings are quite remarkable (especially in light of recent attempts by Republicans in Texas and in the House of Representives to totally silence Democrats and override dissenting votes without voice):

1) The minority is an absolutely essential part of collective learning and the great dialog that leads to sound decisions. Repressing the minority is a prescription for disaster.

2) The pursuit of happiness, rather than property, was very deliberately selected by the founding fathers in order to focus on human values and collective learning, rather than property rights.

3) Rebellion from time to time is a feature, not a fault. "...the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" per John Adams. He specifically focuses on the importance of the loyal opposition as a means of enabling principled change by the majority in the cauldron of informed debate.

4) The right to abolish the U.S. Government is specifically reserved to the American people. The author notes that absolutist ideas inspire revolt, crowds have immeasurable power, and narrow ideologies with ritual tests of orthodoxy are an invitation to popular revolution.

After reviewing a number of leaders across history, the author quotes Roosevelt, who said "Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob" and then sets the stage for his concluding section, which suggests that leaders must embrace deep values that accept the happiness of the people as the ultimate challenge for the community, that they must empower followers rather than merely engage them, and that the ultimate challenge for all leaders of all nations and organizations is global poverty and the need to eradicate global poverty if billions are to find some semblance of happiness (and implicitly, stability that reduces the threat to the United States and Europe).

He quotes others in emphasizing that men in fear or want are not free men; that technology and money is not the answer to poverty, only values and liberation from fear and want, and--his final word, it the end it must be a "great people" rather than a "great man" that rises to the global challenge.

America! A Whole Earth. We can only imagine...

Bad Leadership:
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders
Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude

Good Leadership:
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest

3 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Is the author too intelligent?, August 27, 2005

By 

Amy Huson "redsox533" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Transforming Leadership: The Pursuit of Happiness (Hardcover)

This book was one of the textbooks for an honors leadership course I took in college. I absolutely hated it. The concepts were interesting but the language was too hard to follow. I felt inferior as I was reading this book, which is not aomething an author should strive to achieve.
Although, as I stated above, the author had interesting ideas and concepts, there was one thing that I had a tough time swallowing. The author argues that there is no such thing as a "bad leader". Instead, if you are not a good leader, you are not a leader. I strongly disagree with this idea, as an individual can be a leader but not a good one. I'm sure that most people can think of someone in their life that they would categorize as a "bad leader".
I will never recommend this book, nor will I ever purchase or read another book written by this author.