Leaders: Myth and Legend—A Review & Discussion   

In the latest book by General (Ret) Stanley McChrystal’s traditional concepts of leadership are turned on their head. As a leader who was himself mythologized and vilified in turn, McChrystal takes a close, personal look at the myth of leadership and how it has impacted the modern world throughout history. McChrystal walks us through profiles of 12 leaders, each grouped into a category: The Founders, The Geniuses, The Zealots, The Heroes, The Power Brokers and The Reformers. The 13^th leader stands alone, begging to be paired with the leadership of the author himself. Indeed, Stan McChrystal takes the reader on a personal journey when he talks about Robert E. Lee, a lifelong inspiration of his, and his mental battle with forsaking the man he once revered as a hero—literally taking his picture off the wall and out of his life.

This book is appealing for many reasons: while academically challenging, it’s also fun to read—as opposed to the dry, boring nature of some other leadership tomes. Most importantly, it will make you think about leadership in ways that you likely haven’t before. If you are looking for a leadership checklist, or steps to follow, then don’t waste your time here. In fact, at the conclusion of the book, McChrystal sums up 3 myths about leadership—beginning by debunking checklists.

1. The Formulaic Myth: If someone follows a checklist of behaviors, they'll be a great leader. The author reminds us that “life is messy and taking the best advice or following a well-worn path to success is not sufficient for being an effective leader.” (Business Insider)
2. The Attribution Myth: The successes and failures of a team are all the results of its leader. When writing his own memoirs, McChrystal conducted research into the events leading to his own epic resignation during the height of his career. He assumed it would be straightforward, but found that it wasn’t, leading him to study, and debunk, the ‘Great Man Theory’ of leadership. (Business Insider)
3. The Results Myth: Delivering results is all that's required for positions of power and accolades. "You can have one person who's producing or likely to produce a great outcome, but somebody else who can make us feel good or make us feel scared or make us something that inspires us to action, we often will go that way, much more than we will direct results," (Business Insider)

You might well be wondering, well, if none of these things are true about leadership, then what’s left? And you’d be close to understanding the point of McChrystal’s questioning mind and scholarship that goes into this book. Quite frankly, the thesis can be summed up as, most of what we’ve been taught about leadership is one-sided, simplified, and sometimes plain wrong. His final definition of leadership is this: “Leadership is a complex system of relationships between leaders and followers, in a particular context, that provides meaning to its members.” (Leaders, pg. 397)

Why We Should Care

This book irrevocably caught my attention near the very beginning when the author states that, “…leadership is neither good nor evil…leadership is better judged as effective or not” (Leaders, pg. 20). One of the interesting conundrums he sets out for the reader is that when we default to judging leaders as ‘good or bad’, we are missing most of the picture—a picture always full of nuances, cultural & historical context, and the role of legend in the making of a leader. The question of effective leadership has been rattling around in my head for quite some time, without my yet having the rhetoric to express it.

I grew up surrounded by leaders, in one of the more intense organizations in modern history—a religious cult known as The Children of God. I’ve often wondered why this organization’s leader has never really been studied—on the face of it he was a dynamic and engaging leader that convinced almost 100,000 people to follow him for over 50 years, including after his own death. They dedicated their lives to him, giving up creature comforts, living communally, and travelling the world preaching about God. He crossed over unarguably into ‘bad’ when he began to evangelize prostitution, pedophilia, polygamy and incest as the will of God. Still, there was obviously something there, right? Like me, McChrystal asks the question, “how does leadership help take people to dark places? (Leaders, pg. 153), a question that many others are beginning to ask in our current political climate(all political innuendo is my own).

The author explores the concept of power, the intoxication of it, and the toxicity that it often brings in its wake. “Power is not an absolute state, but an arrangement amongst stakeholders” (Leaders, pg. 298), reemphasizing that groups often are complicit in giving leaders the power that eventually hurts them. He invites you to think about how power and leadership interact, often outside of the shared values of an organization. “Once a leader has charge of an institution, he gets to wield its power, whatever his values are.” (Leaders, pg. 257) Interesting profiles of not commonly studied leaders include zealots like Robespierre, Al-Zarqawi (who’s death McChrystal himself is credited with), and even Martin Luther (though the author classifies him as a reformer for the book’s purposes).

In a time of complexity in our nation’s leadership (all political innuendo is mine alone), when many folks are asking “What should a leader be?” this book is both timely and effective—turning almost every traditional leadership theory on its head. At the end of the day, the closer we study leaders who have been effective—as in had others follow them—as well as the context in which they were leading, the better we will understand the workings of a subject as complex as leadership. This is a book that will certainly be in almost every cannon of leadership books, while creating almost more questions than it answers—something I think every good book should do.

I hope you will read this book, which is available for your convenience here, or wherever you buy your books. I suggest reading with a notepad nearby, as I filled up nearly 8 pages of quotes and powerful statements, that will likely be rattling around in my brain and in future professional content for years to come. If you’re not looking to become a student of leadership, all difficult questions included, then please disregard—this book can be hard to digest. I believe that one of the qualities that effective leaders share is that they are all students of leadership—the good, the bad and the heinous.

And remember no leader is perfect: just do your best to Be Great Every Day!

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