Fictional Leaders

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Jonathan Gosling, Peter Villiers

   Pages 1-6

3. Xenophon and the Pursuit of Willing Obedience by Cyrus the Great

   • Lynette Mitchell

   Pages 7-17

4. Sharing the Secret: Joseph Conrad on Leadership at Sea

   • Peter Villiers

   Pages 18-36

5. The Isolation of the Spirit: Captain Horatio Hornblower, RN

   • Stephanie Jones

   Pages 37-49

6. Leadership and Monomania: Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick

   • Burkard Sievers

   Pages 50-86

7. Nevil Shute: Pastoral

   • David Weir

   Pages 87-98

8. Things Fall Apart: Chinua Achebe

   • Jonathan Gosling

   Pages 99-112

9. Leadership and Improvisation: A Bell for Adano, by John Hersey

   • Norman W. Provizer

   Pages 113-124

10. The Silhouette of Leadership: James Bond and Miss Moneypenny

    • Beverley Hawkins

    Pages 125-138

11. A Wild Sheep Chase: Haruki Murakami

    • Chris Land, Martyna Sliwa, Sverre Spoelstra

    Pages 139-154

12. Leadership and Expectation: Thomas Pynchon

    • Peter Pelzer, Peter Case

    Pages 155-165

13. Leadership: The Madness of the Day by Maurice Blanchot

    • Hugo Letiche, Jean-Luc Moriceau

    Pages 166-181

14. Leadership and Dharma: The Indian Epics Ramayana and Mahabharata and Their Significance for Leadership Today

    • Harsh Verma

    Pages 182-201

15. The Leader as Poet: Tennyson, Whitman and Dickinson

    • Barbara Mossberg

    Pages 202-214

16. Leadership and Tradition: Rabindranath Tagore

    • Satish Kumar

    Pages 215-222

17. Leadership and Acceptability: Plato and the Odium of Truth

    • Nathan Harter

    Pages 223-233

18. Ten Great Works for Leadership Development

    • Robert Adlam

    Pages 234-258

19. Back Matter

    Pages 259-261

    PDF

Management theory is vague about the experience of leading. Success, power, achievement are discussed but less focus is given to negative experiences leaders faced such as loneliness or disappointment. This book addresses difficult-to-explore aspects of leadership through well-known works of literature drawing lessons from fictional leaders.

• development
• leadership
• management
• money
• success

• Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter, UK

  Jonathan Gosling

Jonathan Gosling is Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter, UK, and has published articles in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Leadership, Management Learning and elsewhere. He advises companies, agencies and government departments across the world on their leadership-related issues. He is Fellow of the Windsor Leadership Trust and the Leadership Foundation, a member of the Advisory Board of the Defence Academy, co-director of the European Leadership Centre and director of Coaching Ourselves Inc.

Peter Villiers is a writer, lecturer and consultant with a wealth of practical experience in leadership and management development. He has served in the merchant navy, as a captain in the Royal Armoured Corps in Northern Ireland, Cyprus and Hong Kong and as the principal of a leading tutorial college. From 1986 to 2004 he was a senior tutor at the UK National Police Staff College, where his final position was as the head of human rights. He is a widely published author and has written textbooks, histories, guides, biographies and plays.

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