MISSING IN ACTION
If you aren’t a leader characterised by energy and dynamism, the general consensus is your story isn’t worth telling. Martin Gutmann explains why only a narrow set of historical figures make the cut as examples used in lessons and why we should widen the net of those profiled in case studies at business schools
H ave you heard of George Washington? Of course. What about Napoleon Bonaparte? Certainly. But how about Toussaint Louverture? Perhaps not – a rather curious fact, for reasons we shall see. Like his two aforementioned contemporaries, Louverture was a leader during the turbulent ‘Age of Revolution’ that stretched from the late 1700s to the early 1800s. His Haitian Revolution stands out as the only successful slave revolt in history, putting an end to European rule of what had been France’s most lucrative colony. “When we look for leaders in the past, we are more likely to pick out those who were the liveliest, who made the most noise, fought the hardest and, therefore, are the most entertaining”
are not, both historically and in the present day. In Louverture’s case, there is an obvious, but no less repugnant, one: the fact that most history books are written by white men. In fact, as an introductory page to a relevant archival collection at Brown University explains, “Many statesmen of the 19th century simply refused to admit that [the
Haitian Revolution] had taken place.” Similar reasons also explain why many capable women leaders of the past are also absent from our contemporary examinations of past leaders. However, there could be more at work behind our neglecting of Louverture. His story – the series of events and decisions that led him and the island that would become Haiti towards independence – does not conform to our preferred leadership narrative. I’ve come to call this phenomenon the ‘Action Fallacy’. As I explain in my recent book, The Unseen Leader , this phenomenon “describes our persistent belief that while accountants or engineers may
Its legacy has reverberated through time, serving to this day as a source of inspiration and hope to the dispossessed around the world. So why have we neglected him? And neglect it is. Among the many means of studying leadership out there, a particularly prevalent one involves the drawing of contemporary lessons from leaders of the past: Winston Churchill, John F Kennedy, Ernest Shackleton and, of course, Washington and Napoleon. So why not Louverture? THE PREVAILING NARRATIVE There are many reasons why some leaders are celebrated and others
38 Business Impact • ISSUE 4 • 2023
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