Abstract
Although leadership has been extensively researched in relation to the emergence and
effectiveness of leaders, there is a deficiency in our understanding of how a persons leadership
approach develops. Research has demonstrated that genetics and environment play a limited role
in predicting leadership effectiveness or emergence with only some environmental factors
correlating to the type of leadership approach that emerges. This dissertation addresses this
shortcoming by investigating the role that societal, political, ethical and spiritual
environmental factors play in the development of a person’s leadership approach. These
environmental factors will be shown to consist of the influences from political, social, moral and
religious philosophy. It will be demonstrated that the influence from these philosophical areas has
an impact on the formation of a person’s understanding of the social relationship and that this in
turn impacts their approach to leadership. An exploration of the relationship between philosophy
and contemporary leadership theory demonstrates the relevance of philosophical influences on the
resultant leadership approach.
This research uses the prosopographical method to analyse the backgrounds of a select group of
leaders known as soldier statesmen through an investigation of the biographical material of their
early lives. For this analysis, two soldier statesmen from each of the 18th and 20th centuries have
been selected as suitable subjects: George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte from the former,
and Dwight D Eisenhower and Charles de Gaulle from the latter. The extent to which the
philosophical influence act upon these soldier statesmen is analysed to demonstrate the role that
they play in the formation of their leadership approach.
The dissertation concludes by evaluating the role that the proposed environmental factors play in
relation to existing environmental factors in determining a person’s leadership approach. The
research indicates that the Great Man theory of leadership is inadequate for explaining great
leadership and that the socio-historical context plays an important role in the emergence and
success of great leaders.