Abstract
Can you imagine what the small community living for numerous generations some 350,000 years ago, accommodating three outbuildings, a “workshop” area and a “butchers shop”, hunted and consumed more than 1,000 animals, did without leadership or management? In my opinion, this question is entirely rhetorical.
A community, which includes a large number of well-developed individuals, increases in number and defeats other and less gifted societies, even when no individual member can gain an advantage over a single other member of the that same society.
Charles Darwin
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Notes
- 1.
In terms of human behaviour, the theory of evolution neither defines genetic compulsion nor suggests the impossibility of change, as occasionally wrongly implied.
- 2.
“Culture is based, amongst others, on the genetic tendency to imitate the successful (or at least success promisor)” (in Karl Eibl, Kultur als Zwischenwelt, 2009, S. 113).
- 3.
Weaknesses and threats to groups include, e.g. the illusion of being invulnerable, peer pressure and social loafing (Weinert 2004).
- 4.
There are archaeological remains, which show that even severely injured group members, who would never have been able to reciprocate, were cared for and kept alive for a substantial time.
- 5.
Weinert (2004, S. 417).
- 6.
The topic of trust has not nearly been addressed or researched to the same extent as the thousand of publications on leadership. Surprisingly, it may turn out to be the second most important factor influencing the success of companies (R. Berth, Erfolg, 1993).
- 7.
Mark van Vugt and Anjana Ahuja, Selected, 2010, p. 144.
- 8.
Richerson, P. J., Boyd, R. & Paciotti, B., An Evolutionary Theory of Commons Management, Draft 4.0 May 30, 2001, Chapter intended for: Institutions for Managing the Commons, Stern, P., managing editor, National Research Council, S. 12.
- 9.
Weibler, J.: Personalführung, 2001, S. 10.
- 10.
This seems to me a much better way to express the concept, compared to the term “dominance”.
- 11.
The term “standing”, i.e. reputation or prestige, nicely combines the idea of influence with social awareness.
- 12.
This is where the protection against existential threats would have started to play a more important role. Just as the constant fear of early civilizations that the world could lose its structure. “Whoever is responsible for fertile land or fighting in the front lines against evil—as a priest against misfortune, as a king against visible enemies—can demand from those on behalf whom he is fighting, their submission and obedience. His rank and his power will grow with the responsibilities exercised”. (Manfred Drenning, Tauschen und Täuschen, S. 55)
- 13.
Mark van Vugt and Anjana Ahuja, Selected, 2010, S. 8/9.
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Alznauer, M. (2016). The Birth of Leadership. In: Leading Naturally. Management for Professionals. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-45111-3_1
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