Leadership: Leaders, Followers, Environments

Family and early childhood antecedents

The symbols, trends, stereotypes, and experiences around a child in the home and immediate surroundings are powerful influences on the adult leader; the early socialization of children provides powerful clues about future behaviors. In 1802, poet William Wordsworth suggested a simple answer to the impact of childhood on a person’s life: “The child is father of the man.”²⁵ Writer John Milton narrowed it to five words: “The childhood shows the man.”²⁶ And while the “entire man” might not be seen in the “cradle of the child,” as Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, a leader’s family background and early life have deservedly received considerable attention in leadership literature, particularly from the discipline of psychology and the scholarship of three renowned scientists: Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, and Erik Erikson.²⁷

The establishment of a strong and secure bond of attachment between infant and caretaker, or its absence, colors the way individuals react to authority later in life. Insecure attachment might well contribute to future toxic leaders. Another feature is the gradual emergence in the young child of a sense of self. Children as young as 18 months are aware that they exist as separate beings; they know names, faces, and how they are similar to, or different from, certain other individuals. This process of identification, where children begin to identify with certain people within their immediate circle just as they begin to develop a sense ...