Running Head: LEADERSHIP !

Leadership & Peace

Jennifer Lui

Psych 159

3/14/17

University of California, Santa Cruz

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Leadership & Peace

Abstract

Peace has taken a stronghold in todays society in efforts to resolve the chaos and

political issues that have recently arisen. In this project, I have focused on efforts to creating

peace and how prominent peace leaders have used their leadership in effective ways, particularly

through positive leadership skills and methods.

Great leadership is embodied by many positive characteristics. Some examples include

courage, in which the leader encourages other people; humility, in which they demonstrate a

compelling humility, shun public adulation and are never boastful. When successful, they tend to

apportion credit to other people; hardiness factor: they draw positive energy from painful

experiences in their life; sense of humor: humor can be used to relieve the strain; Personal

integrity: being congruent and true to ones values, and also the ability to cope with personal

stress and complex situations (Reychler & Stellamans, 2005).

I decided to focus on the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela, who are prominent

leaders in he peacekeeping world. What these three leaders share in common is their common

aim for a peaceful world through peaceful means, and exhibiting great leadership and appeal to

the masses through the psychosocial aspects of leadership. For example one book about Gandhi

states that his characteristics embody three levels of leadership. One way is through modal

values such as honesty, integrity, trustworthiness, reliability, reciprocity and accountability.

Another way is through end values such as order (security), liberty, equality, justice and

community (Dhiman, 2015). Overall, in order to have effectiveness and promote positive peace,

one must observe the great leaders to support a reduction in violence and war.
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Introduction

Peace building leaders have relational skills which help sustain interconnections among

people. They are skillful mediators and possess the necessary mediation skills to turn conflicts

into opportunities. They have wisdom skills which increase understanding, such as imagination,

judgment, innovation, paradoxical problem-solving. They are also equipped with elicit skills

which motivate people to act, such as involving others, building coalition, facilitating, coaching,

nurturing talent, and empowering leadership. They are also equipped with great communication

skills (Reychler & Stellamans, 2005).

When there are many leaders, there is the potential of leaders with different, incompatible

definitions of peace, so it is important to support and acknowledge leaders who exhibit positive

peace rather than those who attempt to bring resolution through violent methods. According to

Dhiman, good leadership includes ethics, which generally consists of the examination of right,

wrong, good, evil, virtue, duty, obligation, and many other important factors. It is emphasized

that traits such as honesty, integrity, and credibility are associated with the perception of an

effective leader and are important predictors of leadership effectiveness. Ethical leaders are

altruistic, honest, trustworthy, and principled decision makers who care about the well-being of

their followers and the needs of the broader society (Dhiman, 2015).

In my Dropbox folder, I will be reiterating an overview of leadership and effectiveness

among positive leaders and reviewing the psychosocial aspect of the major peace leaders,

particularly focusing on Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, and Nelson Mandela. My research articles in

my overview folder go into great detail explaining the benefits of positive leadership, and how to

distinguish between a good and bad leader. One video, a TED talk, describes how good leaders
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make those around them feel safe, which is greatly applicable to this subject. I will then be going

over solutions that these leaders have created, or are in the progress of being created, that have

been created by these three leaders to decrease the amount of violence, thus bringing more peace

into the world.

Research Materials

There is much research about the effects of leadership and peacebuilding. One article by

Fry (2003) details spiritual leadership, and bringing about peace through spiritual means. The

Dalai Lama is one example of a famous spiritual leader who follows these spiritual guidelines.

One article focuses greatly on this aspect of spirituality and leadership. There are great emotional

and psychological benefits from separating love, or care and concern for others, from need,

which is the essence of giving and receiving unconditionally. Both medicine and the field of

positive psychology have begun to study and confirm that love has the power to overcome the

destructive influence of the four main groups of destructive emotions fearincluding anxiety,

worry, and apprehension; angerincluding, hostility, resentment, envy, jealousy, and hatred;

sense of failureincluding such things as discouragement, depressed moods, and various guilt

feelings that lead to self-destruction; prideincluding prejudice, selfishness, self-consciousness,

and conceit. All of these destructive emotions stem from fear of losing something one values or

not getting something one believes he/she deserves. Love then forms the basis for overcoming

and removing fear and is the basis for all healing emotions. Focusing on care and concern for

both self and others, independent of ones own needs, drives out fears and worries, anger and

jealousies, failures and guilt, and provides the foundation for well-being and the experience of
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joy, peace, and serenity. It also produces loyalty and commitment to the individuals and social

networks (organizations) from which it is received (Fry, 2003).

The main issues that I cover in this project concerns differentiating between positive,

effective leaders and negative, non-effective leaders. There is much research that goes into depth

about what good leadership versus negative leadership entails. One article states that to

differentiate these two leaders, we must look at the three pillars in the ethics of leadership: The

first is the moral character of the leader, second is the ethical values embedded in the leaders

vision, articulation and program which followers either embrace or reject, and third is the

morality of the processes of social ethical choice and action that leaders and followers engage in

and collectively pursue (Bass & Steidlmeier, 2006). These ethical dimensions of leadership have

been widely acknowledged. Transformational leaders set examples to be emulated by their

followers. When leaders are more morally mature, those they lead display higher moral

reasoning. The article covers the difference between authentic transformational leadership

(positive) and pseudotransformational leadership (negative) in which the difference lies in the

values for which they are idealized (Bass & Steidlmeier, 2006). For example, the authentic leader

calls for universal brotherhood, whereas the pseudotransformational leader highlights fictitious

"we-they" differences in values and argues that "we" have inherently good values and "they" do

not. The authors sum up the importance of the values held by a transformational leader in

determining his or her actions. The observed behavior might seem the same, but according to the

authors, only if the underlying values are morally uplifting could the individual be considered a

transformative leader. While the authors originally argued that transformational leaders could

wear the black hats of villains or the white hats of heroes depending on their values, now
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only those who wear white hats are seen as truly transformational. Those in black hats are now

seen as pseudotransformational. That is, while they may be transformational, they are inauthentic

as transformational leaders. The authors coin this type of leader as false messiahs, as they hold

powerful values that support negative beliefs.

Website

The website for this project will cover leadership and peacemaking in an organized

format. Firstly, the main homepage will give an overview of the concept behind leaders and

peace building, and gives great articles describing the overview of peace building leadership. The

article by Reychler and Stellamans is an excellent overview of peace building leadership. The

website then continues on to list the major peace leaders, in I which have included Gandhi, the

Dalai Lama, and Nelson Mandela as well as an overview on each leader. The spiritual ideology

article by Fry (2003) is a good read into the Dalai Lamas methods of peacekeeping and

leadership. Another excellent media source is the NPR news segment describing Nelson Mandela

and his significant legacy. The website also includes a page with several solutions of these three

leaders in their efforts to creating and maintaining peace. One example is the Dalai Lamas Atlas

of Emotions website, an interactive site that is meant to help the world become more self-aware

of their emotions, thus promoting more peace. In the Additional Resources tab, I include an

insightful TED video describes in detail the Nobel Peace Prize, something I found very

interesting and educational. The tab also includes other media videos and sites to refer to for

additional information about the three leaders, as well as other information and media about

peace building and leadership. This website aims to portray great effects of positive leadership,

and what great examples the world should choose to follow.

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Conclusion

To reiterate, it is important to distinguish between the positive role models and the

negative examples. The positive leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Gandhi became such icons

of peace building leadership that people tend to believe that you really need saints to overcome

conflict. This opinion stands in contrast with what these people say about themselves: they refer

to their humble backgrounds and say that the situations rather than their will forced them to take

on a leadership role. Those with ideals and values that promote positive peace are the leaders that

we should strive to follow and model our own leadership skills after. When the world can

distinguish between the positive and the negative leaders in peacemaking, this newfound

knowledge will aid in decreasing violence and promoting more peace.

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References

Bass, B. M., & Steidlmeier, P. (2006). Ethics, character, and authentic transformational

leadership. Ethics, 12, 42.

Fry, L. W. (2003). Toward a theory of spiritual leadership. The leadership quarterly, 14(6),

693-727.

Reychler, L., & Stellamans, A. (2005). Researching peace building leadership. Centrum voor

Vredesonderzoek en Strategische Studies.

Dhiman, S. (2016). Gandhi and leadership: New horizons in exemplary leadership. Springer.