'Engaged intellectual' Joseph Nye speaks on leadership in the 21st century
Professor Joseph S. Nye, Jr tonight led a lively discussion at Rhodes House with current Rhodes Scholars on the nature of leadership in the 21st century.
Cecil Rhodes's will specified 'instincts to lead' as one of the attributes to be sought in Rhodes Scholars, and the Warden of Rhodes House, Dr Donald Markwell, introduced Professor Nye as 'an engaged intellectual' who had contributed greatly to analysis of the nature of power and the skills needed for leadership in the world today.
In this, Professor Nye drew on his outstanding work as a scholar of international relations, his various leadership roles at Harvard (including as Dean of the Kennedy School of Government), and his service in the US Departments of State and Defense under Presidents Carter and Clinton.
Professor Nye spoke of how the 'big man' view of leadership, so powerful in earlier generations, is increasingly outdated in the information age, in which networks replace hierarchies, and it is important to think of leaders being 'in the centre of a circle rather than at the top of a mountain'.
It is, he said, increasingly important for leaders to exercise 'soft power' - the exercise of attraction - rather than the giving of orders. Women are, in general, he said, intuitively better at exercising 'soft power' than men.
The form of leadership most likely to be effective depended highly on context, Professor Nye argued, but there are six critical skills for leaders - the 'soft power' skills of emotional intelligence, vision, and communication; the 'hard power' skills of organisation (including organising information flows well), and Machiavellian political skills; and the 'smart power' skill of 'contextual intelligence', the ability intuitively to identify a strategy that will work in the context.
In discussion with Rhodes Scholars, Professor Nye illustrated his argument (developed more fully in his 2008 book, The Powers to Lead) with references to many leaders, especially in government and business. Several of those he mentioned - Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton (Arkansas & University College 1968), Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the Dalai Lama - had signed the visitors' book at Rhodes House, and at the conclusion of the discussion Professor Nye did so also.
