FICTITIOUS MODELS

A capacity for empathy and emotional intelligence has been stressed as a key element of successful leadership and not least business management.

Insight into what drives different individuals, what motives underlie their actions, and how they function in different situations is knowledge vital to a leader. Much of this knowledge comes with (life) experience, but much can be gleaned from the world of books. Here I am not referring to management literature or self-help books but to fiction. There is plenty of background for discussions of leadership in Homer, Shakespeare, and the Bible, in August Strindberg, Väinö Linna, and Tove Jansson. Character appraisals, power plays, ethical considerations, and resistance to change appear in fiction, and an attentive reader can profit from authors’ insights. Many business executives – I mention Nordea’s former chairman Hans Dahlborg as an example – have spoken about the importance of business executives reading fiction. In addition to the knowledge of life and people it offers, reading contributes to broader general knowledge. To have a command of your own area of specialization alone is not enough at higher levels or beyond the borders of your own country.

It’s important to pay attention to what you read, though. Most of us are usually what the author Olof Lagercrantz called “pudding readers” – happy consumers who read a book without recalling afterwards what they have read. To absorb more than the plot of a book requires reflection. Several literary scholars provide courses for executives, but reference books in this area are few and far between. That makes it all the more pleasing that two Finnish humanists, literary scholar Lasse Koskela and linguist Pasi Lankinen, recently published a book on this subject. Johtajakirja – suomalaisen kaunokirjallisuuden johtajia [The Leader Book – leading characters in Finnish fiction] was published right before Christmas 2010. The authors have done a close reading of 10 novels and short stories from the point of view of leadership and in their book set forth their line of reasoning and the lessons one can draw from the texts. The book serves as an excellent introduction to how one can analyze a work of fiction from a specific perspective and place it into a broader context – in this case, the business world in general. As far back as 2003, the authors talked about the importance of augmenting specialized knowledge in working life with a broader frame of reference, in their Guide till skönlitterär läsning [Guide to reading fiction]. Now they have concentrated on what Finnish authors can contribute to the discussion on leadership.

The authors have worked extensively with their book, beginning with a survey of management literature and other reference works. Despite the authors’ good intentions, the book’s greatest weakness is that they don’t quite seem to have understood the idea behind business management. Here one finds too much of the humanists’ preconceived notions of free enterprise as something suspicious, profit maximization as something ethically questionable. Every sector has its jargon, so what right do humanists have to make sarcastic remarks about buzzwords in business? When they talk about “Head of Human Sources,” I’m not quite sure it is a typographical error. Their thoughts concerning leadership are inspiring and analytical, but the link with business and industry falters. Each individual book analysis concludes with a few key lessons, but these tend to be very general, sometimes banal, such as “look into the crystal ball sometimes” or “there’s always a reason to pay attention to reality.”

Johtajakirja works best when it analyzes the main characters as leaders, how they think and how they act. The most space is dedicated to Väinö Linna’s Okänd soldat [Unknown soldier].The authors go beyond the stereotypical characterizations of second lieutenant Koskela and lieutenant Lammio, characters with whom almost every Finn is familiar. Their speculations about how these people would function as managers in companies are less apt. The authors criticize the well known mantra that “Finns should be led from the front” by showing how all leaders of that kind are killed in Okänd soldat, while the disagreeable and unempathetic Lammio is promoted to major.

To my mind, the book’s most interesting chapter is the one dealing with Aleksis Kivi’s Sju bröder [Seven brothers]. At first glance, you might wonder what these seven uncivilized and insubordinate adolescents could teach us about leadership, but here we see convincingly how the brothers work as a team.  The leadership of the group shifts depending on the situation, and this illustrates well what one can call situational leadership. The brothers also stick together as a team despite one crisis after another.

The power of language and language used as a tool of power are the themes of the analysis of working-class author Teuvo Pakkala’s short story Mahtisana (The power word), while the combination of leadership with a woman’s role and a feminine identity is treated in the analyses of Elsa Soini’s novel Rouva johtaja [Mrs. Director] from 1932 and Maija Paavilainen’s Sinulle luotu [Created for you] from 2007. The idea occurred to this reviewer that a corresponding book about leadership in Sweden could consider Hjalmar Bergman’s Chefen fru Ingeborg [The boss, Mrs. Ingeborg].

For fiction to yield lessons, the agents described need not be human beings. Winnie the Pooh has been used in many contexts (The Tao according to Pooh), J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings inspired the doctoral dissertation Management by Sauron (Hietikko 2008), and fables have provided leadership metaphors from time immemorial. In Johtajakirja, Moomintroll in Moominpappa at Sea (1965) is used to illustrate change management. The authors win points for their lack of preconceived notions, but this analysis is seriously faulty. They have a point that Moominpappa at Sea describes the need for change and how a new equilibrium is achieved, and maybe Moominmamma personifies passive resistance to change. But Moominpappa’s indecision and reliance on his intuition do not create a believable image of a leader guiding a change process.

Johtajakirja has major merits and fills a gap in the Nordic market. The analyses are thought provoking, even when one does not embrace the author’s conclusions. The book also serves to broaden one’s mind and to inspire the application of a leadership perspective to the fiction one reads.

Would you like to know more? Then perhaps the Manager and Leader program is for you. The author of the review above, Robin Elfving is a lecturer in the program.