Philip Collins in The Times today discusses what’s wrong with the leaderships of Cameron, Clegg and Miliband, but his summary of Kurt Lewin’s leadership research applies just as much to running law firms:
“In 1939 the psychologist Kurt Lewin conducted an experiment that contains all that needs to be said about leadership styles. He observed a group of children in an arts and crafts project as an authoritarian leader told them what to do and how to do it. Then, he took notes as a laissez faire leader let them do much as they pleased. Nobody much liked the first leader but they respected him and the job got done. In the second group, the children kept coming back for more directions and the project dissolved into acrimony with nothing much done.”
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