Episode #65: Leadership in Harry Potter
What makes a leader? For centuries, philosophers have debated the essential qualities of a leader (the differences in what a culture values in it’s leaders is often a good indication of the values of said culture). When looking at Harry Potter, what are the qualities that J.K. Rowling seems to show as making a good leader? How do the characters in leadership roles respond to the power and authority they are given? In this podcast, we discuss all these issues. Many thanks to Greg from Toronto for joining us for this discussion.
Referenced in our discussion is the book Forty Ways to Look at Winston Chuchhill: A Breif Account of a Long Life.
In the News:
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has been nominated for four awards from the Visual Effects Socity.
- Guillermo Del Toro hopes to direct Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix won the People’s Choice Award for Favorite Movie Drama
- Raincoast Books is shutting down its publishing division.
You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.
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Tags: dumbelfore, fudge, government, Harry Potter, JK Rowling, leadership, machiavelli, nietszche, the prince
January 13th, 2008 at 7:33 am
Great topic and great discussion.
Strange as it may sound but (notwithstanding his many other good qualities) I myself don’t really see Harry as much of a “leader”.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:51 am
by the way – Anonymous 7:33 – was me
January 13th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
You wer right the first time, it was Goyle. As for your question, Harry was 36 years old. Here is another good question: How many chambers did Harry, Ron and Hermione go through to reach the Sorcerer’s Stone? (include the chamber with the stone).
January 13th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
The military defines leadership as the art of influencing people to accomplish a task or mission. There is an entire field manuals (books actually) FM 21-20 Military Leadership and every rank from Corporal to General attends courses and schools devoted to it. When I think back on the time I spent in and then teaching such leadership classes it was a lot. Given this large investment in time and resources the Army definately believes leadership can be taught. So you see Dumbledore to me who professed to being a better teacher than a leader was Harry’s personal leadership trainer. Dumbledore was no doubt a great leader. His role as headmaster and grand poohbah of the OOTP show him to be very repected by the most skilled wizards of the day. He was battle tested and even after his death all Harry had to say to an OOTP member when question was that he was working on the big D’s orders and that was the end of it. ( Very military style actually) Now in his relationship to Harry all those things Dumbledore kept hidden and all the dangers he put Harry into can be directly attributed to training Harry up to be able to do what he was chosen to do. The cold manipulating Dumbledore is a perfect example of a military minded professional soldier. His own feelings are second to the mission. He ask nothing that he would not be willing to do himself and the guilt he feels for the situation and the fallen are those of a combat leader. Even his attitude about his own death rings of this deliberate thought process. Harry was trained to be his special ops team leader. Given sensitive information on a need to know basis and sharing it only with others that had the need to know. So good was Dumbledore’s training of Harry that it caused Harry to think of himself as becoming as secretive and manipulating as Dumbledore when it came time for him to lead. Harry was a leader. Thrust apon him by circumstance and trained to efficency by Dumbledore. Dumbledore’s real advantage was realizing that all information is power. The plan against Voldemort revolved around this using what V didn’t know or care to bother with to give Harry and his allies the advantage. When you compare Harry’s leadership to Dumbledore’s it is almost a clone but with enough individualism to allow Harry to unite the Hallows and Destroy Voldemort although I am betting Dumbledore had better grades.
January 13th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Oh yeah I absolutely went ga ga over the comparrison to the Mistry of Magic to Nevielle Chamberlains appeasement policy. Peace in our time. Then as now isn’t it weird how much the world hasn’t changed?
January 13th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Aaron- I think you bring up some excellent points and you seem to add to the conversation, but can you do us all a favor and please use more paragraphs when you post comments? It will make your ideas much easier to read and will make us all want to comment back to you. Thanks!!
January 13th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
is this going to get on itunes
January 13th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
never mind
January 13th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
Eating words has never given me indigestion.
January 13th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
You are right Laurie and I need to change my batteries in my keyboard as well.
January 13th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
ok – here goes.
while I do have some military experience under my belt I prefer to use the sports analogy. there are managers and there are players. ofter the most mediocre players turn out to be the greatesrt managers (i.e. Joe Torre etc…)
Harry is the GREATEST player – every managers dream – but he is no manager. He is busy focusing on achieving his mission. He cannot stand to see people sacrificing themselves for the cause.
Throughout DH without DD the Order is virtually non existent. Harry has no plan and instead of being proactive all the order members are busy “putting out fires”.
Even in Harry’s ultimate moment of self-sacrifice he is essentially continuing to (almost blindly) execute a plan laid out by DD. If Harry was the leader with a plan of his own sacrificing himself would be the worst idea possible. As far as he can tell he is walking to his death leaving every one else to deal with whatever will happen of which he has no clue at all.
January 13th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Actually Shimon you are dead on with part of what I am saying. Harry was not Dumbledore’s replacement as a leader, he is far too inexperienced and young but as a special ops team leader he excelled.
He had a great team to be sure but because your not the smartest or the biggest does not make you the leader. You have to be able to make a decision and be willing to support it. Hallows or Horecruxes?
January 13th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
i see what you are saying and i guess our positions are not really that far apart. however i’m not convinced that leadership can be completely equated with making a decision. in this specific game where ethics and character traits are part of the game parameters i think some decisions are still a measure of preformance and not necissarily leadership.
January 13th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
JK Rowling did an excellent job of representing leadership in her characters. In Deathly Hallows we are in a full blown wizard war. The government has been taken over by extremist and their ideals are being enforced in the typical ways of the tyrant.
There are many different types of leadership. Passive, direct, totalitarian are a few. Everyone develops their own style which is usually a mix and the situation can dictate which we choose to use. The life and death decisions Harry made showed an extreme amount of talent. And while he was no General Patton he did take action and that is vital. There are many quotes in DH showing how he was glad to be doing something and how that made him feel good. True enough he had no plan but this was irrelevant because the plan being followed was Dumbledore’s. Harry was lost because he was kept in the dark about many things because he didn’t yet have that need to know. To be a good leader you must know also how to follow and anyone who has followed knows that there are a lot of leaders put there by position and circumstance that have no plan. To recognize your own shortcomings as a leader and delegate authority or task to others with more time or knowledge on the task is something Harry could have done better. In the end leadership is measured by success and Harry was successful.
I like the comparison of the Wizard Ministers to the British Prime Ministers of World War II. There is not much doubt that JKR used these historical figures as a guideline. Prime Minister Chamberland was widely celebrated as a hero of peace while Winston Churchill was portrayed as a war monger. Appeasement didn’t work out and only added to Adolf Hitler’s power. The German people looked at him as a conqueror that fought without bloodshed and only cemented their loyalty to him. Winston Churchill’s attitude toward Hitler can be summed up by this quote, “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons”.
It is well worth while as a Harry Potter fan to do an internet search on his quotes and see how the HP series follows there intent.
I am very hopeful that JK Rowling will write another book about this world she created. I am so curious about how things worked out. Sigh, I will have to be content with .” All was well.” I’ll end this with another WC quote. ,”The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read.”
January 13th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Thanks Aaron:)
January 13th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
First I would like to say to Greg and Penny and Greg: Great job. I think that this was an excellent podcast. The topic was perfect after DH that I am actually wondering now why it took until January to do this one.
Anyways my thoughts: I agree with Greg that the quote that he gave, Kings Cross chapter, was as pure to the truth that you could have got. I personally have seen that the people that do the best with power and leadership are the people that don’t look for it, rather it looks for them. In my opinion, and granted this is just my opinion but I think that Dumbledore was the greatest leader in DH and in the series. Here is my defense if you disagree, from the moment that Harry defeated Voldemort in Godric’s Hollow on Halloween night, Dumbledore made a plan. That plan was to grow up strengths and to protect Harry. For one day, perhaps in years or even decades, Voldemort would return to a full body and then he would attack Harry. If Harry was to survive he needed to be taught. How does this relate to him being a leader. Well in HBP he devises and sets up a plan that even after his, the leader’s, death the plan would still keep going. That his death would not delay the defeating of Voldemort.
Everyone that was part of the order and in the DA always respected Dumbledore and even in his death they take orders from him. Not only Snape and the portrait, but also in Ravenclaw tower. When Harry told McGonagall that he needed to find something she was thinking that he had lost him mind. But when he said that he was “acting on Dumbledore’s orders.” She immediately trust him and announces that they will defend Hogwarts from Voldemort. By saying that Dumbledore told him to do this meant that it was right and what ever need to be done was to help defeat Voldemort.
A man who could see the bigger picture and knew that at some point he would have to sacrifice himself so that the greater good could be served. A true leader, in my opinion, does not have everyone do the work but at some point realizes that when dealing with pure evil it takes a sacrifice of immense strength to give people the light to do what is right.
Oh and Harry was 37 when he sent Albus Severus on the train for the first time. See he was 17 then 19 years later = 36 close but don’t forget Harry’s B-day is 31 July just like JKR and so he would have had one mor birthday and so he would have been 37.
As for your question. I’ll get back to you on that.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:04 am
All I could keep thinking while listening that DD put himself in the best position as far as leadership goes by turning down the MOM job and becoming the headmaster at Hogwarts.
He became a leader of influential children, just think back to his speech after Cedric’s death, how he told all the kids that Voldemort was back and the Ministry was against them knowing anything. A very political move. He wasn’t just a leader to Harry and the Order, but a man in a position of power. Isn’t it funny that the word power seems to go hand in hand with DD.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
My theory is that as long as DD was around noone was going to do their best b/c DD would always come and save the day. Remember in SS when Hermione says that as long as DD was around Harry couldn’t be touched. That he was the only wizard Voldemort was ever afraid of. When DD died that made Voldemort seem that much more real and that much more powerful. It made not only Harry but everyone stand up and take charge. It allowed then to be leaders of themselves and not just like DD sheep or something. Think in the final battle: when McGonnegal, Slughorn, and Kingley were battle him. True it took three to equal him but they were taking him on. They were fighting what they would have usually left to DD to do. They became fighters adn not just b/c DD said so but b/c they wanted to.
“It is the difference from being dragged into an areana or walking into it with your head held high.”
To me a great leader knows when it is time to give up and let someone else take to throne of power. However they must also have instled enough in his followers to continue with the plan even after they have become leaders themselves.
DD was not without faults, as we find out in DH but we must take those fault in to account to get the true magisty of DD. He sought power and to rule but he gave that away to teach. To instruct others not in the dark art but in a way that would keep their soul pure and unmained.
Oh and to your thought of how power goes with DD. i think that it is the fact that he is so brillant. Noone that smart can just settle to be ordinary. As JKR said in her interview with Pottercast “Dumbledore was not cut out, to his shame, to be a carer. He was cut out to go out on the world stage and be a brilliant man. He knows that about himself and he’s ashamed of it.” And noone says it better than JKR herself.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:24 am
Outstanding content and thanks a ton to Greg from Toronto who did an outstanding job as guest co-host.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Thanks JamesM!!