ABSTRACT
In the previous two chapters we have argued that, in order to be effective, leaders need to be representative of the groups that they seek to lead and also to advance those groups’ interests. In the course of making these points we also presented quite a large amount of empirical evidence to back up our claims. Before we continue, two points are worth making about this process. The first is that-particularly within the practitioner literature-there is a tendency for the strength of commentators’ claims to be negatively correlated with the strength of the data they present to back them up. Like the set of a Hollywood film, the grander the façade, the less there is of substance behind it. Indeed, in the case of many of the leadership books that line the shelves in airport bookstores, the main form of evidence is often simply the conviction of a well-known and successful leader that his (or, occasionally, her) views are correct. Against this, the second point is that-particularly within the academic literature-there is a tendency to stick to a very narrow understanding of what constitutes legitimate evidence. Some researchers insist that the gold standard is provided by controlled experimentation, while others argue that progress can be made only on the basis of rich descriptions of real-life phenomena.
