ABSTRACT
Asturias' novel provides an excellent artifact from which to extract some general themes related to leadership in a Latin American cultural context. While a work of fiction, it actually draws inspiration from the reality that Asturias faced when growing up in Latin America. The epic nature of the Cold War confrontation between capitalism against communism played right into the Latin American dictators' hands and reinforced their leadership worldview. In the Latin American case, competition becomes the main method through which the natural process of leadership selection takes place. The dualistic worldview also helps us understand how the leadership continuum is applied to the Latin American cultural context. While in the West, the people focused on transactional leadership, the Latin American worldview puts more stock in charismatic leadership, to use Max Weber's taxonomy discussed in, as the source of legitimate power in the leader-follower relationship.
