Leadership for Development: What Globalization Demands of Leaders Fighting for Change

Although the extraordinary leadership that stimulated European recovery efforts in the late 1940s and early 1950s is now widely celebrated as a model for international development assistance, the role of leadership in development is too often taken for granted. Rondinelli and Heffron argue persuasively that leadership is the hallmark of almost every successful effort at international development since the late 1940s, and that its absence is the underlying cause of most development failures.

Leadership for Development examines fundamental issues: the tools leaders use to achieve development goals; how culture and interdependence among governments and organizations affects leadership styles; where leaders get their advice from – experts, non-experts, academic or non-academic elites – and if it matters; whether transformational or transactional leadership styles are more effective; and the lessons that can be drawn from examining the traits of successful leaders. Focusing largely on the Pacific Basin region and Latin America, the book offers valuable case studies for development practitioners looking to increase their effectiveness in a highly interdependent global society.

Dennis A. Rondinelli (1943-2007), the former Director of the Pacific Basin Research Center at Soka University of America. He was Senior Research Scholar at the Duke Center for International Development, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina and the Glaxo Distinguished International Professor of Management Emeritus at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dr. Rondinelli’s research spans the United States, Asia, Central Europe, Latin America, and Africa. He authored or edited 18 books and published more than 250 articles in scholarly and professional journals and book chapters. He served as an advisor, consultant, or expert to the U.S. State Department’s Agency for International Development, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Canadian International Development Agency, the International Labor Office, the United Nations Development Program, and to private corporations. In 2002 he was appointed to a four-year term as the member from the United States of the United Nations Expert Committee on Public Administration and he was reappointed in 2005 for a second four-year term. Dr. Rondinelli received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. Rondinelli passed away in March, 2007.

John M. Heffron is Professor of History and Dean of Students at Soka University of America, Aliso Viejo, California. He also serves as Associate Director of the Pacific Basin Research Center, a research unit of the University. Prior to joining Soka University of America, Heffron taught at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Montana State University, and in the State University of New York system at both Fredonia and Buffalo. Heffron holds a Ph.D. and MA in History from the University of Rochester and a BA in History from Princeton University. He has also held research and teaching fellowships from the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Newberry Institute for Quantitative Methods in History and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Professor Heffron has published research and commentary in Science & Education, Educational Theory, History of Education Quarterly, Teachers College Record, and American Studies and Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation. With Rondinelli, he is most recently the author and editor of Globalization & Change in Asia (Lynne Rienner, 2007).