Howard Gardner's Definition of Leadership

In the new Preface to his book, Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, Howard Gardner defines leadership in a way that provides an excellent introduction to our collection of articles on leadership in education.

He writes, "A leader is an individual (or, rarely, a set of individuals) who significantly affects the thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors of a significant number of individuals. Most acknowledged leaders are "direct." They address their public face-to-face. But I have called attention to an unrecognized phenomenon: indirect leadership. In this variety of leading, individuals exert impact through the works that they create.

Whether direct or indirect, leaders fashion stories: principally stories of identity. It is important that a leader be a good storyteller, but equally crucial that the leader embody that story in his or her life. When a leader tells stories to experts, the stories can be quite sophisticated; but when the leader is dealing with a diverse, heterogeneous group, the story must be sufficiently elemental to be understood by the untutored, or 'unschooled,' mind."

About the author

Dr. Howard Gardner is Elizabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Harvard Graduate School of Education. His is author of 18 books, including Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century, which is a state-of-the-art report on his Theory of Multiple Intelligences and how it has changed our understanding of learning and human development.

Reprinted by permission of the author

by New Horizons for Learning, 2003
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