Year of Wonders: The Wonder of Leadership

Abstract

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks paints a disturbing, realistic picture of life in a small village in England in the year 1666 during the outbreak of bubonic plague. The tale of the life of the villagers and how they cope with the plague provides a backdrop for the emergence of unlikely leaders, testing of the traditional leaders within the society and revealing the weaknesses that have the potential to emerge in any leader.This is an examination of the characters within the novel and how their leadership characteristics and skills emerge and are tested. A variety of leadership theories and concepts can be seen in the leaders within the novel, including trait and process leadership; assigned and emergent leadership; the concept of power in society; path-goal theory; and transformational leadership. In this article, several characters in the novel are identified as leaders. Each of these identified characters is examined in terms of leadership theory and concepts.

Theoretical Literature Review: Tracing the Life Cycle of a Theory and Its Verified and Falsified Statements

“…By indicating that this had "led to the development of better theories" (Hamlin, 2004, p. 194), it could be interpreted that future research studies should implement these newer theories unless a reason is provided by the researcher as to why they are using an older version of path-goal theory. Path-goal theory was also introduced to the HRD literature in 2007 (Callahan & Rosser, 2007;Callahan, Whitener, & Sandlin, 2007;Sudbrack & Trombley, 2007;Whitener, 2007) in a special issue of ADHR identifying how modern media can inform leadership education and development. In their discussions, Callahan and Rosser (2007), and Whitener (2007) identified House's (1971) pathgoal theory.…”

“…Path-goal theory was also introduced to the HRD literature in 2007 (Callahan & Rosser, 2007; Callahan, Whitener, & Sandlin, 2007; Sudbrack & Trombley, 2007; Whitener, 2007) in a special issue of ADHR identifying how modern media can inform leadership education and development. In their discussions, Callahan and Rosser (2007), Callahan et al (2007) and Whitener (2007) identified House’s (1971) path-goal theory. Callahan and Rosser (2007) identified path-goal theory as one of three situation theories of leadership, with the other two being contingency and situational theories.…”

“…Here, the authors provided support for the six leader behaviors that they utilized in their leadership development programs and also recognized the most current path-goal theory by House (1996). Last, Whitener (2007) only listed the textbook from Northouse (2004) and used House and Mitchell’s (1975) model with no reference to either House (1971), House and Mitchell (1975), or House (1996). Whitener utilized the four leader behaviors of directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented, but only referenced Northouse (2004) for these behaviors.…”

“…The path-goal theory has been introduced into the HRD literature. It has been presented in four different conceptual articles (Callahan & Rosser, 2007; Callahan et al, 2007; Sudbrack & Trombley, 2007; Whitener, 2007), identified in one empirical article (Hamlin, 2004), and used in two quantitative articles (Djibo et al, 2010; Kim, 2014). However, the path-goal theory has not been tested within the lens of HRD, providing the path-goal theory as only being an informal theory in need of testing and modification before moving on to a formal theory for the discipline of HRD.…”

Exploring American History X through transformational learning

“…Although there is a burgeoning genre of research examining the use of media to study individual and group differences through films (Rogers, 2002;Rosser, 2007), graphic novels (Browning, 2007;Keller, 2007;Mathis, 2007;Whitener, 2007), and television shows (Sudbrack & Trombley, 2007), many authors stop short of offering suggestions for teaching practice and this is especially lacking in the HRD discipline. This paper seeks to fill this gap by analyzing a form of visual media (film) using examples of select adult learning theories and providing suggestions for using the film in an instructional setting, especially classes where adult learning theory is examined.…”