The Process of Personal Leadership: The Case of de Gaulle

Abstract

Assessing personal leadership is a highly problematic task. However, a fairly simply framework can be developed based on the interaction of the leader's personal qualities, his or her relationship with the body politic, and his or her relationship with the state. Four consequent types of personal leadership derived from this framework are focused on here: routine leadership, integrative leadership, catalytic leadership and transformative leadership. The framework is then applied to the case of General de Gaulle, late President of the Republic of France (1958-1969). Consideration of a wide variety of structural and conjunctural factors leads to the conclusion that de Gaulle was primarily a catalytic leader rather than a transformative leader.