Evaluating Prime Ministerial Leadership in Canada: The Results of an Expert Survey
This article reports the results of the largest survey of expert opinion on prime ministerial leadership in Canada, conducted in 2011. The top-rated prime ministers were, in order, Laurier, King, Macdonald and Pearson, who were preferred because of their creative records of achievement and capacity to see the country whole, champion its unity and make for positive change. Survey respondents valued transformational leadership that altered the country, but did so in a cautious way that did not threaten national cohesiveness. The article makes frequent reference to the international literature on leadership, allowing for comparisons across a range of countries.
Characteristics of Canadian Prime Ministers : ratings by historians and political scientists
Perso n a l i t y , s i t u a t i o n a l and behavioural theories of p o l i t i c a l leadership f a l l short of explaining the i n t e r a c t i o n among the leader, the followers and the environment. In contrast, the transactional approach emphasizes t h i s r e c i p r o c a l process of s o c i a l , cognitive and s i t u a t i o n a l influences. Integrative complexity theory provides a framework and a methodology for studying t h i s i n t e r a c t i o n and i t s e f f e c t on how people process information. This study focuses on the Canadian Prime Ministers as a population of p o l i t i c a l leaders worthy of i n v e s t i g a t i o n . In addition to studying t h e i r i n t e g r a t i v e complexity l e v e l , other aspects of value i n understanding great leaders were examined. Based on items found i n studies of American Presidents (Maranell, 1970; Schlesinger, 1962) the following dimensions were studied: d i f f i c u l t y , activeness, motivation, strength, effectiveness, prestige, innovativeness, f l e x i b i l i t y , honesty and overall> accomplishments. Two sets of complexity scores (on prepared and spontaneous materials) were obtained i n order to test the question: Whose complexity i s being rated i n prepared speeches — the writer's or the speaker's? Prepared speech scores came from the Response to the Speech from the Throne texts i n Hansard, while spontaneous speech scores were based on extemporaneous responses to informal questions i n the House of Commons. Two groups of experts ( h i s t o r i a n s and p o l i t i c a l s c i e n t i s t s ) on Canadian leaders were approached for t h e i r opinions about the 16 Prime Ministers along the ten dimensions mentioned. An eleventh item was included as a check on the experts' knowledge of each leader. There was no difference between the prepared and spontaneous i n t e g r a t i v e complexity scores. Except for honesty, there were no co r r e l a t i o n s between complexity and the 11 dimensions rated by experts. The experts' ratings did not d i f f e r as a function of t h e i r d i s c i p l i n e on 10 of the 11 scales. Only on the amount of information they had about each Prime Minister did the two groups d i f f e r . The d i f f i c u l t y of the p o l i t i c a l issues facing a Prime Minister had an e f f e c t on how he was rated on f i v e dimensions: activeness, strength, effectiveness, innovativeness and accomplishments. Based on the four items found to be most pre d i c t i v e of greatness i n American Presidents ( i . e . , strength, prestige, activeness and accomplishments), Canada's f i v e greatest Prime Ministers are: Macdonald, Laurier, Borden, King and Trudeau. Both primacy and recency e f f e c t s can be seen i n these choices. The d i f f i c u l t y of the issues facing a Prime Minister had an impact on 3 of the 4 components contributing to greatness. The 5 Prime Ministers selected as great tended to rate high on the items which correspond to the 3 major dimensions (evaluative, a c t i v i t y , potency) of the semantic d i f f e r e n t i a l .
Symptomatic Trans-sexualism
A 24-year-old male schizophrenic had a delusion that he was female and had lived his life as a woman for almost two years. Unlike the only other reported case, his ‘symptomatic transsexualism’ responded to the effective treatment of his schizophrenia.