Jim Jones Research Paper

Leaders show up in infinitely varying circumstances and characters. Typically, each individual has a picture of who they see as a perfect leader, but no leader is perfect for everyone. Different circumstances and different people require different character traits and styles for their leaders to be effective. The coach of a high school football team is not going to have the same character traits or leadership style as a kindergarten teacher. Not only is the scope of a leader’s character limited in the minds of individuals, but the circumstances in which a leader is needed, or in which a good leader could be found, is typically a narrow field in the minds of individuals. When good leaders come to mind, they are often pictured as outgoing, authority-demanding,

He didn’t have the easiest home life as he was growing up. His father was abusive. Jones become involved in church early on in his life, becoming a student pastor in the Methodist Church as a young man. He became disappointed and dissatisfied with the Methodist Church when they wouldn’t allow blacks to participate in the church services. He broke off from the Methodist Church and started his church, which eventually came to be known as People’s Temple. People of all races were encouraged to become members, with human freedom and equality being preached on a regular basis. People’s Temple started soup kitchens, housing for the elderly, and provided job assistance. Jones’ church made great strides in caring for his community and opening its doors to people of all races. One could look back on his church and see some of the great things that he was doing. Even on a moral level, Jones seemed to be doing pretty well. However, he began to stray from a seemingly solid moral foundation early on as he used some dishonest tactics to gain and retain members of his church. One of his most infamous tactics was to use fake healing rituals to manipulate viewers into believing it was real and join the People’s Temple. As investigations began to look into what he was doing, he moved the People’s Temple to California (Cults,

Charismatic leadership is a type of transformational leadership. A key component of transformational leadership is that “the manager and the followers may emerge with a stronger and higher set of moral values” (Northouse, 2015). This is why defining Jones as a transformational and charismatic leader isn’t enough. Those two terms do not account for the immoral action that Jones committed. In fact, if we only defined him with those two words, it would suggest that he had moral actions and obtained a stronger moral compass as he progressed in his leadership. It is evident by looking at his life that this isn’t true. To more completely define the leadership style of Jim Jones, we must identify him as a pseudo-transformational leader. A pseudo-transformational leader is focused on his own goals rather than the common interest, and they tend to appear as exploitive people with warped moral values (Northouse, 2015). The psychodynamic approach to leadership explains that leaders can be successful and still have darker personality traits. These darker personality traits are usually unacceptable to and denied by the leader, but they are evident to those looking at the leader from the outside (cult, 2013). This explains how Jones demanded such a high moral standard among his followers, yet is known to have carried on affairs and abused