A Research Conception on Indigenous Chinese Leadership: Based on Comparative Case Studies on Political Elites in Ancient China

Due to the complexity of leadership and its variability across situations, it is suggested that research on leadership should focus on attempts to understand leadership in specific situations or roles, and develop local knowledge about leadership in each situation or role. This paper validates the possibility and importance of building indigenous leadership theories from historical perspective. We demonstrated how to carry out research on indigenous Chinese leadership from a historical perspective by comparative case studies using historical data. Based on the principles of typicalness, representativeness, and comparativeness, we selected six counterparts of political elites in ancient China as comparative cases, which includes Guan Zhong & Shang Yang (organizational reformer), Liu Bang & Xiang Yu (entrepreneur), Li Shimin & Qin Shihuang (intergenerational transition successor), Zhuge Liang & Zeng Guofan (professional manager), Lu Su & Zhang Juzheng (mess-to-order maker), and Zuo Zongtang & Wang Anshi (national dream driver). The paper aims to develop indigenous leadership theory specific to Chinese mental states and culture.