“Leadership Styles: Martin Luther King vs.

Jim Jones” by Tina

Parrish

(Tina Parrish wrote this paper for an Intergrative seminar in social science to get her BA in
Social Science at Great Basin College in Winnemucca, Nevada. She graduated this past
May.)

When people think of Martin Luther King Jr., they think of a great leader. On the other hand,
when people think of Jim Jones, they think of a crazy man who led his people into a strange
ritual of mass suicide. These two men seem as far from each other as night and day.
However, their leadership styles were not that different from one another.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the son of a Baptist
minister. In Howard Gardner’s book, Leading Minds, King described his childhood: “The
first twenty-five years of my life were very comfortable years. I didn’t have to worry about
anything... I went right through school, [and] I never had to drop out to work or anything”
(Gardner, 1995). He grew up in his father’s footsteps and got his bachelor of divinity in 1951
and his doctorate in 1955. Gardner points out, “While King’s personal philosophy had not
coalesced, he was interested in the connection between the individual’s relationship to God
and his or her commitment to social activism on earth. He was also attempting to reconcile
his personal experiences as a member of the traditional, emotionally suffused black church
with rather abstruse concerns of recent Protestant theologians” (Gardner, 1995).

I think that Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a Dream” speech shows just what kind of
leader he was, a man who was very effective at what he did. King was described by some as
having a unique way of getting people to work together rather than fight. “This leadership
was not confined to fine speeches. In private meetings, King was generally quiet. He listened
while others argued, often angrily and at length, and then he would calmly sum up the debate
and identify a way forward. From the outset of his career in Montgomery in 1955, right
through to his death in 1968, King had a remarkable ability to get people, who would
otherwise be constantly feuding, to work together. He was consistently reluctant to sever or
sour relations with anyone who might help the cause. This was particularly important
because a by-product of racism was a pronounced tendency to factionalism inside the black
community. King became the vital centre – a point of balance and unity” (Ling, 2003).

Martin Luther King Jr. was a transformational leader. “[T]ransformational leadership starts
with the development of a vision, a view of the future that will excite and convert potential
followers. This vision may be developed by the leader, by the senior team or may emerge
from a broad series of discussions. The important factor is the leader buys into it, hook, line,
and sinker.... Whilst the transformational leader seeks overtly to transform the organization,
there is also a tacit promise to followers that they also will be transformed in some way,
perhaps to be more like this amazing leader. In some respects, then, the followers are the
product of the transformation...Transformational leaders are often charismatic, but are not as
narcissistic as pure Charismatic leaders, who succeed through a belief in themselves rather
that a belief in others” (Transformational leadership, 2007).
 ***

Jim Jones was born in 1931 in Crete, Indiana. Unlike Martin Luther King, however, Jones
did not have the happiest childhood. His father was often abusive to young Jim who had a
yearning to preach to others what he learned in Sunday school. He started out as a student
minister in 1952 at a Methodist Church. Jones became disenchanted however, when the
church refused to allow black members to join. He started his own church which allowed
both black and white members to attend. In fact, he had as many blacks in his church as he
did whites. “He preached a ‘social gospel’ of human freedom, equality and love, which
required helping the lowliest of society’s members. Later on, this gospel became socialistic,
or communistic in Jones’ own view, and the hypocrisy of white Christianity was ridiculed
while ‘apostolic socialism’ was preached. Jones went so far as to encourage Temple
members to call him ‘Dad’ and ‘Father’. He also asked his
members to consider him the incarnation of Christ and of
God” (Jim Jones, 2007). He moved his flock to the
Redwood Valley, California, area in 1965, according to
Jones, in order to escape an inevitable nuclear holocaust.

My uncle and his family were among the ones to follow

Jones from Indiana to California This is where he met my
aunt (my mother’s sister). Tim and Wanda Swinney and
my ten-year-old cousin Darren followed Jim Jones to the
death. My mother actually went to one of Jones’ sermons
in 1969 or 1970. She was visiting her father in San
Francisco and her sister lived in Ukiah. My mother says
that she saw right through Jones from the start and tried to
convince her sister to quit. However, it was too late for SWINNEY, Darren
her to listen to reason by that time. She said that she Photos Courtesy of California
watched one of the healings that Jones had. Of course it Historical Society, MSP 3800
was a fake healing, but she said the people were so
surprised and actually believed that he healed someone out of the crowd. He had an intensity
about him that made people believe anything he said.

Jim Jones was a Charismatic leader. “Charismatic leaders use a wide range of methods to
manage their image and, if they are not naturally charismatic, may practice assiduously at
developing their skills. They may engender trust through visible self-sacrifice and taking
personal risks in the name of their beliefs. They will show great confidence in their
followers. They are very persuasive and make very effective use of body language as well as
verbal language…. Deliberate charisma is played out in a theatrical sense, where the leader
is ‘playing to the house’ to create a desired effect. They also make effective use of
storytelling, including the use of symbolism and metaphor” (Charismatic leadership, 2007).
Jim Jones often played on the emotions of his followers. He had them convinced that he
could heal them and would have fake healings during his sermons.

There are certain people that use charisma to lead, including cult leaders. Jim Jones is the
epitome of a charismatic leader. He was very good at charming everyone around him,
including many high political figures in the San Francisco area in the 1970’s. He had some
very noble ideas of racial equality; however, his drug use made him show the narcissistic
qualities that changed him from a Transformational leader to a Charismatic leader.

Transformational leadership and Charismatic leadership have many of the same qualities.
The article on Charismatic leadership puts it this way:

“The Charismatic leader and the Transformational leader can have many similarities, in that
the Transformational leader may well be charismatic. Their main difference is in their basic
focus. Whereas the Transformational leader has a basic focus of transforming the
organization and, quite possible, their followers, the Charismatic leader may not want to
change anything.… Despite their charm and apparent concern, the Charismatic leader may
well be somewhat more concerned with themselves than anyone else.… The Values of the
Charismatic leader are highly significant. If they are well-intentioned towards others, they
can elevate and transform an entire company. If they are selfish and Machiavellian, they can
create cults and effectively rape the minds (and potentially the bodies) of the followers
...Their self-belief is so high, they can easily believe that they are infallible, and hence lead
their followers into an abyss, even when they have received adequate warning from others.
The self-belief can also lead them into psychotic narcissism, where their self-absorption or
need for admiration and worship can lead to their followers questioning their leadership”
(Charismatic leadership, 2007).

The similarities between Martin Luther King and Jim Jones are uncanny. Both were
preachers in the same time era, during the ‘60s when people were finally seeing that it did
not matter what the color of your skin was, we are all equal in God’s eyes. They both
preached about racial equality. Both were idealistic and wanted peace in the world.
However, whereas Martin Luther King was nonviolent, Jim Jones became paranoid and
believed that everyone was after him and his flock. Peoples Temple had a stockpile of
weapons that they smuggled into Guyana. He had a military force that surrounded him all the
time, supposedly because there had been several attacks on his life.

The day that Congressman Leo Ryan went to leave Jonestown he was attacked by one of the
Temple members. Then while the congressman and his party were waiting to board a plane
at the Port Kaituma airstrip, they were ambushed by Temple members. Thiswas the domino
that caused the mass murder-suicides on November 18, 1978. Jones claimed that because the
members had killed the congressman, the U.S. Army would come down on their compound
and kill everyone including the children. Some of the members protested, asking if there was
another way. Jones told them there was no other way. Even during the final moments of
Peoples Temple, Jones was playing on the crowd’s emotions. He told them that they were
not committing suicide but it was “a revolutionary act protesting an inhumane world” (Jim
Jones, 2007).

Jim Jones started out with his heart in the right place. He was a good leader at the beginning
as well. However, I think that drug use and maybe his own personality traits got the better of
him. Jim Jones could have easily been another Martin Luther King; however, we must learn
from the lessons of others. In the pavilion where Peoples Temple members died under the
leadership of Jim Jones was a saying. “Those who do not remember the past are condemned
to repeat it.” May we remember and not repeat the mistakes of the Reverend Jim Jones.

Works Cited

Charismatic Leadership. Retrieved on August 1,

2007. http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/styles/charismatic_Ieadership.
htm.

Gardner, Howard. Leading Minds. 1995. New York. Basic Books.

Hatfield, Larry. Utopian nightmare Jonestown: What did we learn? 1998. SF

Gate.com. http://sfgate.com/cgi-biniarticle.cgi?
fiIe=/e/alI998/11/08/NEWS404I.dtl&type =printable.

Jonestown. Who was Jim Jones. Retrieved on August 1,

2007. http://www.conncoll.edu/academics/departments/relstudies/290/newage/jimjon
es.html.

The Jonestown Institute, http://jonestown.sdsu.edu retrieved on August 11,2007.

Ling, Peter. Martin Luther King’s Style of

Leadership. 2003. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/recent/martin_luther_king_print.htm
l. Retrieved on August 1, 2007

NobelPrize.org. Martin Luther King Jr. retrieved on August 11, 2007.

Northhouse, Peter. Leadership: Theory and Practice. 2007. Michigan. Sage Publications.

Osherow, Neal. An Analysis of Jonestown.

2004. http://www.guyanaorglfeaturesljonestown.html.

Transformational Leadership. Retrieved on August 1,

2007. http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/styles/transformational_leaders
hip.htm.