Leader Leadership Class Notes Daniel Katz and Robert Kahn propose that the duties of a leader depend on his or her place in the hierarchy. Those at the top do the big thinking and those at the bottom perform the technical and organizational tasks. Those in the middle interpret the directives of the top to the bottom. One may add that those in the middle also interpret the technical and organizational constraints and ideas to the top. The US Air Force has a similar concept in a chart that shows that the generals maintain standards, set the example and rather infrequently command.
Colonels plan strategy and occasionally command.
Majors plan tactics. Captains and lieutenants manage. The Great Man Theory says that great men make history, not the other way around. Historians at the turn of the century favored this theory. Examples of great men are Moses, George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Adolf Hitler.