Year of Wonders: The Wonder of Leadership

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks paints a disturbing, realistic picture of life in a small village in England in the year 1666 during the outbreak of bubonic plague. The tale of the life of the villagers and how they cope with the plague provides a backdrop for the emergence of unlikely leaders, testing of the traditional leaders within the society and revealing the weaknesses that have the potential to emerge in any leader. This is an examination of the characters within the novel and how their leadership characteristics and skills emerge and are tested. A variety of leadership theories and concepts can be seen in the leaders within the novel, including trait and process leadership; assigned and emergent leadership; the concept of power in society; path-goal theory; and transformational leadership. In this article, several characters in the novel are identified as leaders. Each of these identified characters is examined in terms of leadership theory and concepts.