Was Gerry Adams a transformational leader?

ABSTRACT

Gerry Adams was the foremost Irish Republican leader in The Troubles (1968–1998). This paper analyses the extent to which he was a transformational leader, shifting Republicanism from armed struggle to politics. The paper analyses three texts by Adams at milestone points in the conflict. The first (1976) at the height of the armed campaign; the second (1986) as political engagement was increasing; and the third (2003), after the conflict had formally concluded. The paper uses four criteria to signify transformational leadership. The paper argues that, while Adams does not meet all four transformational leadership criteria equally, he transformed his organisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Gerry Adams
• IRA
• Sinn Féin
• the Troubles
• peace process
• transformational leadership

Introduction

In May 2023, Gerry Adams, former President of Sinn Féin, appeared on the podcast ‘Leading’.¹ In the podcast, he stated that he had first outlined a peaceful scenario for resolving the conflict in Northern Ireland in a pamphlet written in 1976, while he was interned in Long Kesh prison. The pamphlet, Peace in Ireland: A broad analysis of the present situation, is one of three texts by Adams analysed in this paper, published over a span of 27 years, in an attempt to evaluate the extent to which Gerry Adams can be seen as a transformational leader.

The three texts are located at pivotal points in the Troubles. The first was published in 1976 when the armed struggle was dominant and the political strategy no better than nascent. The Politics of Irish Freedom was published in 1986, after the IRA hunger strikes of 1980–1981 and their aftermath had accelerated the politicisation of the Irish Republican movement. Hope and History is a retrospective autobiography on the Troubles and engages with the peace process up to, including and after the Good Friday agreement of 1998. Adams, a prolific writer, also published a further autobiography, Before The Dawn (1996), but Hope and History (2003) is chosen in preference in this paper because it was published after the conflict was brought to a close and thus offers a perspective on The Troubles as a whole.

Gerry Adams and others transformed the Irish Republican movement from an armed struggle to end British rule in Northern Ireland to a fully participative electoral party with a very substantial mandate in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Adams was supported by an inner circle including Martin McGuinness, former IRA member and later Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and Danny Morrison, former Sinn Féin Director of Publicity. However, is Gerry Adams a transformational leader in the sense understood by the theory of Transformational Leadership? The question is important because the political problem of Northern Ireland has undoubtedly been transformed. From a partitioned state dominated by Unionists (those in favour of continued union with the rest of Great Britain) with embedded discrimination against Catholics in the fields of employment, housing and voting rights, Northern Ireland’s biggest party, in terms of vote share and representation, is Sinn Féin, the political wing of the now-disbanded Provisional IRA. Leadership was central to the transformation. The leadership of Gerry Adams is thus the focal point for this paper.

The paper refers to Adams as a leader of the Irish Republican movement. It is recognised that the specific definition of Irish Republicanism in this paper is partial because it focuses exclusively on Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin, not engaging with the Official IRA or other, smaller Republican paramilitary groups, the Irish National Liberation Army and the Irish People’s Liberation Organisation.² Moreover, Adams did not operate in isolation, having developed his own informal think tank dating back to his time as an internee in the early nineteen seventies, thus distributing leadership responsibility among followers.³ That said, Adams was the most publicly visible, recognisable, even global face of the Irish Republican movement in the Troubles and beyond. This paper is significant because it analyses the career of Gerry Adams and the progress of Irish Republicanism within a mainstream leadership theoretical framework, enabling analysis and evaluation of Adams’s leadership journey.

Gerry Adams’s leadership has previously been analysed in a comparative study alongside Palestinian leaders which noted that media portrayals of Adams became less condemnatory as the peace process progressed.⁴ McAllister (2004) had previously engaged with Adams’s leadership in a study of the twin strategy of armed struggle and political engagement in The Troubles in the nineteen eighties, noting that Adams was a factor in attracting votes, especially from new voters and previous non-voters, while Hopkins (2018), in a study closest (methodologically) to the current paper, analyses Adams through three biographies of him, arguing that such texts can shed light on approaches to leadership.⁵ Worsnop (2023) analyses how insurgent groups structure and balance their political and military leaderships, although The Troubles are only mentioned peripherally in the paper.⁶ Ludwick (2023) applies organisation theory to terrorist groups, arguing for the value of cross-disciplinary approaches to terrorism, bringing insights from other subject areas.⁷ Comas, Shrivastava, and Martin (2015), also from an organisation studies perspective, identify three forms of organisation in terrorist groups: formal organisation; network; and social movement.⁸ Irish Republicanism was formally organised as the IRA had a ruling army council and, furthermore, developed a sophisticated and successful political party. It was also a social movement, dependent on the support of the communities from whence it came, being an ethno-nationalist, working-class movement. The networking skills of Irish Republicanism developed and increased as the nineteen eighties progressed and Sinn Féin, under Gerry Adams’s leadership, reached out to other political parties to build a broadly nationalist alliance. Such an approach of forging alliances can align with conventional business strategy.⁹ This paper is distinct and adds value because it focuses on three texts by Adams himself, honing in on his own analysis of the conflict and the means by which it might be resolved, shifting, over time, from armed campaign to political campaigning. The paper also adds value by applying an explicit leadership theory to an important leadership figure.

Early in the Troubles, Gerry Adams was noticed as an up and coming figure in Republican circles. In 1971, The Times described him as ‘ascetic’; a later Times report in 1973 called him, ‘an intense, dark haired, bespectacled youth’.¹⁰ In July 1972, Adams formed part of an IRA delegation that visited London for secret peace talks.¹¹ Taylor (1997) argues this meeting was significant in the development of Adams’s political thinking, as reported by another attendee at the talks, Frank Steele of the British secret service, MI6: ‘the meeting … increased Adams’ recognition of the limitations of the ‘armed struggle’ and the need for the IRA to have a parallel political policy if it was ever to get anywhere’.¹² As an emerging leader, it appears Adams saw the need for organisational transformation.

Transformational leadership

Transformational Leadership is a theory which began to emerge in the late-nineteen seventies and which has been popular since the mid-nineteen eighties, engaging with, ‘the role of the leader in making events meaningful for followers’.¹³ The theory argues that certain leaders have the capacity to change the organisations they lead: where the transactional leader works within an organisation and its constraints, transformational leaders produce substantial change, demonstrating personal adaptability and producing adapting organisations.¹⁴ Transformational leadership is potentially empowering to leaders, followers and organisations.¹⁵

Transformational Leadership can be seen as an advanced level of leadership. At one end of the Full Range Leadership Model stands laissez-faire leadership which is more of an abrogation than a practice, taking the title and trappings of leadership but not performing any action, letting followers do what they will.¹⁶ Next is Transactional Leadership, in which followers undertake tasks for agreed recompense. Transactional leadership can be active, monitoring performance and correcting where necessary, or passive, only responding reactively to problems when they arise. Transformational leadership is distinct. Transformational leadership raises the performance of followers and can fundamentally redirect organisations. It represents the highest order of active leadership practice, though it is worth noting that transformational leadership can also be destructive.¹⁷

Transformational Leadership is summarised by Bass and Avolio in terms of four Is: Idealised influence; Inspirational motivation; Intellectual stimulation; and Individual consideration.¹⁸ Leaders practising idealised influence act as role models emphasising the ‘ethical consequences of decisions’.¹⁹ Inspirationally motivating leaders articulate a clear vision of the future. Intellectually stimulating leaders challenge established conventions and encourage innovation. Regarding intellectual stimulation, leaders ‘question old assumptions, traditions, and beliefs; stimulate in others new perspectives and ways of doing things; and encourage the expression of ideas and reasons’.²⁰ Leaders who practise individual consideration listen to their followers’ concerns, offering support.²¹ The four characteristics relate to each other yet each is conceptually distinct and, diagnostically, they enable easier anatomisation and analysis of Transformational Leadership. The four Is are used as an analytical framework for Gerry Adams’s leadership in this paper.²²

Having outlined the theoretical framework, the paper now examines different publications written by Gerry Adams at different stages in the conflict.

Peace in Ireland: A broad analysis of the current situation (1976)

Gerry Adams’s pamphlet of 1976 was written at an organisational low point. An IRA volunteer (and, coincidentally, friend of Adams), Danny Lennon, had been shot and killed by British Army soldiers, driving a car that had been used previously in an IRA operation. The car veered out of control and struck a woman and her three children, killing all three. Adams’s Peace in Ireland, dedicated to Danny Lennon and the three children, is significant in part because, at a time when the armed struggle was both all-pervasive and under severe critical scrutiny, it envisages and explores a distinctly political solution to The Troubles. The incident with Danny Lennon led to a short-lived but publicly visible cross-community campaign, the Peace People, which subsequently dissolved acrimoniously.²³

The IRA that Adams joined in the mid-nineteen sixties was, in effect, moribund, though Adams has always denied IRA membership.²⁴ Following the failure of the Border Campaign of 1956–62, the IRA, under the leadership of Cathal Goulding, shifted from an armed struggle to a political path, aiming to appeal to working-class Unionists (also known as Loyalists when the focus is on the working class) on the grounds of class solidarity, an approach which failed and collapsed once Northern Ireland descended into severe violence at the end of the sixties. At that time, activists argued that an immediate and forceful response was required: Adams subsequently wrote, of the then leadership, ‘when circumstances dictated and cried out … the republican leadership dithered’.²⁵

In Peace in Ireland, Adams offers a vision of the future: ‘only an Irish Republic, free from England and from imperialist influences; controlled by the Irish people on structures decided by themselves and based on socialist principles can solve the many problems besetting Ireland’. His analysis is clearly political as well as military as he addresses social and economic deprivation in his home area of Ballymurphy, Belfast: ‘Six hundred families exist in an area from which the political regime demands high and indecent rents … . Forty seven per cent of the residents are refused employment and the dignity of being able to provide for their own families. Sixty per cent of the population is under eighteen years of age’. The evidential approach is used to support a revolutionary analysis, as Adams argues: ‘They engaged in revolutionary warfare and the cause of their violence lay in the society they sought to change. Any genuine demand for a peaceful and just society must run the same course, because the State will resist change and will use its men of violence, its armies, its terror squads, its laws and its systems in reaction to those making the demands’.

The specifics of Adams’s analysis are not unlike the position of Cathal Goulding, but the effective disarmament Goulding oversaw in the nineteen sixties meant that the IRA was wholly unprepared for the eruption in conflict at the end of the decade. Adams argues: ‘When the British do [leave], through time, those presently professing a pro-British loyalty will realise that the conflict in Ireland is not about religion and the reality of that situation will force the vast majority to realise that their welfare will be better served in a system in which they, and all Irishmen, regardless of religion, can work together.’ The cross community appeal did not have any discernible effect in the Northern Ireland of the nineteen seventies but it is significant that Adams was already thinking about the place of the Unionist and Loyalist community in a post-partition Ireland. The pamphlet reveals, in practice, a willingness to compromise, a trait Ó Dochartaigh (2021) claims was surprisingly persistent in the IRA during The Troubles (p.70).²⁶

Adams also closely analyses the armed struggle: ‘Republicans must ensure that our cause and our methods remain within the bounds of our consciences, and we must ensure that our consciences are dictated to by our determination to establish a society in which all will be free and where exploitation of man by man will cease. Republicans must continue to examine their organisation, their tactics, their programmes and their achievements with objectivity, honesty and far-sightedness.’ The vision dictates the values which, in turn, dictate the practice.

The pamphlet as a whole positions Republican activists as role models, fulfilling the criteria for idealised influence, a trait of Transformational Leadership also evident in Adams’s use of ‘consciences’ and ‘honesty’. Adams’s pamphlet also aims to provide inspirational motivation as it imagines a post-partition Ireland, an Ireland freed from the British presence. The willingness to advance specifically political ideas in the pamphlet, backed up by sociological evidence and outside of the armed struggle, comprises intellectual stimulation. Individual consideration is more muted but Adams was brought up on the Ballymurphy estate and shared the socio-economic conditions experienced by the majority of Provisional IRA volunteers.

The Politics of Irish Freedom (1986)

As the conflict endured into the nineteen eighties, the election of Bobby Sands, hunger-striking IRA member, to the British House of Commons in 1981 showed that electoral intervention might be fruitful: as Ó Dochartaigh (2021) argues, ‘mass mobilization and electoral success during the hunger strike demonstrated that in certain circumstances non-violent action could deliver much more substantial political gains than a military campaign’.²⁷ Adams directed more of the movement’s resources towards politics (Moloney 2002).²⁸ Those who opposed the move found themselves marginalised and in some cases court martialled, including Adams’s alleged former commander in Belfast IRA, Ivor Bell, and Daniel McCann, the latter subsequently killed on IRA active service by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988.

The Politics of Irish Freedom (1986) offers a more developed construction of Adams’s position on leadership and the Republican movement than had been evident in Peace in Ireland (1976). Adams identifies an issue that arose shortly after the outbreak of the Troubles: ‘lack of guns was not a primary problem as it was made up quite rapidly. The primary problem was lack of politics’.²⁹ His analysis of the present conditions (the 1980s) and the potential direction is clear: ‘republicans have had to grapple not only with the movement’s historical shortcomings but with the whole question of finding a strategy for moving towards the independent republic. This is an on-going task requiring continuous analysis, co-education, good internal and external communications, re-assessments, flexibility and, most of all, agreements on the final objective’.³⁰ He is also unrepentant about using violence to achieve ends. A key change, however, is that violence is now explicitly tactical, aligned with a political strategy and supporting an aim, a mode of thinking which extended into the nineteen nineties when, in late expressions of violence in the Troubles, the IRA’s targets were primarily financial rather than civilian, though casualties still resulted.

In The Politics of Irish Freedom, Adams recognises the importance of IRA prisoners, whose political status had been withdrawn in 1976, a measure which escalated conflict inside the prisons, culminating in the IRA hunger strikes of 1980–1981: ‘we held a national conference on the prison issue in 1979, a conference which involved the whole membership in detailed consideration. It was the first time that Sinn Féin had actually sat down and looked at a single issue, analysed it, discussed it and then embarked on spreading the knowledge shared and the conclusions come to, and it marked an important development for us.’ ³¹ As a leader, he recognises the challenge of moving from armed campaign to political engagement: ‘One of the problems we suffered from at that time was that we were still emerging from a basically conspiratorial type of organisation … Sinn Féin was a protest movement and a movement of support for the IRA; it was at that time only just beginning to discuss strategy and tactics’.³² The organisational critique serves the end of evaluating how the Republican movement can move from a military to a political orientation.

Recognising the importance of the campaign in the prisons is also important. The prison dispute comprised the most severe pressure point of the Troubles in the period 1976–1981, from the withdrawal of political status through to the deaths of 10 Republicans on hunger strike. Prison had been an important arena for the conflict in the Irish Republic as well as Northern Ireland; Reinisch (2021) argues the IRA was, ‘a learning organisation, willing to adopt their tactics to new developments; most of these changes originated either in the prisons or in connection with prison protests’.³³ Lessons for leadership were learned in the prisons, lessons which were applied more broadly as support was built and elections were seen as an important vehicle for getting across Republican arguments. Electoral successes meant the Republican movement could demonstrate a democratic mandate which made it difficult for the British government and other stakeholders to exclude Sinn Féin from talks. Ó Dochartaigh (2015) argues, ‘The growth of Sinn Féin in the 1980s created what was in many senses a novel problem for the British state. Exclusion of the Provisionals now required the ongoing exclusion of a well-supported political party with representation in a variety of elected fora’.³⁴

Adams reflects on the main leadership lesson he has learned to date: ‘you can only proceed on the basis of people’s support, and that you can only enjoy that support if you are approaching people at a level and on ground which they understand’.³⁵ The conclusion he draws is explicitly political: ‘The struggle needs therefore to be extended politically onto a 32 county level, and must not be restricted to the 6 counties. We cannot hope to build a 32 country alternative if we do not build a 32 county struggle … It follows then that we must continually examine our tactics, our strategies and our short-term objectives’.³⁶ Adams’s analysis broadens the conflict and creates the conditions in which alliances can be formed with those bodies in favour of a United Ireland though opposed to the IRA’s tactics (the long-term persistence and durability of his analysis may be evident in the ongoing Ireland’s Future events).³⁷ From the base of constructing alliances, Adams was able to start building relationships with the nationalist, non-violent Social Democratic and Labour Party and its leader, John Hume who envisioned a pluralist Northern Ireland.³⁸ His talks with Adams (the first of which took place in September 1986) attracted criticism and opprobrium, with the suspicion that Hume was shifting towards Adams’s position, but Hume was arguing for an IRA ceasefire (eventually declared on 31st August 1994) and his talks with Adams exerted influence on the emerging peace process.³⁹ In the UK General Election of 1987, in which Gerry Adams held his West Belfast seat with an increased majority, it became clear that Sinn Fein would have to be engaged with in pursuit of any political settlement geared towards ending The Troubles. Furthermore, Avolio, Waldman, and Yammarino (1991) argue, ‘the long range success of an organisation depends on the ability of its leadership at all levels to develop, stimulate and inspire followers’, an argument Adams recognises in The Politics of Irish Freedom.⁴⁰ It would not be possible to politicise the armed struggle without the endorsement of the organisational grass roots.

Hope and history (2003)

Hope and History records the movement from armed struggle to the peace process to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 which formally ended the conflict. In Hope And History, Adams recognises the political importance of the hunger strikes, which ‘accelerated the process of political strategising within the party’.⁴¹ Moreover, the importance of negotiation is also recognised: ‘As we searched for the ideas and policies to guide the direction we should take, one thing quickly became apparent: we needed to engage with our opponents in debate’.⁴² Furthermore, Adams recognises the limitations of the armed struggle: ‘The most underdeveloped aspects of our struggle were its politics. The politics of resistance were adequate for armed struggle, but our cause had to be about more than that’.⁴³

Adams recognises the importance of shifting to an explicitly political approach: ‘the side which broke the stalemate would have the initiative. Republicans could block British strategy, could survive a long stalemate, but the political goals of republicanism meant we needed to do much more than either of these things if our struggle was to be successful. Sinn Féin needed to go on a political offensive.’⁴⁴ The momentum would reside with those who transformed first. He articulates the change of direction in terms of leadership: ‘Struggles are essentially won in the first place in people’s minds. It was a matter of having a vision, of setting objectives and devising plans and programmes to achieve those objectives and to make the vision a reality … Politics had to govern everything we did and it had to be about empowering people, about changing the way we lived and the society in which we lived’.⁴⁵ Adams recognises a need to change strategies but not objectives, ‘building popular support meant making alliances with others of like mind – even on short-term issues’.⁴⁶

Adams further recognises the need to bring his own movement with him: ‘One of the most important negotiations for any leadership is the negotiation with your own side. Without this, the process will founder on internal difficulties’ as well as working with opponents: ‘The civil and religious liberties of Northern Protestants must be guaranteed and protected’.⁴⁷ Within the specific context of the Northern Irish conflict, maintaining unity within the Republican constituency was difficult, as the movement has historically been prone to splits and feuds.⁴⁸ Engaging with opponents was even more challenging in the context of a violent conflict. More broadly, Adams’s analysis links with Freedman’s (2013) insistence on the importance of strategy being agreed between leaders and followers, prior to engaging with opponents: ‘Achieving an internal consensus often requires great strategic skill and must be a priority because of the weaknesses caused by divisions’.⁴⁹

Adams succeeded in redirecting his organisation, a considerable feat in view of the IRA’s embeddedness in armed struggle and the movement’s propensity for splits and internecine violence. Keeping the organisation together was one of his most substantial challenges.⁵⁰ Adams argues, ‘the IRA had been the main – In some places the only – manifestation of republican struggle. The armed struggle was the struggle. Now the struggle was bigger than the army’.⁵¹ Moreover, Adams acknowledges how transformational his leadership has been: ‘The big historical failing of republicanism was the failure to build ideological unity. We needed to achieve an ability at all levels of struggle to differentiate between principles and tactics, objectives and strategies. Now we had strategies which were inclusive and aimed at empowering people. The primacy of politics and the need to build political support for our objectives was at the core of all our strategies. But we were also making huge changes in how republicans worked’.⁵²

Evaluating Hope and History in relation to the four I’s of Transformational Leadership, Adams produced a new form of idealised influence within his constituency. The heroes of the Irish Republican movement have, historically, been primarily from the armed struggle rather than from the political wing. From the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916, who attempted violent overthrow of the British presence in Ireland and who were subsequently almost all killed by firing squad, through to the 10 martyrs in the hunger strikes, Republican leaders were clear advocates of the armed struggle. Adams was immersed in this tradition yet succeeded in both politicising and demilitarising the situation of which he was a part. He was immanent in the conflict and yet transcended the conflict to redefine its terms. Inspirational motivation is less easily attributable to Adams in Hope and History. His vision is rarely synoptic, rarely transferable and reducible to one simple and memorable catch phrase. The idea of the Armalite and the ballot box strategy, combining armed struggle with political engagement and articulated in the early nineteen eighties, is memorable but is generally attributed to Sinn Féin’s director of communications at the time, Danny Morrison. Adams’s primary political skill set is more pragmatic than rhetorical, though he is a calm and adept interviewee in the media.

Adams certainly provides intellectual stimulation in Hope And History. He questioned the fundamental assumptions of Irish Republicanism by leading the move to contesting elections, and taking seats if elected, in the Republic of Ireland from 1986 onwards. He accomplished this goal and withstood a split, in part by bringing other central figures of the movement with him, perhaps most notably Martin McGuinness. Through having key allies, including Danny Morrison, in important posts, he controlled organisational communications and created the conditions in which new ideas, strategies and tactics could be produced, gestated and adopted. Adams’s attention to individual consideration is less clear as he tended to work with an inner cabal of close and trusted associates, including figures such as Fr. Alec Reid, who was able to move between communities and facilitated the early meetings between Adams and Hume.

Discussion

Gerry Adams was a transformational leader in the sense that he (along with other Republicans including Martin McGuinness) reorganised the IRA from battalions into a cellular structure, a rare technical innovation in the history of insurgent groups.⁵³ Finnegan (2019) notes the IRA, ‘successfully downsized from thousands of low-trained personnel who responded to events on the ground, to hundreds of committed individuals who were motivated by being a recognized member of the organization’.⁵⁴ A consequence of the organisational change was that a captured volunteer could only divulge information about a small number of people and operations. Adams also wrote the Green Book which instructed captured volunteers on how to resist interrogation; studying the book comprised an entry requirement for recruits.⁵⁵ The police and security services did infiltrate the Republican movement through informers including Denis Donaldson, part of Sinn Féin’s negotiating team in the peace talks. It is also alleged that the IRA’s head of internal security was an informer, but the impact of infiltration as a practice is hard to measure and may have been exaggerated.⁵⁶ Furthermore, infiltration is a standard technique used by governments against insurgents; the conflict in Northern Ireland is not distinctive in this respect.⁵⁷

Within the Republican movement, its political wing, Sinn Féin, was subordinate to the IRA but the polarity of this relationship reversed through the nineteen eighties: the political and the military were not well integrated in the IRA, but they were sufficiently well integrated to facilitate a journey to political dominance and to end the armed campaign.⁵⁸ Politics clearly became more prevalent. The reorganisation of the IRA also saw the formation of the Northern Command which directed operations in Northern Ireland and which grew as a centre of power at the expense of the IRA in the Republic of Ireland. A prominent Republican from the South, Daithi O’Connell, criticised the Northern Command for being unrepresentative of the movement as a whole but the transfer of power took place nonetheless and Adams’s status as the movement’s leader was cemented: he became President of Sinn Féin in 1983 (the next logical step on from becoming Vice President in 1978), following the overturning of the previous leadership’s federalist policy (Éire Nua) which proposed separate parliaments for the four provinces of Ireland, comprising an attempt to reconcile the positions of Republicans and Unionists.⁵⁹ By defeating the policy in 1982, Adams weakened the position of the leaders at the time, Ruairi O Bradaigh and Daithi O’Connell, paving the way for his becoming President.⁶⁰ By 1986, the Northern command had the authority to vet most proposed military actions, an increasing sign of the subservience of the military to the political and the consolidation of power in the leadership in the North.⁶¹ The same consolidation and centralisation of power was important in the peace process as Adams and his inner circle were able to command their organisation, internal dissensions notwithstanding.⁶² Bass (1997) argues transformational organisations are adaptable and this is certainly true of Irish Republicanism which adapted from a paramilitary to a political organisation.⁶³

It is challenging to argue that Gerry Adams’s leadership caused the Republican movement to change because a causal relationship is not explicit. We cannot prove that the same changes in the Republican movement would not have happened had Adams not been the movement’s leading figure. However, the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin did tangibly change, a process which can be traced back at least to its successful electoral intervention in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election in 1981 and the election of Bobby Sands, IRA prisoner, as Member of Parliament. From that point on the argument, widespread in Britain, that the IRA was a narrow, violent sect without popular support in its own communities lacked credibility because an IRA hunger-striking prisoner had won a democratic election. Sinn Féin’s electoral fortunes fluctuated from ballot box to ballot box but the overall trend was upwards. Sinn Féin overtook the Social Democratic and Labour Party as the main voice for nationalist political opinion in the General Election of 2001 and became the largest party on Belfast City Council in the same year.⁶⁴ The first Legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement saw former IRA member Martin McGuinness take his seat as Deputy First Minister.

The Armalite and the ballot box strategy was not sustainable indefinitely but it was pursued for a substantial period, the strategy’s internal contradictions notwithstanding. The IRA continued to arm itself successfully thanks to numerous shipments from a notable capital sponsor, Libya (1985–1987), only one of which was intercepted, yet 1987 also saw Adams’s cultivation of a working relationship with John Hume, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party.⁶⁵ Even when peace negotiations were more visible and more extensive, IRA bombs in the heart of the UK’s financial sector (and elsewhere) in the nineteen nineties made it clear the IRA was an ongoing threat. While the early peace negotiations were taking place, the IRA exploded bombs in London’s Baltic Exchange (1992), Bishopsgate (1993), and Docklands and Manchester (both 1996), killing three people and causing over one billion pounds of damage.⁶⁶ By these means the IRA reminded the British government of their capabilities and exerted leverage on the negotiations, but failed in terms of Transformational Leadership’s criterion of idealised influence.

Organisations have to adapt to their environments. Adams saw that the Armalite, a metonym for the armed struggle, would never be both necessary and sufficient to remove the British presence in Ireland. The ballot box was a slower, surer, more precise tool. Yukl (1999), writing on Transformational Leadership, argues, ‘Adaptation is increased by gathering and interpreting information about the environment, identifying core competencies that provide a competitive advantage, developing effective strategies, promoting a favorable image of the organization and its products, gaining cooperation and support from outsiders, and using political tactics to implement change’, an unintentionally apt summary of Adams’s leadership as he saw the advantages to be gained from both the ballot box and the Armalite.⁶⁷ Adams was also strategically dexterous and practised constructive ambiguity, using the acronym TUAS to signify Totally Unarmed Strategy to the British government and, simultaneously, Tactical Use of Armed Struggle to the IRA’s army council. Meanwhile, he cultivated an image as international statesperson, an image enhanced by his first and triumphant visit to the United States in the mid-1990s.⁶⁸

Sinn Féin now has the highest number of representatives in Northern Ireland’s legislative assembly. Moreover, in the most recent general election in the Republic of Ireland (February 2020), Sinn Féin gained the highest number of first-preference votes. That said, Gerry Adams had been arguing for a recognisably political solution to the conflict in his pamphlet of 1976. His book of 1986 shows a more developed political standpoint. Hope and History (2003) records the process of politicisation in the Republican movement and the comparative subjugation of the armed struggle. This was a notable achievement in an organisation with a history of factions and splits.⁶⁹

Gerry Adams is unlikely to qualify as a transformational leader on the first criterion (idealised influence). Followers in the Irish Republican movement were not always drawn to Adams’s high-level, strategic and political engagement. Martin McGuinness always had greater credibility with the rank and file, not least for having an operational record in the Provisional IRA.⁷⁰ Adams was a leadership figure but not a figure for the rank and file to aspire to.⁷¹ However, as the explicitly political and electoral aspects of the Republican movement’s activities came to the foreground, so did Adams’s leadership as he became the prime public spokesperson for Irish Republicanism. Idealised influence in the Irish Republican movement has tended to centre on more iconic figures, such as Bobby Sands and the other nine hunger strikers who died in 1981. As iconic figures they have been idealised in songs and murals in Republican areas, where their representations are practically hagiographical. Adams, conversely, is clearly competent rather than a figure for veneration but this need not nullify his status as a transformational leader. Bass and Riggio (2005) note, ‘Leaders who are, or who appear to be, competent engender follower identification with the leader. In addition, confidence and trust in a leader also strengthen the followers’ identification with the leader. This identification with a competent, trustworthy leader may be an important determinant of follower commitment to performance goals and outcomes’.⁷²

Bass (1985) argues leadership can be simultaneously both transformational and transactional. Adams’s leadership may fit with this analysis.⁷³ It is also possible that some aspects of Transformational Leadership were deputed to others; at Sinn Féin’s conference (Ard Fheis) of 1986, it was Martin McGuinness, a figure with greater grass roots credibility in the organisation, who led the motion to contest elections in the Republic of Ireland. Bass (1990) argues, ‘Superior leadership performance – transformational leadership - occurs when leaders broaden and elevate the interests of their employees, when they generate awareness and acceptance of the purposes and mission of the group, and when they stir their employees to look beyond their own self-interest for the good of the group.’⁷⁴ Adams broadened the battlefield, got the wider Republican movement to accept electoralism as a strategy and convinced the majority of the movement that the wider good would be served by ending the armed struggle.

The Idealised Influence criterion is also problematic because of the very nature of the Republican movement. Transformational leaders stress the ethical consequences of decisions.⁷⁵ The Troubles resulted in over 3,500 deaths, around 1,700 of which were attributable to Irish Republicans, including over 700 British armed services personnel.⁷⁶ Adams, and the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin more broadly, provided a justification for violence against Britain’s presence in Ireland but IRA violence was responsible for deaths of both combatants and civilians. The idealised influence criterion is also problematic in relation to Gerry Adams because of his personal trajectory. Having obtained his first US visa under the presidency of Bill Clinton in the nineteen nineties, he became internationally recognisable. However, while Adams visited the United States, photographed with Clinton and a range of celebrities, former colleagues remained in Belfast and no longer formed part of his circle.⁷⁷

Transformational leaders provide inspirational motivation.⁷⁸ At first glance, Adams appears to fail on this criterion, too, because, as a primarily political figure, he was not in the front line of the armed struggle from the start of the Troubles. However, he steered the movement into more substantial engagement with the political process. Moreover, he brought key figures with him. According to the theory, ‘Transformational leaders behave in ways that motivate and inspire those around them by providing meaning and challenge to their followers’ work’.⁷⁹ Adams changed the nature of followership in the Irish Republican movement by helping to redirect former activists in the armed struggle towards political engagement. Hence, prominent Sinn Féin members elected to the Northern Irish Legislative Assembly include former IRA bomber and hunger striker Gerry Kelly; and Alex Maskey, speaker of the Assembly who was interned twice for Republican activity in the nineteen seventies and spat upon by Unionists when he first attended council meetings.⁸⁰

Transformational leaders provide intellectual stimulation.⁸¹ Adams meets this criterion. A key ally of Adams, Danny Morrison, was one of the movement’s most able communicators. Bill McKee, then officer in command of the IRA in Belfast, appointed Morrison the editor of Republican News, the main propaganda outlet for the Irish Republican movement, in 1975. In 1979, Republican News merged with the other main Republican newspaper, An Phoblacht. In his capacity as editor, Morrison regularly floated Adams’s ideas, especially those relating to more orthodox political engagement (anathema to traditional Irish republicans). If the idea survived the initial engagement with its constituency, the same idea might be voiced by a prominent Republican such as Martin McGuinness. Morrison rose to be Sinn Féin’s Director of Publicity, giving Adams an effective monopoly of organisational messaging.⁸² By these means Adams brought new ideas to the movement and embedded them into policy, marginalising other arguments in the process. Moreover, by questioning assumptions and entertaining unusual (in the Irish Republican context) ideas, Adams provided intellectual stimulation, in line with Transformational Leadership.⁸³ Bass (1990) argues, ‘Intellectually stimulating leaders are willing and able to show their employees new ways of looking at old problems, to teach them to see difficulties as problems to be solved, and to emphasize rational solutions’.⁸⁴ Adams’s caution and reframing in floating new ideas in Republican newspapers is symptomatic of Transformational Leadership: ‘transformational leaders are more likely to delay premature choices among options’.⁸⁵

Adams’s leadership in the intellectual development of Irish Republicanism goes back to at least the early nineteen seventies when he was one of many republicans in Northern Ireland interned without trial, a policy introduced by the British government in August 1971. While interned, Adams gave classes to other internees articulating the Long War strategy, whereby Republicanism activism would have to be political, social and cultural as well as military. On Adams’s release (February 1977) he was brought onto the IRA’s army council and was thus in a better position to fully implement his strategy.⁸⁶ According to Finnegan (2019), the Long War strategy, ‘ prioritized resource husbandry and fewer but more effective combatants conducting sustainable operations over a number of years, decades if necessary. Simultaneously, the republican movement should develop the political awareness of the wider community into a political tool. Collectively, these approaches became the ‘Armalite and Ballot box’ strategy.’⁸⁷ From this perspective, the shift from armed struggle to the integration of, and eventual triumph of, political engagement was evolutionary, a transformation over time.

Adams wrote articles for Republican News, smuggled out of the internment camp at Long Kesh and published under the name of Brownie. He also wrote Peace in Ireland (1976), an explicitly political analysis of the conflict. The contacts and alliances Adams built up in internment endured, forming an unofficial think tank.⁸⁸ Transformational leaders are known for, ‘approaching old situations in new ways’, a description which is emblematic of Adams’s leadership as he directed the movement away from armed struggle and towards political engagement.⁸⁹

Gerry Adams was definitely not a laissez-faire leader in the Full Range Leadership Model sense of the term. He exerted clear control in the Republican movement, supported by trusted followers. His organisation was hierarchical which was essential to, ‘credibly engage in negotiations to end violence because the Hierarchy leadership possesses control of both operations and resources’.⁹⁰ Gerry Adams was also not a transactional leader. The Provisional IRA could not offer conventional recompense in the form of material reward. Gerry Adams was therefore a transformational leader by process of elimination but this is not a sufficient answer. Adams transformed the IRA and Sinn Féin. He shifted the battleground from the paramilitary arena to politics. Along with Danny Morrison he promoted the Armalite and the ballot box strategy, an approach which was maintained despite its fundamental, internal contradictions, into the nineteen nineties, until the ballot box won out, as expressed through the Good Friday agreement of 1998: Ó Dochartaigh (2021) argues, ‘the peace settlement was the outcome of a conscious, if bumpily uneven, coordination … The ending of the violence in the 1990s required the development of a cooperative relationship between the British state and the Provisional leadership’.⁹¹ While Adams may not have been transformational by all four criteria of the Full Range Leadership Model, he did transform the organisation he led and was a leading figure in bringing The Troubles to a close.

Gerry Adams stood down as Sinn Féin President in 2018 but his influence continues to be felt. He is a writer, speaker and podcaster. He featured extensively at events to mark the twenty fifth anniversary of the Northern Ireland peace deal in 2023. Furthermore, Hopkins (2018) states, ‘Gerry Adams stands as a uniquely emblematic figure in Provisional republicanism, one who has dominated the movement’s trajectory, as well as the narrative construction of its historical evolution’.⁹² It is therefore important to evaluate the extent to which Gerry Adams transformed the movement he led, in view of the seismic change his leadership oversaw and the credible prospect of majority Sinn Féin governments in Ireland in the near future. Bass and Riggio (2005) argue, ‘Transformational leaders have more satisfied followers than non-transformational leaders. This is a strong and consistent finding’.⁹³ The constitutional dispute in Northern Ireland is as yet unresolved and so it is difficult to make a categorical evaluation but there is no doubt that the Republican movement changed profoundly during Gerry Adams’s tenure as leader of Sinn Féin and, it is alleged, a member of the IRA’s army council.⁹⁴ Bass and Riggio (2005) further argue that transformational leaders ‘keep their cool when faced with threats to their lives’.⁹⁵ Gerry Adams survived an assassination attempt in 1984.⁹⁶ He gained international media attention in 1988 in his attempts to calm a crowd at an IRA funeral when they were attacked by a lone assassin. His calm yet serious demeanour has been an aspect of his success as a leader, enhancing his credibility, encouraging trust in his followers. In addition, Bass and Riggio (2005) argue, ‘Panic can be reduced or avoided by inspirational leadership that points the way to safety’.⁹⁷ This is literally what Adams did when the IRA funeral was under attack, exhorting people to stay down and keep calm and focusing specific comments on young people who had started pursuing the armed attacker. Avolio, Waldman, and Yammarino (1991) argue transformational leaders, ‘help move people from concerns for existence and security towards higher level concerns associated with achievement and growth’.⁹⁸ When the Troubles erupted at the end of the nineteen sixties, existence and security were paramount considerations. In 1972, the bloodiest year of The Troubles, 472 people were killed. Over time, however, Sinn Fein, led by Adams, was active in bringing the conflict to a close and Sinn Féin now has a full electoral platform with economic, social and cultural policies. In the white heat of the Troubles, and going back to the nineteen seventies, Adams began constructing and communicating analyses of how the problems could be resolved politically as well as militarily and, over time, he transformed his organisation towards an explicitly political position and strategy. Future research in this area could apply the Full Range Leadership Model to the peace process that brought the conflict to a close, analysing the plethora of leadership figures involved and their collaborative work towards a settlement.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Flavin

Michael Flavin is Reader in Global Education at King’s College London. He holds two PhDs; one in literature and one in education. He is the author of two books on literature, two on technology and two novels, one of which, One Small Step (2022) is set in the Northern Ireland Troubles. He is currently writing a third novel, also set in The Troubles.

Notes

1. Stewart & Campbell, Leading.

2. Hanley & Millar, The Lost Revolution; Holland & McDonald, INLA: Deadly Divisions.

3. Bowyer Bell, The IRA 1968–2000; Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA.

4. Lowenstein-Barkai, “Changing media representations of enemy leaders”.

5. McAllister, “The Armalite and the Ballot Box”; Hopkins, ”The Life History of an Exemplary Provisional Republican”; Keena, A Biography of Gerry Adams; Sharrock & Devenport, Man of War, Man of Peace; O’Doherty, Gerry Adams: An unauthorised life.

6. Worsnop, “The Rebel and the Politician”.

7. Ludwick, “Sorry, we’re closed”.

8. Comas, Shrivastava & Martin, “Terrorism as formal organization, network, and social movement”.

9. Desouza & Hensgen, “Connectivity among terrorist groups”.

10. cited in, Sharrock & Devenport, Man of War, Man of Peace 84 & 118.

11. Mac Stíofáin, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, 265–266; Clarke and Johnston, Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government, 75

12. Taylor, Provos: The IRA and Sinn Féin, 144; see also, Flavin, “Four Typologies of Leadership Applied to a Survey of the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin in the Troubles”.

13. Burns, Leadership; Yukl, “An evaluation of conceptual weaknesses in transformational and charismatic leadership theories”, 286.

14. Bass, Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations; See also Bass, “Does the transactional – transformational leadership paradigm transcend organizational and national boundaries?”

15. Zheng et al., “The ambidextrous and differential effects of directive versus empowering leadership”.

16. Bass & Riggio, Transformational Leadership.

17. Itzkovich, Heilbrunn & Aleksic, “Full range indeed? The forgotten dark side of leadership”. 852

18. Bass & Avolio, Improving Organizational Effectiveness Through Transformational Leadership.

19. Bass, “Does the transactional – transformational leadership paradigm transcend organizational and national boundaries?” 133.

20. Bass, “Does the transactional – transformational leadership paradigm transcend organizational and national boundaries?” 133.

21. Potosky & Azan, “Leadership behaviors and human agency in the valley of despair”.

22. Bass, “Does the transactional – transformational leadership paradigm transcend organizational and national boundaries?” 133.

23. McKeown, The Passion of Peace.

24. Hopkins, “The Life History of an Exemplary Provisional Republican” p.269; Adams, Hope and History, 53.

25. Adams, Before the Dawn, 119.

26. Ó Dochartaigh, Deniable Contact: Back-Channel Negotiation in Northern Ireland, 70.

27. Ó Dochartaigh, Deniable Contact: Back-Channel Negotiation in Northern Ireland, 186.

28. Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA.

29. Adams, The Politics of Irish Freedom, 35.

30. Adams, The Politics of Irish Freedom, 35–36.

31. Adams, The Politics of Irish Freedom, 74–75.

32. Adams, The Politics of Irish Freedom, 75.

33. Reinisch, “The Fight for Political Status in Portlaoise Prison, 1973–7”, 153.

34. Ó Dochartaigh, “The Longest Negotiation: British Policy, IRA Strategy and the Making of the Northern Ireland Peace Settlement”, 101.

35. Adams, The Politics of Irish Freedom, 157.

36. Adams, The Politics of Irish Freedom, 167.

37. Ireland’s Future, https://irelandsfuture.com/

38. Gormley-Heenan, “Chameleonic Leadership: Towards a New Understanding of Political Leadership During the Northern Ireland Peace Process”; Farren & Haughey (Eds), John Hume: Irish Peacemaker.

39. McLoughlin, John Hume and the Revision of Irish Nationalism, 159.

40. Avolio, Waldman & Yammarino. “Leading in the 1990s: The four I′s of transformational leadership”, 16.

41. Adams, Hope and History, 31.

42. Adams, Hope and History, 32.

43. Adams, Hope and History, 48.

44. Adams, Hope and History, 61.

45. Adams, Hope and History, 61.

46. Adams, Hope and History, 75; see also 71.

47. Adams, Hope and History, 137 & 215.

48. McGlinchey, Unfinished Business: The Politics of ‘dissident’ Irish Republicanism.

49. Freedman, Strategy: A History, 612.

50. Powell, Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland.

51. Adams, Hope and History, 234.

52. Adams, Hope and History, 460.

53. Shapiro, The Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations.

54. Finnegan, “Professionalization of a nonstate actor: A case study of the provisional IRA”, 364.

55. CAIN; Finnegan; see also, Sharrock & Devenport, 125; 147–148.

56. Leahy, The Intelligence War Against the IRA.

57. Ludwick, “Sorry, we’re closed”, 348.

58. Worsnop, “The Rebel and the Politician: Developing a Typology of Insurgent Civil – Military Relations”.

59. Sharrock & Devenport, Man of War, Man of Peace, 213; Ó Dochartaigh, Deniable Contact: Back-Channel Negotiation in Northern Ireland, 130.

60. McGlinchey, Unfinished Business: The Politics of ‘dissident’ Irish Republicanism, 18.

61. Shapiro, The Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations 187; see also, Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, 317.

62. Ó Dochartaigh, Deniable Contact: Back-Channel Negotiation in Northern Ireland, 270.

63. Bass, “Does the transactional – transformational leadership paradigm transcend organizational and national boundaries?”.

64. Dixon, “Political Skills or Lying and Manipulation? The Choreography of the Northern Ireland Peace Process”; Bean, The New Politics of Sinn Fein.

65. Hausken, “The dynamics of terrorist organizations”.

66. Clarke & Johnston, Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government, 215–216.

67. Yukl, “An evaluation of conceptual weaknesses in transformational and charismatic leadership theories”, 288.

68. Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, 420 & 570.

69. Powell, Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland 16 & 113; McGlinchey, Unfinished Business: The Politics of “dissident” Irish Republicanism.

70. Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, 383; Hopkins, “The Life History of an Exemplary Provisional Republican: Gerry Adams and the Politics of Biography”, 270.

71. Conway, Southside Provisional: From Freedom Fighter to the Four Courts.

72. Bass & Riggio, Transformational Leadership: A Comprehensive Review of Theory and Research, 52.

73. Bass, Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations.

74. Bass, “From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to share the vision”, 21.

75. Bass, “Does the transactional – transformational leadership paradigm transcend organizational and national boundaries?” 133.

76. McKittrick et al., Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles; Whiting, “Mainstream Revolutionaries: Sinn Féin as a “Normal” Political Party?”

77. Moloney, Voices From The Grave: Two Men’s War in Ireland.

78. Bass & Avolio, Improving Organizational Effectiveness Through Transformational Leadership.

79. Bass & Avolio, Improving Organizational Effectiveness Through Transformational Leadership, 3.

80. Adams, Hope and History.

81. Bass & Avolio, Improving Organizational Effectiveness Through Transformational Leadership.

82. Sharrock & Devenport, Man of War, Man of Peace, 160.

83. Bass & Avolio, Improving Organizational Effectiveness Through Transformational Leadership; Bass & Riggio, Transformational Leadership: A Comprehensive Review of Theory and Research, 28.

84. Bass, “From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to share the vision”, 21.

85. Bass & Riggio Transformational Leadership: A Comprehensive Review of Theory and Research, 58.

86. Shapiro, The Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organization, 183; see also Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, 157–164.

87. Finnegan, “Professionalization of a nonstate actor: A case study of the provisional IRA”, 352.

88. Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, 401 & 422.

89. Bass & Avolio, Improving Organizational Effectiveness Through Transformational Leadership, 3.

90. Zelinsky & Shubik, “Research note: Terrorist groups as business firms: A new typological framework”, 329.

91. Ó Dochartaigh, Deniable Contact: Back-Channel Negotiation in Northern Ireland, 209–210.

92. Hopkins, “The Life History of an Exemplary Provisional Republican: Gerry Adams and the Politics of Biography”, 264.

93. Bass & Riggio, Transformational Leadership: A Comprehensive Review of Theory and Research, 41.

94. Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA; Hopkins, “The Life History of an Exemplary Provisional Republican: Gerry Adams and the Politics of Biography”.

95. Bass & Riggio, Transformational Leadership: A Comprehensive Review of Theory and Research, 67.

96. Adams, Hope and History, 40.

97. Bass & Riggio, Transformational Leadership: A Comprehensive Review of Theory and Research, 58.

98. Avolio, Waldman & Yammarino, “Leading in the 1990s: The four I′s of transformational leadership”, 13.