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LEADERSHIP
IN
H E A LT H C A R E
Essential Values and Skills

T H I R D E D I T I O N

Carson F. Dye
00_Dye (2322).indb 6 7/29/16 10:03 AM
 Contents

Foreword ix
Michael H. Covert, FACHE
Academic Foreword xi
Andrew N. Garman, PsyD
Preface xv
Acknowledgments xxv

Part I Leadership in Healthcare

Chapter 1 The Leadership Imperative 3
Chapter 2 A Review of Academic Leadership Theories
and Concepts 21
Chapter 3 Is the Popular Leadership Literature
Worthless? 45
Chapter 4 The Values-Based Definition 57
Chapter 5 The Senior Leader Challenge 79
Part II Personal Values
Chapter 6 Respect as the Foundation of Leadership 91
Chapter 7 Ethics and Integrity 107
Chapter 8 Interpersonal Connection 119
Chapter 9 Servant Leadership 139
Chapter 10 Desire to Make a Change 155

vii

00_Dye (2322).indb 7 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 Chapter 11 Commitment 171
Chapter 12 Emotional Intelligence 187
Part III Team Values
Chapter 13 Cooperation and Sharing 203
Chapter 14 Cohesiveness and Collaboration 219
Chapter 15 Trust 235
Chapter 16 Conflict Management 251
Part IV Evaluation
Chapter 17 Assessing Team Values 269
Chapter 18 Evaluating Team Effectiveness 277
Chapter 19 Self-Evaluation at All Career Stages 293
Part V Academic Perspectives
Chapter 20 Maximizing Values-Based
Leader Effectiveness 313
Jared D. Lock, PhD
Chapter 21 The Need for Leaders 333
Christy Harris Lemak, PhD, FACHE
Chapter 22 Does Leadership Matter?
Patrick D. Shay, PhD 345

Appendix A: Professional and Personal Values

Evaluation Form 365
Appendix B: Emotional Intelligence Evaluation Form 375
Appendix C: Leadership Team Evaluation Form 385
Appendix D: Grading Healthcare Team Effectiveness 397
Index 405
About the Author 415
About the Contributors 417

viii Contents

00_Dye (2322).indb 8 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 Foreword
Michael H. Covert, FACHE
President and CEO, CHI St. Luke’s Health System

One might wonder why such a successfully published and

widely read book (one that has become a must-read for all those
entering the profession of healthcare administration) would need
to be refreshed. Why would the author add a new emphasis on
values—those principles that underlie basic concepts of leadership
learned in school, or from mentors, or developed through one’s
experience in the field?
The answer is quite simple. Our world—our healthcare environ-
ment—has evolved to a point that the challenges, opportunities,
and stresses we face every day are markedly testing our traditionally
held beliefs and values. In fact, we are currently being tested in ways
that we never anticipated five or ten years ago.
The personal and work situations that we find ourselves immersed
in are causing us to reflect on and evaluate the decisions we make,
the people we bring together in team settings to help us make those
decisions, and how we best achieve our missions in a matrix envi-
ronment. Our interactions with others—physicians, employees,
boards, vendors, peers, and competitors (who may not have even
been trained or employed in the healthcare field)—are causing us
to look at ourselves and our profession differently.
This book, now with expanded material, case studies, and ques-
tions, gives us the opportunity to pause and assess our status in this
new world. What kind of role models have we become or would

ix

00_Dye (2322).indb 9 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 we like to be for others? How well are we interacting with the team
leaders we serve? What have we learned about ourselves, and what
can we do to help others grow?
As you read through the chapters, I hope you take time to reflect
on your career and your leadership. Think of Leadership in Healthcare
as a gift from Carson Dye, for it allows you to assess your feelings,
beliefs, strengths, and weaknesses in a safe and meaningful way.
It also gives you the chance to reinforce and reaffirm those values
that are most vital to you. Just as important, it helps you consider
changing behaviors, attitudes, and actions to make yourself a bet-
ter leader—one who is more prepared for the complex future you
will face.
Remember, values-based leaders develop teams and individuals
who can successfully make structure out of ambiguity. They can
handle change and stress during difficult times and learn from those
experiences; they recognize the strengths of group interaction and
foster environments in which individual contributions are noted and
appreciated. They also develop confidence in their ability to effect
positive and lasting change in their own organization.
We are in the business of intimacy. Do not let anyone tell you
otherwise. It is complicated and demanding all of the time. People
have entrusted their lives and well-being to you! How do you ensure
that this sacred bond is never broken? By constantly testing and
reinforcing your values and beliefs to ensure that you stay on the
right path.
This third edition of Leadership in Healthcare continues to pro-
pel you along the self-improvement journey as a true leader in our
twenty-first century healthcare field.
Enjoy the read . . .

x Foreword

00_Dye (2322).indb 10 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 Academic Foreword
Andrew N. Garman, PsyD
Professor, Rush University, and
CEO, National Center for
Healthcare Leadership

I write this foreword during a critical period in the evolution

of both healthcare and higher education in the United States. Our
country’s “eds” and “meds” both deliver critically important services,
but both have also grown up on business models that are rapidly
outstripping our society’s ability to sustain them. While both still
enjoy considerable support, we are beginning to recognize that the
runaway costs of healthcare and tuition are contributing to levels of
economic inequality not seen in this country in more than 80 years.
And yet there is also reason for optimism.
In cities across the country, health systems and universities are
recognizing their important status—and responsibilities—as anchor
institutions in their local economies. Health systems are recogniz-
ing phenomena such as socioeconomic status and income security
as social determinants of health and are identifying ways to use
both their expertise and purchasing power to foster stronger local
economies. Universities are recognizing the importance of ensuring
the debt burdens they create for their graduates prove to be sound
long-term investments, and they are working with employers to
strengthen these returns. Some forward-thinking health systems such
as Cleveland Clinic, Northwell, and Kaiser Permanente have begun
vertically integrating with university programs to further improve
the value proposition for students and employers alike.
xi

00_Dye (2322).indb 11 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 But at this time, most of these activities remain outliers. In other
cases, they are only experiments: specially funded pilot tests exist-
ing tenuously atop a culture of inequity, where long-term health
isn’t visible above the tyranny of immediate needs. When progress
is vulnerable to discretionary budget cuts, the long-term patterns
are quick to return.
What will our future look like? Which path will we take? Those
questions will be answered by the values we as leaders subscribe to,
by how willing we are to take the bold actions needed.
This is where Leadership in Healthcare comes in. There are lots of
good books out there on the what and the how of leadership, includ-
ing Exceptional Leadership: 16 Critical Competencies for Healthcare
Executives, which Carson and I coauthored. But there are far fewer
books on the why. Leadership in Healthcare was written to address
the why of leadership. After 17 years and three editions, its longevity
is a testament to the importance of its contents.
If you are reading this book as part of a graduate class, you will
soon be called upon to lead. If you picked this book up as a prac-
titioner, you may be a leader already. In either case, you probably
selected your career path on the basis of deeply held values that you
hoped to embody throughout your working life.
I encourage you to read this important book at least twice dur-
ing your career. On your first read, take special note of the passages
that speak to your personal values or articulate things you know in
your heart but find difficult to convey to others in words. Bookmark
these for later.
Down the road, you will undoubtedly find yourself at your own
crossroads in the choices you need to make. These could be times
when what you think is right also seems most risky, or times when
doing what’s best for your community requires considerable sacrifice
by the organization that employs you to look after its success. When
you find yourself in this space, take out this book again and flip to
the pages you bookmarked on your first read. I suspect you will find
that reflecting on these passages a second time will help you firm
up your convictions while making difficult decisions.

xii Academic Foreword

00_Dye (2322).indb 12 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 Your values are there for a very important reason: to guide your
actions when things get difficult. Now more than ever, we need
value-driven leaders.
Like you.

Academic Foreword xiii

00_Dye (2322).indb 13 7/29/16 10:03 AM

00_Dye (2322).indb 14 7/29/16 10:03 AM
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 Preface
Leadership remains a relatively mysterious
concept despite having been studied for several decades

—Atul Gupta, Jason C. McDaniel,

and S. Kanthi Herath (2005)

Values come into play here.

I wrote Leadership in Healthcare: Values at the Top, the first edi-
tion of this book, at the turn of the new century. The second edition
appeared in 2010. I have been amazed and humbled by its reception.
Practitioners and students alike have used it and communicated
with me about their reactions, thoughts, and suggestions. I remain
humbled by the first edition’s selection as the ACHE James Ham-
ilton Book of the Year. I am struck by the power of the message of
values in leadership. Yes—values come into play here.
Sixteen years after the publication of the first edition, much has
changed in the world, in American society, and in the US healthcare
system and its leadership. Yet much remains the same, including
the following realities:

1. Effective leadership is difficult to define. So many “definitive”

leadership books exist, but so few articulate the principles
underlying effective leadership.
2. The ethics of leaders has been on the decline. Power can
corrupt, which is evident from the much-reported
unethical and criminal activities of top executives in many
industries. When inappropriate conduct is committed in

xv

00_Dye (2322).indb 15 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 healthcare, it not only erodes the public’s trust but also
threatens patients’ safety and lives.
3. The constant stresses in healthcare cause burnout and change
of careers. As a leadership and former search consultant,
I am acutely aware of leaders’ frustrations and uneasiness
about the rapid pace of change in the field. Many of them
leave the field as a result, while others struggle through
these problems, tired, dejected, and pessimistic.
4. Leadership development is still not a top priority. Although
many senior executives express an interest in professional
growth and development, they devote little time or funds
to this pursuit. This paradox is apparent when leadership
development becomes the first to get cut from the
organizational budget. The economic downturn became
another excuse (next to limited time) for overlooking
development opportunities.
5. Effective leaders are almost always values driven. Those who
rely only on hard data and measurable standards often say
that values are vague contributors to effectiveness because
they cannot be quantified. However, a review of empirical
research, coupled with my observations and constant
contact with executives, reveals that values are cited by
highly effective leaders as major factors of their success.
6. Effective leadership can be learned. Some people are “born”
leaders. They possess and live by deep, unwavering values.
They have a natural ability to interact with and lead others.
However, these qualities can be learned by people who
are not born with such talents. Becoming aware of the
need for learning and practicing a sensitive, practical, and
appropriate value system is the first step toward becoming
a world-class leader.

In 2010, I wrote, “We now live in a more frenzied, Internet-

driven culture, where technology gives to but also takes away from

xvi Preface

00_Dye (2322).indb 16 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 our daily lives.” As trite as it may seem, that frenzy has grown, the
Internet has more impact than ever before, and technology helps
but also hurts us.
I argued then—and I argue even more strongly now—that while
technology has allowed us instant access to other people and to
enormous amounts of information, it has shrunk our chances for
face-to-face communication. The human element is not what it
once was. Again, values come into play here.
And while social media—Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the
like—have enabled us to network, stay in touch, and even make
“friends” from distant locations, they have also introduced unique
challenges in the workplace. Although the Internet age in healthcare
has made some veteran executives say that interactions are “not as
fun as they used to be,” it does attract and excite the younger leaders
among us. But once again, values come into play here.
We now live in a world that is very divisive, a country that is
polarized, and we work in a healthcare world that has changed
enormously. The political, social, and economic uncertainties we
face manifest themselves in our healthcare facilities, exacerbating
the crises that organizational leaders must solve every day. Emer-
gency departments continue to be the front door and often primary
providers of healthcare. We continue to see a shortage in workers,
allied health professionals, physicians, and even clinical educators.
Retail operators have now entered our world of service and care to
others. Financial challenges continue to threaten the availability
and quality of care, advances in medical technology and pharma-
ceuticals have been ramping up the cost of care, and the American
public’s scrutiny of the healthcare field has gotten closer and deeper.
Although not entirely new or insurmountable, these challenges add
even more pressure to the already-strained healthcare workforce
and its leaders. But once again, values come into play here—and
vividly—for our leaders.
Although much progress has been attained in the field, much
still needs to be accomplished. This is the environment in which the
third edition of Leadership in Healthcare is truly effective.

Preface xvii

00_Dye (2322).indb 17 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 THE INTENT OF THIS BOOK

My goals for this edition are the same as the goals were for the first
two editions:

1. Raise leaders’ awareness about values and their meaning

and applicability to leadership.
2. Posit that values play a major role in leaders’ effective
performance.
3. Recommend practical strategies for living by those values
at work and at home.

Judging by the strong reception to and enduring support for the

earlier editions, this book has filled a latent hunger for discussion
about values-based leadership, something that even I did not antici-
pate. The need for such a discussion is not confined to the healthcare
executive world; it is also demanded by graduate and undergraduate
programs as well as other professional-education providers. The fol-
lowing that the first two editions have garnered has prompted me
to present an updated edition that reflects our drastically changed
environment.

Changes to the Third Edition

This edition remains true to its original premise. However, to better

illustrate and highlight the concepts, I have added new elements and
expanded the discussions. These additions further facilitate teaching,
dialogue, and self-reflection:

• Chapter 2, “A Review of Academic Leadership Theories

and Concepts”
• Chapter 3, “Is the Popular Leadership Literature
Worthless?”

xviii Preface

00_Dye (2322).indb 18 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 • Chapter 21, “The Need for Leaders,” written by Christy
Harris Lemak, PhD, FACHE
• Chapter 22, “Does Leadership Matter?,” written by Patrick
D. Shay, PhD
• Appendix D, “Grading Healthcare Team Effectiveness”
• New or expanded treatment of the concepts of servant
leadership, change makers, employee engagement,
emotional intelligence, and groupthink
• Suggested readings
• New or revised strategies and examples

This edition retains many of the elements of the previous editions:

• Opening vignettes that reflect workplace situations

• Sidebars that support the discussions
• Cases and exercises that stimulate reader response

Content Overview

The book has two forewords—one by Michael H. Covert, FACHE,

and another by Andrew N. Garman, PsyD. The rationale here is
to represent the perspectives of the book’s main audience, which
is composed of healthcare executives and health administration
educators and students.
The book is divided into five parts. Part I—Leadership in Health-
care—contains chapters 1 through 5 and sets the stage on which
the field and its leaders perform their roles. Part II—Personal Val-
ues—includes chapters 6 through 12 and catalogs the key values that
influence the leader’s behaviors, priorities, thought processes, and
actions. Part III—Team Values—comprises chapters 13 through 16
and explores the values that guide a leadership team. Part IV—Evalu-
ation—encompasses chapters 17 through 19 and provides guidance
for assessing team values and effectiveness and careers at all stages.

Preface xix

00_Dye (2322).indb 19 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 The new part V—Academic Perspectives—contains chapters 20
through 22. Chapter 20 is written by Jared D. Lock, PhD, licensed
industrial and organizational psychologist and president of The JDL
Group LLC. This contribution is a research-based response to and
support of the hypotheses offered in the book. Chapter 21 is written
by Christy Harris Lemak, PhD, FACHE, professor and chair of the
Department of Health Services Administration at the University
of Alabama, Birmingham. Her chapter is a well-articulated call for
more leadership in healthcare. She is a nationally recognized leader
on healthcare administration. Chapter 22 is written by Patrick D.
Shay, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Health Care
Administration at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. This
chapter focuses on academic approaches to the question of whether
leadership truly matters in the workplace. Patrick is one of the
true up and comers in healthcare administration in organizational
behavior and leadership.
Four appendixes are included. Appendixes A through D are tools
for evaluating the leader, the team, and the self. The self-evaluation
questions in each chapter are designed to challenge current practices
and long-held notions about leadership, while all examples (both
real and fictional) serve to encourage appropriate behavior and to
acknowledge that such model behavior is a multistep, multiyear
process that requires willingness, hard work, and other people.
Quotations from various leadership and organizational experts
pepper the text throughout, giving credence to the concepts
discussed.

CONCLUSION

I have worked in the field for 43 years now, but I continue to learn
about and be fascinated by healthcare leadership. I still ask the ques-
tions I began posing years ago:

• What is leadership?

xx Preface

00_Dye (2322).indb 20 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 • What makes some leaders more effective than others?
• What role do values play in leadership?
• How can people improve their own leadership skills?

Although this book is not a complete treatise on leadership, it does

explore concepts that will cause you to reflect on your own and
others’ value systems, behaviors, leadership competencies, mind-
sets, actions, goals, and performance. I hope it communicates these
messages:

1. Values come into play in leadership.

2. Effective leadership is needed now more than ever.
3. Values-based leadership can be learned.
4. Values are a primary contributor to great leadership
performance.

I share what several individuals have said about values:

Tell me what you pay attention to, and I will tell you who
you are.
—José Ortega y Gasset (1958)

Values-based leadership may not be a cure for everything

that ails us, but it’s definitely a good place to start.
—Harry M. Jansen Kraemer Jr. (2011)

Sometimes it takes great moral courage to do what is right,

even when the right action seems clear.
—Richard L. Hughes, Robert C. Ginnett,
and Gordon J. Curphy (2015)

In today’s world, the amount of distraction and busyness

we all experience keeps us from undertaking the inward

Preface xxi

00_Dye (2322).indb 21 7/29/16 10:03 AM

 journey and engaging in the quiet reflection required to
become more authentic human beings.
—Kevin Cashman (2008)

Leaders need to understand explicitly what they stand for,

because values provide a prism through which all behavior
is ultimately viewed.
—James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner (2012)

The rest, as Lao Tzu said, is up to you.

Carson F. Dye, FACHE

REFERENCES

Cashman, K. 2008. Leadership from the Inside Out: Becoming a

Leader for Life, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Berrett-Kohler Pub-
lishers, Inc.

Gupta, A., J. C. McDaniel, and S. K. Herath. 2005. “Quality Man-

agement in Service Firms: Sustaining Structures of Total
Quality Service.” Managing Service Quality 15 (4): 389–402.

Hughes, R. L., R. C. Ginnett, and G. J. Curphy. 2015. Leader-

ship: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience, 8th ed. Burr Ridge,
IL: McGraw-Hill Education.

Kouzes, J. M., and B. Z. Posner. 2012. The Leadership Chal-

lenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organi-
zations, 5th ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kraemer, H. M. J. Jr. 2011. “The Only True Leadership Is Values-

Based Leadership.” Published April 26. www.forbes.com/
2011/04/26/values-based-leadership.html.

Ortega y Gasset, J. 1958. Man and Crisis. Translated by Mil-

dred Adams. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

xxii Preface

01_Dye (2322) FM.indd 22 8/4/16 3:33 PM

 INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES

This book’s Instructor Resources include PowerPoint slides

for each chapter, additional discussion questions, and web
links.
For the most up-to-date information about this book and
its Instructor Resources, go to ache.org/HAP and browse
for the book’s title or author name.
This book’s Instructor Resources are available to instruc-
tors who adopt this book for use in their course. For access
information, please e-mail [email protected].

Preface xxiii

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Exploring the Variety of Random
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 PRESCOTT’S PERU.1
The world’s history contains no chapter more striking and
attractive than that comprising the narrative of Spanish conquest in
the Americas. Teeming with interest to the historian and philosopher,
to the lover of daring enterprise and marvellous adventure it is full of
fascination. On the vast importance of the discovery of a western
hemisphere, vying in size, as it one day, perhaps, may compete in
civilisation and power, with its eastern rival, it were idle to expatiate.
But the manner of its conquest commands unceasing admiration. It
needs the concurring testimony of a host of chroniclers and eye-
witnesses to convince succeeding generations that the hardships
endured, the perils surmounted, the victories obtained, by the old
Conquistadores of Mexico and Peru, were as real as their record is
astounding. The subjugation of vast and populous empires by petty
detachments of adventurers, often scantily provided and ignorantly
led—the extraordinary daring with which they risked themselves, a
few score strong, into the heart of unknown countries, and in the
midst of hostile millions, require strong confirmation to obtain
credence. Exploits so romantic go near to realise the feats of those
fabulous paladins who, cased in impervious steel and wielding
enchanted lance, overthrew armies as easily as a Quixote scattered
merinos. Hardly, when the tale is put before us in the quaint and
garrulous chronicle of an Oviedo or a Zarate, can we bring ourselves
to accept it as history, not as the wild invention of imaginative
monks, beguiling conventual leisure by the composition of fantastical
romance. And the man who undertakes, at the present day, to
narrate in all their details the exploits and triumphs of a Cortés or a
Pizarro, allots himself no slight task. A clear head and a sound
judgment, great industry and a skilful pen, are needed to do justice
to the subject; to extract and combine the scraps of truth buried
under mountains of fiction and misrepresentation, to sift facts from
the partial accounts of Spanish jurists and officials, and to correct
the boastful misrepresentations of insolent conquerors. The
necessary qualities have been found united in the person of an
accomplished American author. Already favourably known by his
histories of the eventful and chivalrous reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella, and of the exploits of the Great Marquis and his iron
followers, Mr Prescott has added to his well-merited reputation by
his narrative of the Conquest of Peru. In its compilation he has
spared no pains. Private collections and public libraries, the archives
of Madrid and the manuscripts of the Escurial, he has ransacked and
collated. And he has been so scrupulously conscientious as to send
to Lima for a copy of the portrait whose engraving faces his title-
page. But although his materials had to be procured from many and
distant countries, their collection appears to have occasioned him
less trouble than their abundance. The comrades and
contemporaries of Pizarro were afflicted with a scribbling mania.
They have left masses of correspondence, of memoranda and
personal diaries, contradictory of each other, often absurd in their
exaggerations and childish in their triviality. From this farrago has Mr
Prescott had to cull,—a labour of no trifling magnitude, whose result
is most creditable to him. And to our admiration of his talents are
added feelings of strong sympathy, when we read his manly and
affecting account of the painful circumstances under which the work
was done. Deprived by an accident of the sight of one eye, the other
has for years been so weak as at times to be useless to him for all
purposes of reading and writing. At intervals he was able to read
print several hours a-day, but manuscript was far more trying to his
impaired vision, and writing was only possible through those aids by
which even the stone-blind may accomplish it. But when he could
read, although only by daylight, he felt, he says, satisfied with being
raised so nearly to a level with the rest of his species. Unfortunately
the evil increases. “The sight of my eye has become gradually
dimmed, whilst the sensibility of the nerve has been so far
increased, that for several weeks of the last year I have not opened
a volume, and through the whole time I have not had the use of it,
on an average, for more than an hour a-day.” Sustained by love of
letters, and assisted by readers and amanuenses, the student and
scholar has triumphed over these cruel disadvantages, surmounted
all obstacles, and produced three long and important historical
works, conspicuous by their impartiality, research, and elegance;
entitling him to an exceedingly honourable position amongst writers
in the English tongue, and to one of the very loftiest places in the as
yet scantily filled gallery of American men of letters. The last of
these works, of which Pizarro is the hero and Peru the scene, yields
nothing in merit or interest to its predecessors.

The discovery of America infected Europe with a fever of

exploration. Scarce a country was there, possessing a sea-frontier,
whence expeditions did not proceed with a view to appropriate a
share of the spoils and territory of the new-found El-Dorado. In
these ventures Spain, fresh from her long and bloody struggle with
the Moor, and abounding in fierce unsettled spirits, eager for action
and adventure, took a prominent part. The conquests of Cortes
followed hard upon the discoveries of Columbus: Dutch, English, and
Portuguese pushed their investigations in all directions; and, in less
than thirty years from its first discovery, the whole eastern coast of
both Americas was explored from north to south. The vast empire of
Mexico was added to the Spanish crown, and the mother country
was glutted and intoxicated by the Pactolus that flowed from this
new possession. But enterprise was not yet exhausted, or thirst of
gold satiated, and Balboa’s discovery of the Pacific gave fresh
stimulus to both. Rumour had long spoken of lands, as yet
untrodden by European foot, where the precious metals were
abundant and worthless as the sand upon the sea-beach. Years
elapsed before any well-directed attempt was made to reach these
golden shores. With a view to discovery and traffic in the Pacific, a
settlement was made on the southern side of the Isthmus of Darien,
and the town of Panama was built. But the armaments that were
fitted out took a westerly direction, in hopes to realise a fixed idea of
the Spanish government relative to an imaginary strait intersecting
the Isthmus. At last an expedition sailed southwards, but soon
returned, owing to the bad health of its commander. This was in
1522. The moment and the man had not yet arrived. They came,
two years later; Pizarro appeared, and Peru was discovered.

But the discovery was comparatively a trifling matter. There lay

the long line of coast, stretching south-eastwards from Panama; the
navigator disposed to explore it, had but to spread his sails, keep the
land in sight, and take the risk of the hidden shoals and reefs that
might lie in his course. The seas to be crossed were often
tempestuous; the country intervening between St Michael’s Gulf and
the southern empire, whose rumoured wealth and civilisation
wrought so potently upon Spanish imagination, was peopled by
fierce and warlike tribes. Shipwreck was to be dreaded, and a
landing might for weeks or months be unsafe, if not impracticable.
But what were such secondary dangers contrasted with the perils,
doubly terrible from their unknown and mysterious nature, incurred
by the sanguine Genoese and his bold companions, when they
turned their brigantine’s prow westward from Europe, and sailed—
they knew not whither? Here the path was comparatively plain, and
the goal ascertained; and although risks must be dared, reward was
tolerably certain: for further tidings of the Peruvian empire had
reached the ears of the Spaniards, less shadowy and incomplete
than the vague hints received by Balboa from an Indian chief.
Andagoya, the officer whom illness had compelled to abandon an
expedition when it was scarcely commenced, had brought back
intelligence far more explicit, obtained from Indian traders who had
penetrated by land into the empire of the Incas, as far (so he says in
his own manuscript, comprised in Navarrete’s collection) as its
capital city of Cuzco. They spoke of a pagan but civilised land,
opulent and flourishing; they described the divisions of its provinces,
the wealth of its cities, the manners and usages of its inhabitants.
But had their description been far more minute and glowing, the
imagination of those who received the accounts would still have
outstripped reality and possibility. Those were the days of golden
visions and chimerical day-dreams. In the fancy of the greedy and
credulous Spaniards, each corner of the New World contained
treasures, compared to which the golden trees and jewelled fruits of
Aladdin’s garden were paste and tinsel. The exaggerated reports of
those adventurers who returned wealth-laden to Spain, were swoln
by repetition to dimensions which enchantment only could have
realised. No marvels were too monstrous and unwieldy for the
craving gullet of popular credulity. “They listened with attentive ears
to tales of Amazons, which seemed to revive the classic legends of
antiquity, to stories of Patagonian giants, to flaming pictures of an
El-Dorado, where the sands sparkled with gems, and golden pebbles
as large as birds’ eggs were dragged in nets out of the rivers.” And
expeditions were actually undertaken in search of a magical Fountain
of Health, of golden sepulchres and temples. The Amazons and the
water of life are still to be discovered; but as to golden temples and
jewelled sands, their equivalents, at least, were forthcoming,—not
for the many, but for a chosen and lucky few. Of the fortunes of
these the record is preserved; of the misfortunes of those
comparatively little is told us. We hear of the thousands of golden
castellanos that fell to the lot of men, who a moment previously,
were without a maravedi in their tattered pouches; we find no
catalogue of the fever-stricken victims who left their bones in the
noxious districts of Panama and Castillo de Oro. And those who
achieved riches, earned them hardly by peril and privation, although,
in the magnificence of the plunder, past sufferings were quickly
forgotten. Thrice did Pizarro and his daring companions sail
southward; countless were their hardships, bitter their
disappointments, before the sunshine of success rewarded their
toils, revealing to them treasures that must in some degree have
appeased even their appetite for lucre. They came suddenly upon a
town whose inhabitants, taken by surprise, fled in consternation,
abandoning their property to the invaders. It was the emerald
region, and great store of the gems fell into the hands of the
Spaniards. Pizarro had one as large as a pigeon’s egg. A quantity of
crowns and other ornaments, clumsily fashioned, but of pure gold
and silver, were more to the taste of the ignorant conquerors, who
were sceptical as to the value of the jewels. “Many of them,” says
Pedro Pizarro, whose rough, straightforward account of the discovery
and conquest of Peru is frequently quoted by Mr Prescott, “had
emeralds of great value; some tried them upon anvils, striking them
with hammers, saying that if they were genuine, they would not
break; others despised them, and affirmed that they were glass.” A
cunning monk, one of the missionaries whom Pizarro had been
ordered by the Spanish government to take out in his ships,
encouraged this opinion, in order to buy up the emeralds as their
market value declined. The specie, however, was of immense
amount, if the authority just quoted may be depended upon. He
talks of two hundred thousand castellanos, the commercial value of
which was equivalent to more than half a million sterling. This from
one village, of no great size or importance. It was a handsome
earnest of future spoils, and of the mountain of gold which, as an
Inca’s ransom, awaited the Spaniards at Cuzco.

In these days, when the rumoured existence of a land previously

unknown provokes expeditions authorised and fitted out by half the
maritime powers of Europe, and when great nations risk the peace
of the world for the possession of a paltry Pacific islet, the small
degree of vigour shown by the Spanish crown in pushing its
American discoveries fills us with surprise. Take Peru as an instance.
The isthmus of Darien was colonised by Spaniards; Mexico was
theirs, and the armaments sent by Pedrarias from Panama to explore
in a north-westerly direction, had met at Honduras the conquerors of
the Aztecs, the brave and fortunate companions of Hernan Cortés.
One empire had received the Spanish yoke; at Panama the foot of
the European was on the threshold of another; but there it paused,
desirous, yet fearing, to proceed. No aid or encouragement to
enterprise was afforded from Spain; it was left to private capital and
individual daring further to extend colonies already so vast. A priest
found the money; two veteran soldiers, of low extraction, desperate
fortunes, and brave spirit, undertook the risk. The most remarkable
of the three men who thus formed a partnership for the conquest of
kingdoms, could neither read nor write, was illegitimate, and a
foundling. “He was born in Truxillo,” says Gomara, in his Historia de
las Indias; “was left at the door of a church, and for a certain
number of days he sucked a sow, none being willing to give him
milk.” Young Pizarro subsequently requited this porcine nourishment
by taking care of his foster-mother’s relatives. The chief occupation
of his youth was that of a swineherd. Gomara’s account of his birth,
however, is only one of many, various and contradictory in their
details. The fact is that very little is known of the early years of
Francisco Pizarro. His valour and soldierly qualities he doubtless
inherited from his father, a Spanish colonel of infantry, who served
with distinction in Italy and Navarre. Neither from him nor from his
mother, a person of low condition, did he receive much parental
attention. Even the date of his birth is a matter of doubt, and has
been differently stated by different chroniclers. He cannot, however,
have been far from fifty when he started on his Peruvian expedition.
During the fourteen previous years he had followed the fortunes of
Ojeda, Balboa, and other Spanish-American adventurers, until at last
the opportunity offered for himself to assume a command to which
he proved in every way competent. His rank was that of captain, and
the number of men under his orders made but a slender company,
when, in the month of November 1524, he left the port of Panama,
on board a small vessel, indifferently provided, and of no great
seaworthiness. About a hundred adventurers, (some accounts say
eighty, others a hundred and twenty,) stalwart, stout-hearted
fellows, for the most part of no very reputable description,
composed the powerful army destined to invade a populous empire.
They started under many disadvantages. Almagro, Pizarro’s partner
in the undertaking, who was to follow in another ship, as soon as it
could be got ready, had had the victualling of that on which his
colleague embarked, and he had performed the duty in a slovenly
manner, reckoning that, upon a coasting voyage, supplies might be
obtained from shore. Landing for this purpose, a few leagues south
of the river Biru, Pizarro could procure nothing besides wood and
water. A tremendous storm came on; for ten days the ship was in
imminent danger, tossed by the furious waves; rations ran short, and
two ears of Indian corn were each man’s daily allowance. Thus
poorly nourished, and in a crazy ship, they struggled with desperate
energy against the fury of the tropical tempest. Only a miracle, as it
seemed, could save them, and yet they escaped. The vessel bore
Pizarro and his fortunes.

This first expedition, however, resulted in nothing, except much

suffering and discontent. On landing, after the storm, the voyagers
found themselves in a desolate and unproductive country, covered
with tangled forests, untenanted even by beasts or birds. No living
creatures were visible, except noxious insects—no food was
obtainable, save herbs and berries, unpalatable, and often
poisonous. The men desponded, and would fain have returned to
Panama; but Pizarro, with much difficulty, appeased their murmurs,
and sending back the ship to the Isle of Pearls for provisions,
attempted to explore the country. On all sides stretched a gloomy
forest, matted with creepers, and penetrable only with axe in hand;
habitations there were none; the bitter buds of the palm, and an
occasional stranded shell-fish, were the best entertainment offered
by that inhospitable region to the weary and disheartened
wanderers, some of whom actually perished by famine. At last, after
many weeks’ misery, an Indian village was discovered. The
Spaniards rushed upon it like starving wolves upon a sheep-fold, and
got a small supply of food, chiefly maize and cocoa-nuts. Here, also,
they received further tidings of the golden southern realm that had
lured them on this luckless voyage. “Ten days’ journey across the
mountains,” the Indians told Pizarro, “there dwelt a mighty monarch,
whose dominions had been invaded by one still more powerful—the
Child of the Sun.” They referred to the kingdom of Quito, which the
warlike Inca, Huayna Capac, had added, some thirty years
previously, to the empire of Peru.

Six long weeks of hunger and misery had elapsed, when the ship
returned with good store of provisions. Revived by the seasonable
supply, the adventurers were now as eager to prosecute their
voyage as they shortly before had been to abandon it; and leaving
Famine Port, the name given by Pizarro to the scene of their
sufferings, they again sailed southwards. When next they landed, it
was to plunder an Indian village of its provisions and gold. Here they
found traces of cannibalism. “In the pots for the dinner, which stood
upon the fire,” says Herrera, in his Historia General de las Indias,
“amongst the flesh which they took out, were feet and hands of
men, whence they knew that those Indians were Caribs,”—the
Caribs being the only cannibals as yet known in that part of the New
World. This discovery drove the horrified Spaniards to their ships,
from which they again landed at Punto Quemado, the limit of this
first expedition. The sturdy resistance they there met from some
warlike savages, in a skirmish with whom they had two men killed
and many wounded, (Pizarro himself receiving seven wounds,) made
them reflect on the temerity of proceeding further with such a
scanty force. Their ship, too, was in a crippled state, and in a council
of war it was decided to return to Panama, and seek the
countenance and assistance of the governor for the further
prosecution of the enterprise.

Without attempting to follow Mr Prescott through his detailed and

interesting account of Pizarro’s difficulties, struggles, and
adventures, during the six years that intervened between his first
departure from Panama, and his commencement of the conquest of
Peru, we will glance at the character and deeds of a few of his
comrades. The principal of these was Diego de Almagro, a brave and
honourable soldier, who placed a confidence in his leader which the
sequel shows was scarcely merited. A foundling like Pizarro, like him
he was uneducated, and unable to sign his name to the singular
covenant by which the two, in concert with Father Luque, (the
Spanish ecclesiastic, who found the funds for the expedition,)
agreed, upon oath, and in the name of God and the Holy
Evangelists, to divide amongst them in equal shares, all the lands,
treasures, gold, silver, precious stones, and other property, that
might accrue as the result of their enterprise. For in such terms
“three obscure individuals coolly carved out, and partitioned
amongst themselves, an empire of whose extent, power, and
resources, of whose situation, of whose existence even, they had no
sure and precise knowledge.” Contented at first with the post of
second in command, it does not appear whether it was on his own
solicitation that Almagro was named by the governor of Panama
Pizarro’s equal in the second expedition. This domination greatly
mortified Pizarro, who suspected Almagro of having sought it, and
did not neglect, when the opportunity offered, on his visit to the
court of Charles the Fifth, to repay him in kind. As far as can be
gathered from the mass of conflicting evidence, Almagro was frank
in disposition and straightforward in his dealings, but hasty in
temper, and of ungovernable passions. When he had despatched
Pizarro on the first voyage, he lost the least possible time in
following him, tracing his progress by the concerted signal of
notches on the trees. In this manner he descended the coast to
Punto Quemado, and in his turn had a fight with the natives, whose
village he burned, and drove them into the woods. In this affair he
lost an eye by a javelin wound. Passing Pizarro’s vessel without
observing it, he pushed on to the mouth of the river San Juan,
whence he returned to Panama, having gone farther, suffered less,
and collected more gold than his friend. At this time, however, great
amity and mutual reliance existed between them; although not long
afterwards we find them quarrelling fiercely, and only prevented by
the interposition of their subordinates from settling their differences
sabre in hand.

Bartholomew Ruiz, an Andalusian pilot, a native of that village of

Moguer which supplied Columbus with many seamen for his first
voyages, also played an important part in the earlier researches of
the discoverers of Peru. Upon the second voyage, when the two
ships had reached the river of San Juan, he was detached in one of
them to explore the coast, and soon made the little island of Gallo,
in two degrees of north latitude. The hostile demonstrations of the
natives prevented his landing, and he continued his course
southwards, along a coast crowded with spectators. “They stood
gazing on the vessel of the white man, as it glided smoothly into the
crystal waters of the bay, fancying it, says an old writer, some
mysterious being descended from the skies.” The account of Ruiz’s
voyage, although it occupied but a few weeks, and was
comparatively devoid of adventure, has a romantic and peculiar
charm. The first European who, sailing in that direction on the
Pacific, crossed the equinoctial line, he was also the first who
obtained ocular proof of Peruvian civilisation. He fell in with a balsa
or native raft, consisting of beams lashed together, floored with
reeds, guided by a rude rudder and rigged with a cotton square-sail.
On board this primitive craft—still in use on the rivers and coasts of
South America—were several Indians, whose dresses and
ornaments, showing great ingenuity and progress in manufacturing
art, excited his surprise and admiration. “Mirrors mounted in silver,”
says a Spanish narrator of Ruiz’s cruise, “and cups, and other
drinking vessels, blankets of cotton and wool, and shirts, and vests,
and many other garments, embroidered for the most part with very
rich embroideries of scarlet, and crimson, and blue, and yellow, and
all other colours, in various designs and figures of birds and animals,
and fishes and trees; and they had small scales, in the fashion of a
steelyard, for weighing gold; and many other things.” Right musical
to the ears of the Spaniards were the tales these Indians told of the
abundance of the precious metals in the palaces of their king. Wood,
according to their report, was scarcely more plentiful than silver and
gold. And they enlarged upon the subject, until their auditors hardly
dared credit the flattering accounts which, as they were soon to find,
little exceeded the truth. Detaining a few of the Indians, that they
might repeat their tale to Pizarro and serve as interpreters after they
should have acquired the Spanish tongue, Ruiz prosecuted his
voyage to about half a degree south of the line, and then returned
to the place where his commander and comrades anxiously awaited
him.

As pilot and navigator, old Ruiz rendered eminent services, and his
courage and fidelity were equal to his nautical skill. In the former
qualities another of Pizarro’s little band, Pedro de Candia, a Greek
cavalier, was no way his inferior, although his talents were rather of
a military than a maritime cast. Soon after the return of Ruiz to the
river San Juan, Almagro, who had been to Panama for a
reinforcement, made his appearance with recruits and stores. The
pilot’s report inspired all with enthusiasm, and “Southward, ho!” was
again the cry. They reached the shores of Quito, and anchored off
the port of Tacamez. Before them lay a large and rich town, whose
population glittered with gold and jewels. Instead of the dark
swamps and impervious forests where they had left the bones of so
many of their companions, the adventurers beheld groves of sandal
and ebony extending to the very margin of the ocean; maize and
potato fields, and cocoa plantations, gave promise of plenty; the
streams washed down gold-dust, and on the banks of one were
quarries of emeralds. This charming scene brought water into the
mouths of the Spaniards; but their wishes were not yet to be
fulfilled; with the cup at their lips, they were forbidden to taste. A
numerous array of armed and resolute natives set them at defiance.
And that they did so, speaks highly for their courage, when we
consider the notion they entertained of the party of horsemen who,
with Pizarro at their head, effected a landing. Like the Mexicans and
other races to whom the horse was unknown until introduced from
Europe, they imagined man and beast to form one strange and
unaccountable monster, and had, therefore, the same excuse for a
panic that a European army would have if suddenly assailed by a
regiment of flying dragons. Nevertheless they boldly charged the
intruders. These, feeling their own inability to cope with the army of
warriors that lined the shore, and which numbered, according to
some accounts, fully ten thousand men, had landed with the sole
purpose of seeking an amicable conference. Instead of a peaceful
parley, they found themselves forced into a very unequal fight. “It
might have gone hard with the Spaniards, hotly pressed by their
resolute enemy, but for a ludicrous incident reported by the
historians as happening to one of the cavaliers. This was a fall from
his horse, which so astonished the barbarians, who were not
prepared for the division of what seemed one and the same being
into two, that, filled with consternation, they fell back, and left a way
open for the Christians to regain their vessels.”

Doubting not that the account they could now give of the riches of
Peru, would bring crowds of volunteers to their standard, Almagro
and some of his companions again sailed for Panama, to seek the
succours so greatly needed; Pizarro consenting, after some angry
discussion, to await their return upon the island of Gallo. The men
who were to remain with him were highly discontented at their
commander’s decision, and one of them secreted a letter in a ball of
cotton, sent, as a sample of Peruvian produce, to the wife of the
governor of Panama. In this letter were complaints of privations and
misery, and bitter attacks upon Pizarro and Almagro, whom the
disaffected soldiers represented as sacrificing their comrades’ lives to
their own ambition. The paper reached its destination; the governor
was indignant and sent ships to fetch away the whole party. But
Pizarro, encouraged by letters from his two partners, who promised
him the means of continuing his voyage, steadily refused to budge.
With his sword he drew a line upon the sand from east to west,
exposed, with a soldier’s frugality of words, the glory and prosperity
that awaited them in Peru, and the disgrace of abandoning the
enterprise, and then, stepping across the line, bade brave men stay
by him and recreants retreat. Thirteen were stanch to their
courageous leader. The first to range himself by his side was the
pilot Ruiz; the second was Pedro de Candia. The names of the
eleven others have also been preserved by the chroniclers.

“A handful of men, without food, without clothing, almost without

arms, without knowledge of the land to which they were bound,
without vessels to transport them, were here left upon a lonely rock
in the ocean, with the avowed purpose of carrying on a crusade
against a powerful empire, staking their lives on its success. What is
there in the legends of chivalry that surpasses it? This was the crisis
of Pizarro’s fate.... Had Pizarro faltered from his strong purpose, and
yielded to the occasion now so temptingly presented for extricating
himself and his broken band from their desperate position, his name
would have been buried with his fortunes, and the conquest of Peru
would have been left for other and more successful adventurers.”

Courage and constancy had their reward. True to their word,

Luque and Almagro sent a small vessel to take off Pizarro and his
little band. They embarked, set sail, and after twenty days were in
the gulf of Guayaquil, abreast of Chimborazo, and in full view of the
fertile vale of Tumbez. There an Inca noble came on board, and was
received by Pizarro with all honour and distinction. In reply to his
inquiries concerning the whence and wherefore of the white men’s
coming, the Spanish leader replied, “that he was the vassal of a
great prince, the greatest and most powerful in the world, and that
he had come to this country to assert his master’s lawful supremacy
over it.” He further announced his intention of rescuing them from
the darkness of unbelief, and converting them to Christianity. In
reply to these communications the Inca chief said nothing—all,
perhaps, that he understood. He was much more favourably
impressed by a good dinner, Spanish wine, and the present of an
iron hatchet. The next day one of Pizarro’s followers, Alonzo de
Molina by name, was sent on shore with a propitiatory offering of
pigs and poultry for the curaca or governor of the district. He
brought back such marvellous accounts that he was set down as a
liar; and Pedro de Candia was selected to bring a true report of
things on shore, whither he was sent, “dressed in complete mail as
became a good knight, with his sword by his side, and his arquebuse
on his shoulder.” His brilliant equipment greatly dazzled the Indians,
and at the report of his arquebuse they fell to the ground in dismay.
A wondrous story is gravely told by several chroniclers, how the
Indians, taking him for a supernatural being, and desirous to
ascertain the fact beyond a doubt, let loose a tiger upon him. Candia
took a cross from his neck and laid it upon the back of the animal,
which instantly fawned upon and gambolled round him. On returning
to his ship the report of the Greek cavalier confirmed that of Molina.
Both, as it subsequently appeared, were guilty of some
exaggeration. But their flaming accounts of temples tapestried with
plates of gold, and of convent gardens where fruits and vegetables
were all in pure gold and silver, gave heart to the adventurers, and
sent them on their way rejoicing. To the port of Santa, nine degrees
farther south than any previous expedition had reached, they
continued their voyage; and then, having fully convinced themselves
of the richness of the country, and the importance of their
discoveries, but, being too few and feeble to profit by them, they
retraced their course to, Panama, and arrived there, after an,
absence of eighteen months, early in the year 1528.

It was now that Pizarro, finding the governor of Panama unwilling

to assist him either with men or money, set out for Europe, to lay
the report of his discoveries before the Emperor, and implore his
support and patronage. He had little taste for the mission. The
unlettered soldier, the war-worn and weather-beaten adventurer,
was at home on the deck of a tempest-tost caravel, or, in the depths
of a howling wilderness, where courage, coolness, and fortitude
were the qualities needed; and there he would rather risk himself
than in the perfumed atmosphere of a court. His associates,
however, urged him to depart. Father Luque’s clerical duties
prevented him from undertaking the journey; neither by manners
nor appearance was Almagro eligible as an envoy; Pizarro, although
wholly uneducated, was of commanding presence, and ready, even
eloquent, in speech. With honourable frankness and confidence in
his friend’s integrity, Almagro urged him to set out. It was agreed
that Pizarro should solicit for himself the offices of governor and
captain-general of the newly discovered country, for Almagro that of
adelantado; that the pilot Ruiz, should be Alguaçil Mayor, and Father
Luque Bishop of Tumbez. Promising to act in conformity with this
agreement, and in all respects to consult his friends’ interests
equally with his own, Pizarro, accompanied by Pedro de Candia, and
taking with him some Peruvians and llamas, specimens of cloth and
ornaments of gold and silver, traversed the Isthmus, and embarked
for Spain.

The discoverer and future conqueror of Peru had scarcely set foot
upon his native soil, when he was thrown into prison for a debt of
twenty years’ standing, incurred by him as one of the early colonists
of Darien. Released from durance, so soon as intelligence of his
detention reached the court, he hurried to Toledo, where Charles the
Fifth then was. The records of courts afford no scene more pregnant
with interest than the arrival of Pizarro in the presence of his
sovereign. It is the very romance of history,—a noble subject for
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