Definition of leadership

Definition of leadership

In common usage, leadership generally refers to:

?the position or office of an authority figure, such as a President

? a group of influential people, such as a union leadership

?guidance or direction, as in the phrase "the emperor is not providing much leadership"

?capacity or ability to lead, as in the phrase "she exercised effective leadership"

If we define leadership simply as "influencing others to some purpose" and we define followership as "being influenced by others to accept some purpose", then leadership and followership emerge as two sides of the same coin. In this scenario, leadership -- whether successful or not -- has not occurred until at least one follower joins in. Likewise, no followership exists without someone or something (not necessarily a leader) to follow. However, in this latter case, the leadership need not be deliberate or even conscious, that is, followers can follow someone who is not trying to lead. Some see "unconscious leadership" as a dubious concept, however. Many, using a different definition of leadership, would claim that it does not classify as leadership at all because no deliberate intention to lead exists. Unconscious leading by example may exemplify this.

Leadership as a position of authority

In On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, Thomas Carlyle demonstrated the concept of leadership as a position of authority. In praising Oliver Cromwell's use of power to bring King Charles I to trial and eventual beheading, he wrote the following: "Let us remark, meanwhile, how indispensable everywhere a King is, in all movements of men. It is strikingly shown, in this very War, what becomes of men when they cannot find a Chief Man, and their enemies can." [3] (/gutenberg/etext97/heros10.txt)

From this viewpoint, leadership emerges when an entity as "leader" manages to receive deference from other entities who become "followers". And as the passage from Carlyle demonstrates, the process of getting deference can become competitive in that the emerging "leader" draws "followers" from the factions of the prior "leaders."

In the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the American Founders rejected the idea of a monarch. But they still proposed leadership as a position of authority, with the authority split into three powers, the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary. That is, under the American theory, the authority of leadership derived from the power of the voters conveyed through the electoral college. And many individuals shared in leadership as a position of authority, including the many legislators in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Leadership as a position of authority, comparison with other apes

Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson, in Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence present the empirical evidence that only humans and chimpanzees, among all the animals living on earth, share a similar tendency for violence, territoriality, and competition for uniting

behind the one chief male of the land. (Note the status of chimpanzees as humans' closest species-relatives: humans inherited 98% of their genes from the ancestors of the chimpanzees.

In comparison, the bonobos, the second-closest species-relatives of man, do not unite behind the chief male of the land. The bonobos show deference to an alpha or top-ranking female that, with the support of her coalition of other females, is as strong as the strongest male in the land. Thus, if leadership amounts to getting the greatest number of followers, then among the bonobos, a female almost always exerts the strongest and most effective leadership.

Some have argued that, since the bonobo pattern inverts the dominant pattern among chimpanzees and men with regard to whether a female can get more followers than a male, humans and chimpanzees both likely inherited gender-bias against women from the ancestors of the chimpanzees; gender-bias features as a genetic condition of men. And the bias against women having leadership as a position of authority crosses all world cultures. As of 2002, Sweden had the highest percentage of women in the legislature: but only 43%. And the United States, Andorra, Israel, Sierra Leone, and Ireland tied for 57th place with less than 15% of the legislature women. Admittedly, those percentages significantly outclass the occurrence of female chimpanzees becoming alpha of the community by getting the most followers, but similar trends exist in manifesting a general gender-bias across cultures against females getting leadership as a position of authority over followers.

Determining what makes effective "leadership"

In comparing various leadership styles in many cultures, academic studies have examined the patterns in which leadership emerges and then fades, sometimes by natural succession according to established rules and sometimes by the imposition of brute force. Some scholars choose to judge the effectiveness of leadership by the size of the following that the "leader" can muster. By this standard, Adolf Hitler became a very effective leader even if through delusional promises and coercive troops.

Other scholars, assuming no doubt relatively fluid and dynamic societal background situations, maintain that an effective leader must unite followers to a shared vision that offers "true" value, integrity, and trust to transform and improve an organization and society at large. James MacGregor Burns calls this leadership that delivers true value, integrity, and trust transformational leadership. He distinguishes such leadership from "mere" transactional leadership that gets power by doing whatever will get more followers. But problems arise in quantifying the t …… 此处隐藏：5740字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……