Chapter 1 ASU OGL 200

Chapter 1
Introduction: The Nature of Leadership
OGL 200

Learning Objectives
After Studying this Chapter you should be able to:
 Understand the different ways leadership has been defined.
 Understand the controversy about differences between leadership and management.  Understand why it is so difficult to assess leadership effectiveness.

Learning Objectives
 Understand the indicators used to assess leadership effectiveness
 Understand what aspects of leadership have been studied the most during the past 50 years.
 Understand the organization of this book. Definition of Leadership
 “Always, it seems, the concept of leadership eludes us or turns up in another form to taunt us again with its slipperiness and complexity. So we have invented an endless proliferation of terms to deal with it…and still the concept is not sufficiently defined.”  Bennis (1959)

Controversies
Over Leadership Definitions

 Specialized role or shared influence process  Type of influence process
 Purpose of influence attempts
 Influence based on reason or emotions
 Direct versus indirect leadership
 Leadership versus management

Leadership
A Working Definition

“Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives.”

Controversies
About Differences Between
Leadership and Management

 Leaders and managers as qualitatively different and mutually exclusive types of people  Leading and managing as different roles or processes  Leading as an influence relationship and managing as an authority relationship
 Integrative approach

Difficulties

With Assessing Leadership Effectiveness

 Many different indicators
 Immediate and delayed outcomes
 Stakeholders with different preferences  Different conceptions of leadership
 Development of a composite measure

Effective Leadership
Indicators
 High group