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Leadership

Leadership is “a process of social influence in which an individual, a leader, is able to enlist the support of other individuals, the followers, in the accomplishment of a task or mission.” One important concept in this definition is that leadership is a social process. Without groups, there would be no leaders and no need for leaders. The primary function of leadership is to coordinate the efforts of others to accomplish something that cannot be done by one individual alone. A second noteworthy concept is that leadership is based on influence (i.e., persuasion), not power. No leader can force group members to give their highest level of effort regardless of the amount of power in the position. Finally, leadership is about accomplishing a task or achieving a successful mission. An effective leader, then, is one who is able to motivate followers to give high effort, help them achieve needed competency, and coordinate their efforts to attain the group's goals. How leaders effectively accomplish these three functions has been the subject of study since the turn of the 20th century.

It should be noted that the discussion of leadership given here applies to small groups or teams, in which leaders are in close contact with followers.

Research and Theory

Leadership is a multifaceted phenomenon involving interactions among multiple individuals in complex and dynamic environments. There have been many false starts and dead ends in the development of a scientific understanding of this phenomenon. An examination of how research and theory have developed over time provides a basis for synthesis and integration.

Traits

Early studies of leadership viewed effective leadership as dependent on characteristics of the individuals who occupied the leadership role. A wide variety of traits have been studied by contrasting leaders and nonleaders or effective leaders and in effective leaders in corporations, military organizations, sports teams, and other settings. Traits studied for their relationship to leadership include intelligence, cognitive complexity, need for power, need for affiliation, physical appearance, energy, verbal fluency, originality, dominance, social skills, and many more. However, the findings of this approach were disappointing. A few leader characteristics (most particularly intelligence) bore a modest relationship to leadership status or effectiveness, but no single trait or combination of traits was sufficiently predictive to provide a basis for leadership selection, training, or explanation.

Behaviors

The failure of research on personality and other traits led to research on specific behaviors that might characterize effective leadership. One set of studies interviewed industrial workers about the behavior of their supervisors. Two types of supervisors were found frequently. One type, termed production-oriented supervisors, spent most of their time structuring the work, assigning tasks, and monitoring for performance. A second type, termed employee-oriented supervisors, were more concerned with making sure that morale was high and that workers felt represented and protected.

In another research program, college students were placed in groups and given tasks (such as discussing a social problem or writing a witty essay), and the behavior of group members was observed and categorized. It was found that some students spoke more than others, and the talkative ones fell into two categories. Some, who were labeled task specialists, displayed behaviors that emphasized accomplishing the assigned task, such as offering ideas or asking task-relevant questions. Others, labeled socioemotional specialists, focused on making sure that every group member had a chance to speak or that tension was relieved by jokes and friendly comments.

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