Leadership Defined and Described

LDRS 302 Unit 1

Northouse Leadership

Theory and Practice

Chapters 1 –Introduction

Leadership Defined and

Described

Peter Northouse

DEFINING LEADERSHIP

Introduction:

Defining

Leadership

There is no consensus among the

scholars and practitioners concerning

the definition of leadership. Bennis

(1999, p. 259) wrote:

“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.”

Introduction:

Defining

Leadership

Cont.

Thus, scholars and practitioners usually define

leadership according to their individual

perspectives and the aspects of the phenomenon

of most interest to them.

After a detailed review of the leadership literature,

Stodgill (1974, p. 259) concluded that “there are

almost as many definitions of leadership as there

are persons who have attempted to define the

concept of leadership.”

And because of the many definitions of the

concept of leadership, there are many ways to end

the sentence, “Leadership is…”

Introduction:

Conceptualizing

Leadership

Leadership is conceptualized in the following ways:

1. Leadership as the focus of a group process.

2. Seeing leadership from a personality perspective –

trait approach.

3. Leadership as an act of behaviour –behavioural

approach.

4. Leadership as power relationship existing between

leaders & followers –Leaders-Member Exchange

approach.

5. Leadership as a transformational process –

transformational approach.

6. Looking at leadership from skills perspective –skills

approach.

Focus of group

processes

the leader is at the centre

Personality

perspective

leadership is a