Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
Lecture Notes
Chapter 1: Introduction
Learning Objectives
1-2 Discuss the varying conceptualizations of leadership.
Annotated Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
A. Corporations seek leaders who can bring special assets to their organizations (thus
improving the bottom line.)
i. Leadership studies programs even exist at the master’s and doctoral levels.
B. There are a variety of leadership approaches supported by research.
C. These approaches may see leadership as:
i. A personality trait.
ii. A behavior.
D. Leadership is a complex process with multiple dimensions.
II. Leadership Defined
A. Leadership has a subjective definition that each individual intuitively defines for
themselves.
i. Has resulted in a distinct lack of consensus.
B. Ways of Conceptualizing Leadership
i. Focus of group processes: Bass’s scheme of leadership, in which the leader
embodies the will of the group and is the center of group change.
ii. Personality perspective: Maintains leadership is a combination of innate traits
and characteristics.
iii. Act (behavior) perspective: Leadership is defined by the things leaders do to
C. Definition and Components
i. Central components of leadership:
a. It is a process.
Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
ii. Leadership: A process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to
achieve a common goal.
iii. Process: Leadership is not a trait or characteristic of the leader, but a
transactional event between a leader and followers.
iv. Influence: How the leader affects followers and communication.
v. Groups: The context in which leadership takes place.
vi. Common goals: Achievements pursued together.
a. Common: Leaders and followers have a mutual purpose.
vii. Leaders: People who engage in leadership.
viii. Followers: Those toward whom leadership is directed.
ix. Leaders typically initiate leader-follower relationships, create communication
linkages, and bear the burden of maintaining the relationship.
III. Leadership Described
A. Trait Versus Process Leadership
i. Those with a trait perspective believe in “born leaders” or “natural leaders.”
ii. Suggests special innate characteristics or qualities make leaders. Some of these
qualities include:
a. Unique physical factors (such as height).
iii. Trait perspectives limit leadership to a select few with special, usually inborn,
talents.
iv. Process viewpoints suggest a more contextual definition of the leadership
phenomenon.
a. Makes leadership available to everyone.
B. Assigned Versus Emergent Leadership
i. Assigned leadership: Leadership empowered by holding a formal position in an
organization.
ii. Emergent leadership: Leadership based on the way other group members
respond to them.
Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
a. Becomes apparent over time and may not be accompanied by a
difference in job title.
iii. Positive communication behaviors in emergent leaders:
a. Being verbally involved.
b. Being informed.
iv. Personality may also play a role in emergence with some traits more related to
leadership emergence than others:
a. Highly dominant.
v. Gender-biased perceptions may impact emergence.
a. Women with equal influencing skills to men will nonetheless be rated
b. Men who speak up to promote new ideas in teams are granted higher
status compared to women who do the same.
vi. Social identity theory perspective of leadership emergence:
grants them respect from other individuals in the group.
C. Leadership and Power
i. Power is the capacity or potential to influence.
a. Can sway others’ beliefs, attitudes, and courses of action.
ii. Influential individuals:
a. Judges.
b. Doctors.
iii. Commonly, people view leaders as individuals who wield power over others.
a. Often mistakenly thought of as synonymous with leadership.
iv. Kellerman argues that over the last 40 years, power of leaders has diminished
and shifted to followers.
a. Followers demand more from leaders.
v. Volunteer leaders may engage more frequently in leadership behaviors than paid
leaders.
Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
vi. French and Raven’s bases of social power (1959).
a. Referent power: Based on followers’ identification and liking for the
leader.
b. Expert power: Based on followers’ perceptions of the leader’s
competence.
a. Added as sixth basis by Raven (1965).
vii. Two major kinds of organizational power:
a. Position power: Includes legitimate, reward, coercive, and information
power; derived from a particular office or rank in a formal
capacity derived from being seen as likeable and knowledgeable.
D. Leadership and Coercion
i. Coerce: To influence others to do something against their will.
a. May include manipulating penalties and rewards.
ii. Coercion, bullying, and other tyrannical behaviors in concert are known as
abusive supervision.
iii. Coercive individuals are not used as models of ideal leadership.
a. They are often disinterested in the wants and needs of followers and
E. Leadership and Morality
i. A subjective definition of a great leader is influenced by your conceptualization of
leadership:
a. Some see leadership as having a moral dimension.
b. Others look at leadership independently of morality.
ii. Debate has raged as long as leadership has been studied:
a. Neutral process: Not influenced by a value system that advances the
iii. One standpoint of leadership maintains that it is a neutral process; these
individuals believe that leadership can be employed by individuals with worthy
intentions, but also by those seeking destruction.
SAGE Publishing, 2022
a. In this view, it is not controversial to describe Martin Luther King Jr. and
Adolf Hitler alike as “great leaders” because they were both extremely
effective in achieving their goals.
b. In The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli philosophized that leaders should
iv. In a contrasting view of leadership, the moral definition holds it is about
influencing others specifically to achieve a common good.
a. Using a morally-influenced perspective, Adolf Hitler cannot be
considered a “great” leader as his intent thwarted the common good.
F. Leadership and Management
i. Both involve several common characteristics and focuses:
a. Influence.
ii. However, management is the modern product of industrialized society.
a. Primary functions: planning, organizing, staffing, and controlling.
iii. Kotter (1990) described their primary functions as near-opposites:
a. Management functions to provide order and consistency; they seek
stability.
iv. Bennis & Nanus (2007) also contrasted the two:
a. Management accomplishes activities and masters routines.
v. Rost (1991) distinguished between the two concepts in directionality,
methodology, and mission.
a. Leadership is a multidirectional influence relationship concerned with
vi. Simonet & Tett (2012) found competencies shared and distinct between the two:
a. Leadership is distinguished by intrinsic motivation, creativity, strategic
vii. Zaleznik (1977) maintained that they are entirely different types of people:
a. Managers are reactive and prefer to work with people to solve
IV. Plan of the Book
A. Emphasizes practice and application.
B. Format is consistent:
i. Description of the leadership approach.
a. Includes applicable research.
ii. Evaluation.
a. Strengths.
iii. Case studies.
a. Shows an application of the approach.
iv. Leadership questionnaire.
a. Following discussion of how the questionnaire measures leadership
style.