Leadership Models, Methods, and Applications

Abstract

Over the last decade, the leadership field has grown in a number of new directions. The models of leadership being developed and intensively studied today focus more on what constitutes charismatic or transformational leadership, as opposed to the transactional models of leadership. More of the literature is being generated from overseas as the discipline of leadership globalizes. Methodologies used to study leadership are expanding and include quantitative and qualitative strategies. Leadership is now being modeled and investigated across levels of analysis, including individual, dyadic, collective or shared, and strategic. And more attention is being directed towards examining leadership in the ‘new’ organizational forms. We've attempted to capture the pace of change in the leadership field and to highlight areas where future research discoveries are needed. Our goal was not to simply review the literature on leadership published since last handbook. Instead, we began by outlining areas that clearly require further exploration like the emerging area of virtual team leadership. We've also highlighted the need to study the complex process of leadership development, given the vast amount of attention and resources being dedicated to this area, as well as the opportunity to have ubiquitous leadership development with support from advanced information technology. We've attempted to cover where leaders come from, who they are, what they do, who follows them, and how the context affects what they are able to accomplish. We've included followers in our discussion of leadership, since without followers the field of leadership would be a glass half full.

Authentic Leadership: Development and Validation of a Theory-Based Measure†

“…Of the field studies, one was conducted in the West (United States) and the others in developing economies (China and Kenya) using a sample of state-owned and multinational firms, respectively. The use of such diverse samples enhances the potential generalizability of the findings while bringing into focus the context in which leadership is embedded (Avolio, Sosik, Jung, & Berson, 2003).…”

CEO innovation orientation and R&D intensity in small and medium-sized firms: the moderating role of firm growth

“…Although we think this characteristic was a natural choice for our research question, Resick et al (2009Resick et al ( , p. 1365) state that ''many important traits have yet to be examined, and the psychological mechanisms linking CEO personality to strategic influence and performance remain underexplored (Avolio et al 2003;Boal and Hooijberg 2001)''. We encourage future research to expand on the search for moderators by including additional personality traits (e.g., conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, extraversion, openness) (Barrick and Mount 1991).…”

The intersection of leadership and entrepreneurship: Mutual lessons to be learned

“…They have each faced a myriad of definitional/conceptual problems (see Avolio et al, 2003;Shane & Venkataraman, 2000 for reviews of leadership and entrepreneurship, respectively). Further, they have been beset with methodological challenges such as scale development inadequacies, inappropriate application of analysis tools, and levels-of-analysis confusion (Antonakis et al, 2004b;Low & MacMillan, 1988;Vecchio, 2003;Wortman, 1987).…”

“…The leadership field has faced conflicts over definitional issues (e.g., Avolio, Sosik, & Jung, 2003;Bennis, 1959;Yukl, 2002), theoretical adequacy (e.g., Schriesheim, Castro, & Cogliser, 1999;Wheatley, 1999), measurement problems (e.g., Antonakis, Avolio, & Sivasubramaniam, 2003;Schriesheim & Kerr, 1977), levels-of-analysis confusion (e.g., House, Rousseau, & Thomas-Hunt, 1995), model specification (e.g., Jarvis, MacKenzie, & Podsakoff, 2003;Villa, Howell, Dorfman, & Daniel, 2003), legitimacy (e.g., Lieberson & O'Connor, 1972;Salancik & Pfeffer, 1977), infighting (e.g., Koontz, 1961), and bacademic amnesiaQ (e.g., Sayles & Stewart, 1995).…”