Leadership Theory and Administrative Behavior: The Problem of Authority

Emerging Leadership Vistas (International Leadership Symposia Series. Volume 8. Held in Lubbock, Texas July 23-27, 1985

“…The present argument returns to the organizational level concepts of leadership pioneered by Kahn (1966, 1978) and Mann (1965Mann ( , 1968, while integrating within this system-level framework some new concepts about leaders' personality structures (Jaques 1985) and behaviors (Bennis 1984). This leads to an effort to include within such an argument what is known about "lower level" leadership traits (e.g., McClelland 1975) and behavior (e.g., Stogdill 1974).…”

“…As Bennis (1982) concluded following his study of ninety directors and chief executive officers, successful transformational leaders are able to create a compelling vision and have the self-determination to see it through no matter how difficult things become. However, they must be adaptable and willing to change as demands change within their environments.…”

“…Through intensive clinical interviews with ninety reputedly charismatic leaders, Bennis (1984, Bennis andNanus 1985) identified a set of specific behavior strategies used by these individuals. Sashkin (1 9 85a) turned these into specific behaviors and developed an instrument to measure them, the Leader Behavior Questionnaire (LBQ).…”

“…It seems clear from this exploratory work that leaders who engage in those behaviors to a greater extent are seen as more charismatic than leaders who engage in them to a lesser degree. The five specific executive leadership behaviors that Sashkin (1985a) derived from Bennis's (1984) studies are the following:…”

Project: Leadership Training

“…As Bennis (1959) notes, the concern of the revisionists has been revision of "...the naive, unsubstantiated, and unrealistic aspects of the human relations approach without sacrificing its radical departure from traditional theory." (p. 273) One basic thesis here is that of a fundamental conflict between individual and organizational goals at lowest organizational levels, a conflict that either does not exist or exists at a much reduced intensity at higher organizational levels.…”