The Evolution of Leadership Theory

Abstract

Leadership is one of the most complex and multifaceted phenomena to which organisational and psychological research has been applied. An evolutionary developmental perspective is used to create an evolutionary tree of leadership theory and reveal the path along which it has evolved. Nine evolutionary eras are identified, and requirements for a tenth era of leadership theory are discussed. These eras provide a broad framework for researchers and practising managers to categorise existing, and evaluate future, theories.

What makes articles highly cited?

“…We list the most important of these schools given that we used them to estimate their impact on citations of quantitative articles. Relying on previous reviews (Bass & Bass, 2008;Gardner, Lowe, Moss, Mahoney, & Cogliser, 2010;House & Aditya, 1997;Lowe & Gardner, 2000;Van Seters & Field, 1990), Day and Antonakis (2012) classified leadership schools into the following parsimonious categories: (a) trait, focusing on stable and personal attributes (e.g., personality) of leaders (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002;Lord, De Vader, & Alliger, 1986); (b) behavioral, which studies behavioral styles of leaders, usually looking at social support (consideration) or task (initiating structure) orientation (Judge, Piccolo, & Ilies, 2004), or other behavioral aspects of leadership; (c) contextual, which models how context affects the leadership phenomenon (Liden & Antonakis, 2009;Osborn, Hunt, & Jauch, 2002;Porter & McLaughlin, 2006); (d) contingency, which seeks to model how situational demands affect the impact of behavioral styles on outcomes (Fiedler, 1967;House & Mitchell, 1974); (e) relational, which focuses on quality of relations between leaders and followers (Dansereau, Graen, & Haga, 1975;Graen & Uhl-bien, 1995); (f) information processing, which employs a cognitive perspective of leadership (Lord, Foti, & De Vader, 1984;Lord & Maher, 1991); (g) the "new" leadership, which focuses on visionary, values-centered, and charismatic aspects of leadership and related perspectives (Bass, 1985;House, 1977); (h) biological and evolutionary perspectives, which take a genetic, neuroscientific, "hard"-science, or evolutionary approach to leadership (Van Vugt, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2008;Waldman, Balthazard, & Peterson, 2011). They also defined the "skeptics" school, which treats leadership as a social construction (Eden & Leviatan, 1975;Meindl, Ehrlich, & Dukerich, 1985), though they have suggested that this school is mostly subsumed in the information processing perspective.…”

Liderança organizacional em uma incubadora de empresas de base tecnológica

“…As pesquisas iniciais sobre liderança formularam teorias dos grandes homens e dos traços (VAN SETERS;FIELD, 1990). Essas teorias buscavam diferenciar traços de líderes e de não líderes, chegando a afirmar que os líderes herdavam ou adquiriam essas características especialmente de pessoas da mais alta classe (KIRKPATRICK;LOCKE, 1991).…”

Attributes of embodied leadership: A beginning in the next chapter of leadership development

“…Prior to the World Wars, the recognised leadership traits were borrowed from stories of heroes, legends, mythological figures and 'Gods'. More mainstream leadership theories evolved with the Great Man Theory, which arguably, is the first of the mainstream leadership theories [39]. The postwar period produced space programs, continental and economic reconstructions, manufacturing booms and revolutions.…”