Dear colleagues,
I followed our discussion with great interest and appreciated your sharing wholeheartedly. This discussion about leadership definition can probably carry on for another decade and still be the first question for a debate whenever a leadership symposium/forum is held. We probably cannot get consensus in a short time, but I am optimistic that leadership research will continue to prosper as long as we keep it relevant to management practice, which I think is more important for a field's survival than definition clarity.
To benefit from the discussions we already have, I prepare a summary that represents our up-to-date thoughts about this.
1) Positive view from Colleagues who think that it is important to have clear definition that separate leadership from its effects, and that we can do a better job.
John Antonakis: I agree about the definitional problem identified by van Knippenberg and Sitkin (2013).
Jim Hazy: In my view, anyone interested in Amy's post might benefit from looking closely at the CLT view.
Carina Fiedeldey-Van Dijk,: I tend to approach the defining of a concept or construct from four angles or parts that can be described as DEFS – Distinction, Essence, Function, and Stimulation. While they can crystalize in any order and interactively during formulation, I think a definition is richer and longer-lasting with all four in place.
Roger Gill: It appears to have become a 'Humpty Dumpty' word that, in Alice's Wonderland, means whatever one chooses it to mean. I propose that a way of solving this problem is to go back to the original meaning of the word 'leadership'. Its etymology is, as Bud West rightly says, 'going before others and showing the way'.
Rob Tett; I offer the attached paper, co-written with my recently graduated doc student, Dan Simonet. We address the question of "What is Leadership" by comparing leadership to management using a 63-competency model as a common language.
Barton Friedland: the lack of a definition appears to have helped, rather than hindered their enquiry.
Romie Littrell: Over the years since its publication, I have not seen anything more succinct, sufficient, and on target than: Kotter, J.P. (1990).
Charles Cotten: I have always thought that Joe Rost's definition is the best, "Leadership is an influence relationship between leader and follower that is to create change sometime in the future." For my own benefit as a trainer in today's world, I modified it to, "Leadership is an influence relationship between committed individuals to create change sometime in the future."
A.D. Amar: While leadership definition is ambivalent, leadership practice is not. While leadership behavior is mostly clear, the processes are malleable and vary to suit many moderating factors.
Boal Kim: my concerns with what is the dependent variable is and what I was trying to explain changed over time, thus my thinking about leadership also changed.
Useful resources:
MacKenzie, S. B. (2003). The dangers of poor construct conceptualization. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 31, 323-326.
Suddaby, R. (2010). Editor's comments: Construct clarity in theories of management and organization. Academy of Management Review, 35, 346-357.
Antonakis, J., Fenley, M., & Liechti, S. (2011). Can Charisma Be Taught? Tests of Two Interventions. The Academy of Management Learning and Education, 10(3), 374-396.
Day, D. V., & Antonakis, J. (2013). The future of leadership In H. S. Leonard, R. Lewis, A. M. Freedman & J. Passmore (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Leadership, Change and Organizational Development (pp. 221–235). Oxford: John Wiley & Sons.
Antonakis, J., Day, D. V., & Schyns, B. (2012). Leadership and individual differences: At the cusp of a renaissance. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(4), 643-650.
Ployhart, R. E., Lim, B.-C., & Chan, K.-Y. (2001). Exploring relations between typical and maximum performance ratings and the five factor model of personality. Personnel Psychology, 54, 809-843.
Zaccaro, S. J., Kemp, C., & Bader, P. (2004). Leader traits and attributes. In J. Antonakis, A. T. Cianciolo & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The Nature of Leadership (pp. 101-124). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Osigweh, C. AB. (1989). Concept fallibility in organization sciences. Academy of Management Review, 14, 579–594.
Schwab, D. P. (1980). Construct validity in organizational behaviour. In B.M. Staw and L.L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behaviour, (vol. 2, pp. 3-43). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Alvesson, M. & Spicer, A., 2011. Metaphors We Lead By: Understanding Leadership in the Real World M. Alvesson & A. Spicer, eds., Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
Grint, K., 2005. Leadership: Limits and Possibilities, Hamsphire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kempster, S., Jackson, B. & Conroy, M., 2011. Leadership as purpose: Exploring the role of purpose in leadership practice. Leadership, 7(3), pp.317–334.
Kotter, J.P. (1990). What leaders really do. Harvard Business Review, May/June: 103 - 111.
Managing Knowledge Workers: Unleashing Innovation and Productivity. Westport, Connecticut: Quorum Book.
Drath, W. H., McCauley, C. D., Palus, C. J., Van Velsor, E., O'Connor, P. M. G., & McGuire, J. B. (2008). Direction, alignment, commitment: Toward a more integrative ontology of leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 19(6), 635-653.
http://chlnet.ca/tools-resources/leads-framework for an outline of the framework, or if you prefer, http://www.springer.com/medicine/book/978-1-4471-4874-6 for an explanation of its background and use).
2) Indifferent, neutral or pessimistic view from colleagues who think that it doesn't matter, we should make it simple, or leadership (research) is dead.
Alice MacGillivray: . People will have opinions and there will not be a one-size-fits-all answer, depending on the contexts and theories at play. I suggest there never will be consensus, except at a very high level along the lines of helping to effect change. This makes it especially important for researchers to be transparent about our contexts and assumptions so others can understand which aspects of the whole we are illuminating.
Magid Mazen: I think it was T. Roosevelt who once said: ""When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck."
Rajiv Kumar: My chagrin is such that on many occasions I have felt that people have mostly paid lip service to concept specification and measurement issues. The search for purer and more complete specifications akin to what one finds in natural sciences is possibly futile because one can never reach there through written route.
George Graen: The colloquial term "leadership" contains too many conflicting ideas to be useful as a theoretical construct.
Graham Dickson: From a scholarly perspective, and for many of the reasons that have been mentioned-one's epistemological foundation; the situationally dependent nature of leadership such that its perception of existence varies; and the debate on whether or not achievement of results is a characteristic that defines a leader--leadership is difficult to define through scientific methodology.
Regards,
Amy
From: Network of Leadership Scholars [mailto:LDRNET-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Graham Dickson
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 11:00 PM
To: LDRNET-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: [LDRNET] Can we define a leadership construct that is independent of its ...
Hi, all...great discussion and one worth having.
A story: at one point in my career I had the opportunity to talk to a senior executive about the leadership he desperately needed in his organization, and the said the following: "Leadership is like fog. I can see it; I can feel it-but I can't grab a hold of it". He used this perspective as an excuse to do nothing about it: because by not defining it, it could be anything-and therefore what's the point of dealing with it?
From a scholarly perspective, and for many of the reasons that have been mentioned-one's epistemological foundation; the situationally dependent nature of leadership such that its perception of existence varies; and the debate on whether or not achievement of results is a characteristic that defines a leader--leadership is difficult to define through scientific methodology. Note I said difficult, not impossible; and many of the scholars who have contributed to the discussion have made great strides in this field.
However, in the world of practice, each of us do define leadership by the choices we make to teach it, to practice it, to assess it (360's, performance management, succession planning). We define it by making choices-i.e., textbooks, topics, competencies)-that put boundaries around the term. Maybe we do so ignorant of the scholarly challenge; maybe we inform our discourse by using scholarly perspectives: but regardless, in order to deal with leadership, we need to be able to grab it, as well as see or feel it. That is why for within the health sector in Canada, we (I and many, many colleagues) have put a lot of time and effort into in fact 'defining' leadership so we can collectively develop it and use it for health reform (see http://chlnet.ca/tools-resources/leads-framework for an outline of the framework, or if you prefer, http://www.springer.com/medicine/book/978-1-4471-4874-6 for an explanation of its background and use). The framework-LEADS-gives us a common language; helps unite us (national health organizations) in common cause rather than fight over what the language and concepts are; and provides a focal point for our developmental work. And yes, we do believe results are important: the A in the framework speaks to Achieve Results.
In the above-mentioned book we preferred the notion of 'analytic philosophy' (Simpson & Jackson, 1984) to define what we meant by health leadership. Simpson & Jackson state that each word we use has a unique quality, or characteristic in it that differentiates it from other words. i.e., leadership for management; from administration, for example. They use analytic philosophy to tease out the different concepts implicit in related words and then determine where the concepts are the same, and where they are different. An interesting exercise that does help concept creep: the fact that we begin to use words interchangeably when in fact they have meaningful differences.
Anyway, another perspective. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share.
Dear Roger, Amy and All:
While leadership definition is ambivalent, leadership practice is not. Everyone in the presence of a leader feels what leaders do; however, one may not be able to describe this. From a host of leadership types already known, we find that, in a traditional sense, a descriptive model of what leaders do includes the following: Conscious engagement in leader behavior; having a clear vision for the organization; building a coalition to realize the vision; assembling means essential to achieve the vision; aggressive implementation and control of forces essential to incarnate the vision; developing significance of the outcomes achieved; and commemorating the success for all.
While leadership behavior is mostly clear, the processes are malleable and vary to suit many moderating factors.
For more detail, one may refer to a 2002 work: Managing Knowledge Workers: Unleashing Innovation and Productivity. Westport, Connecticut: Quorum Book.
Dear Amy, Dud, George and all
The fundamental problem is the lack of consensus on what leadership is. It appears to have become a 'Humpty Dumpty' word that, in Alice's Wonderland, means whatever one chooses it to mean. This renders it impossible to do proper scientific research on leadership using the concept. The extant research reflects a diverse range of research into particular aspects of leadership in a fragmented way, each particular aspect of leadership often being portrayed as a theory of leadership in its entirety. This results in a 'jigsaw' picture that is incomprehensible, misleading and incomplete and leadership and leadership development practice that may be not only based on misunderstanding but also ineffective and even counter-productive.
I propose that a way of solving this problem is to go back to the original meaning of the word 'leadership'. Its etymology is, as Bud West rightly says, 'going before others and showing the way'. This begs some questions, of course, but it may be a useful starting point. Based on my literature review that has been continuous since the late 1990s, my suggestion is that 'leadership is showing the way and helping or inducing others to pursue it' (Gill, 2011, p.9). I discuss the issue on pages 2-11 in this book: Roger Gill (2011) Theory and Practice of Leadership, Second Edition, London: SAGE Publications. We need to agree on what we mean by 'leadership' before we can carry out useful research on it and put the findings into practice that is more likely to be effective.
Comments would be welcome.
Visiting Professor of Leadership Studies
Hi Amy and All --
Great question and conversation! Over the past three years, I've come to the conclusion that regardless of the bulk of literature to the contrary, we cannot measure leadership effectiveness in terms of organizational outcomes. Additionally, it has appeared to me that trait theories of leadership have generally only included constructs that most appropriately serve as necessary antecedents or desired (cultural) outcomes of leadership -- rather than actual factors of leadership, itself. I base my position on these premises:
1. If, in its most basic form, "to lead," means to go before others and show the way; and if
2. With all other things equal, people who collectively know their destinations and the best validated, standardized ways to get there, might need accountability partners to help them manage their processes, but they don't need leaders; and if
3. Leadership should, therefore, only appropriately take place in three situations: when no validated, standardized procedures or processes exist; when choosing the validated, standardized procedures and processes to follow, and when relevant stakeholders require increases in the quality associated with the existing processes and procedures currently in use; and if
4. Effectiveness represents a measure of results against validated standards; then
It would prove impossible to measure the effectiveness of leadership in terms of anything other than whether or not the given leaders successfully directed themselves and others to their desired destinations. Please take a look at more of my position on leadership attributes at: http://grbudwest.com/2014/06/ or through my profile page on LinkedIn.
Best Regards,
Bud West
From: Network of Leadership Scholars [mailto:LDRNET-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of James Hazy
Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2014 12:39 PM
To: LDRNET-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: [LDRNET] Can we define a leadership construct that is independent of its effectiveness?
Hi Amy and everyone,
I share the concern about definitions in the study of leadership. Along those lines, I just submitted a paper with the following sentences that build on the Katz and Kahn (1966) definition of leadership:
"In the Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT) view, "leadership is not ... an individual (a person or persons, i.e., "leaders"). Rather, it is a recognizable pattern of social and relational organizing among ... individuals as they form into a system of action."[i] CLT studies have found that leadership activities arise locally to perform certain requisite system organizing functions that cannot be performed by other more routine processes. Although often performed by the nominal "leader," they can be performed by others when the need calls for it."
Normally I don't push the "complexity leadership view" on this LISTSERV because it's really just a different perspective where individual agency is considered within complex adaptive system (CAS) dynamics rather than as a single occurrence in localized dyadic (or one-to-many) interactions. In a CAS, it's not really productive to isolate one agent's unique impact during one interaction out of thousands or even millions as these unfold over time; after all, each is by definition "unique", a single manifestation of very complex dynamics. Rather the relevant object of study in CLT is the system and how it organizes as a general property (as a "portfolio" of many unique individual events). Of course, the individual can influence these dynamics (that's part of it) but individual impact is in the particulars and not the overall outcome, at least as CLT sees it.
What CLT is exploring are questions like the following: When there is stress on a population, leadership either happens or not. Why? When it happens, what are the mechanisms that enable organizing? When it doesn't, why? Which organizing dynamics are indeed effective (given some explicit value judgment about the nature of "effective action" in the context of the perceived "stress" on the population). Once these questions are better understood, it becomes useful to go deeper and explore how individual agency impacts these broader dynamics.
In my view, anyone interested in Amy's post might benefit from looking closely at the CLT view. I'd also be happy to explore these ideas further either here or offline at: hazy@adelphi.edu
-----------------------------
[i] For more information on Complexity Leadership Theory, see: Mary Uhl-Bien, Russ Marion, and Bill McKelvey, (2007); Complexity Leadership Theory: Shifting Leadership from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Era. The Leadership Quarterly, 18:4 (August 2007), pp. 298-318; and J. K. Hazy, J. Goldstein, & B. Lichtenstein, (eds.) (2007). Complex Systems Leadership Theory: New Perspectives from Complexity Science on Social and Organizational Effectiveness. Mansfield, MA: ISCE Publishers, from which the quote in these sentences was taken. For more recent work, one can look at the online prepublished version of: Operationalizing Complexity Leadership by Hazy and Uhl-Bien which is available at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1112&context=managementfacpub
On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 12:43 AM, Yi Ou <bizyo@nus.edu.sg> wrote:
Dear all,
Our research should start from clear definition, but I notice that there are many (if not more) criticisms about lacking of good construct definitions in the management field. One important criterion is that constructs should be defined independent of its effectiveness (e.g., Van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013, Academy of Management Annals on Charismatic-Transformational Leadership research), but it seems to be a valid yet difficult (if not impossible) criterion.
For example, Van Knippenberg and Sitkin (2013) criticized that the definition of charismatic-transformational leadership did not meet this criterion. We defined that charismatic leadership by defining it as leadership that can instill pride, trust,vision, etc. This same issue has also been a major criticism to leadership research in general (e.g., reviews on leadership, Day, 2012; Bass and Bass, 2009). E.g., leadership traits are traits that differentiate leaders from non-leaders, or differentiate effective leaders from non-effective leaders. Such challenges also happened in other research topics. E.g., Social entrepreneurship (SE) scholars said that it seems that defining SEs needs to balance what SEs actually do and what they actually achieve, i.e., effectiveness.
I wonder whether the criterion of separating definition from effectiveness ever make sense in leadership research. E.g., you can study any traits or behaviors, but if they don't actually predict leadership effectiveness, can they be called a leadership trait/behavior?
I appreciate if I can be given some good examples of definitions fulfilling this criterion. Thank you~~~~~~
Puzzled Amy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amy Yi Ou
Assistant Professor
Department of Management and Organisation
NUS Business School, National University of Singapore
Email: bizyo@nus.edu.sg
Phone: (65) 6601 2069
webpage: https://apps-bschool.nus.edu.sg/asp/staffprofile/cv.asp?id=2409