A quick look at the literature on leadership theories shows how this field has been under constant change--from trait theories of leadership, where leaders were defined based on their exhibited traits, to contingency and situational leadership theories, where leaders' success was attributed to the interplay of their personal qualities with the organizational context, and finally to servant-leadership or post-heroic leadership theories being proposed now in which a leader is seen as one who carries forward the people to help them achieve what they want to achieve.

Though the basic role of leaders is unlikely to change, globalization and liberalization will certainly lead to future mental-models of leadership to encompass the goals of a growingly diverse population. In addition, women and minorities are--and will continue--taking on leadership roles.

For this next generation of leaders, it is important to understand what we mean by leadership today. First, though, let's identify what leadership is not.

  • Leadership is not derived from formal authority or a positional power as is so often misunderstood in organizational context--hence, the CEO of an organization is definitely a manager but not always a leader.
  • Leadership is not about influencing people to follow the routine directives of the organization.

Leadership attributes

Leadership is, in fact, the ability of a person (or a group of people) to empower other people to transcend their short-term goals to achieve their higher order intrinsic goals. This concept is explored in leadership literature as the theory of transformational leadership. According to this thoery, a leader

  • should have a strong vision that she practices in her life every day (idealized influence)
  • understands the intrinsic higher-order needs of his followers, and is able to motivate them to achieve those (inspirational motivation)
  • is able to stimulate and encourage creativity in her followers by challenging their assumptions and by taking risks on behalf of the followers (intellectual stimulation)
  • is able to attend to the needs of the followers and act as a mentor and coach to them (individualized considerations).

In order to exhibit the above dimensions, a leader would need the following five qualities:

A compelling vision. This could be a vision for taking the organization or society from its current state to an undefined future state. The important thing to note here is that not only must the leader be fully committed to this vision (living and breathing it at all times) but this should be a "desired" future state of the followers, as well.

Empathy. Deriving further from the above point, a leader would be able to translate her vision into a shared vision for all her followers only when she can empathize with their needs and desires.

Bias for action. Once a leader has identified the vision and lined up the followers for that vision, she now needs to move toward achieving it with a well-organized and thought-through set of actions and tactics using the strengths of the followers.

Coaching. As the team of leaders and followers executes their tactics to achieve the vision, the leader needs to constantly keep in touch with them to coach, mentor, and guide them toward their common goals. This could also be viewed as "action learning," where the followers are enabled to achieve their goals as a result of the learning and feedback they get from the leader.

Collaboration. The leader should be able to foster collaboration among followers such that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The group is then able to accomplish the vision as a team of well-orchestrated individuals working with their shared passion toward a common goal. A successful leader should be able to demonstrate her collaborative skills in her dealings thus acting as a powerful role-model for all her followers--this is the most critical skill, and without it there is a danger of factionalism and loss of collective knowledge and skills of individuals.

The gender of leadership attributes

Certainly the above five qualities are displayed by all leaders, regardless of gender, though much research has been done to answer this question: Who displays leadership qualities more often: men or women?

It is a difficult question to answer, in part for these three reasons.

Role-modeling. As men and women are brought up in a gender-stereotyped society, they model their primary skills according to the expectations of the society. In other words, a man who has good collaborative skills will display those skills primarily as "networking" skills--seeking out people and building relationships based on a business-driven need--whereas a woman with the same good collaborative skills will display those as reaching out and building a rapport with people based on family, life, and interests and not purely for business needs or reasons.

Categorization. A common human process of cognition defined by psychologists is "categorization," which allows the human brain to process all external stimuli easily by cutting up the environment into classifications so objects can be grouped and labelled. It is possible, then, for followers to focus more on one quality of the leader even though the leader might be exhibiting all of those qualities in equal measure. For instance, followers might view collaboration or action-orientation as the most compelling quality of their leader compared to other qualities that he displays. People are also often inclined to assign what are seen as "male" qualities to male leaders and "female" qualities to female leaders.

Lack of data. As the number of women leaders so far is very limited, we cannot make decisive conclusion based on this small data set.

At the same time, one important consideration from leadership research is that a leader is made by the identification of the followers to the leader's qualities, and hence, in many respects, a leader's qualities do not exist in vacuum. So as groups of followers change in definition, so do their leaders.

This is a positive finding and will have an impact on the leadership theories and women's growth trajectories in societies--particularly as followers change from a group defined largely as white and male to a more multi-racial, multi-cultural, and gender-diverse group.

References and further reading

Bass, Bernard. Bass and Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, & Managerial Applications (1981).

Bass. "From Transitional to Transformational Leadership: Learning to Share the Vision," Organizational Dynamics (Winter 1990), pp. 140, 148.

Bennis, W.. On Becoming a Leader, Addison Wesley, New York, (1989)

Burns, J. M. Leadership, New York, NY: Harper Torchbooks (1978).

Fletcher, J. K. Greatly exaggerated demise of heroic leadership, CGO Insights No. 13 Boston: Center for Gender in Organizations (August 2002).

Hersey and Blanchard. Management of Organizational Behavior, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall (1993).

Huey J. "The new post-heroic leadership," Fortune Magazine (Feb 21, 1994).

Rhode, Deborah L. The Difference Difference Makes, Women and Leadership, Stanford University Press, 2003

Rosch, E.H., Mervis, C.B., Gray, W.D. Johnson, D.M. and Boyes-Braem, P. (1976) Basic objects in natural categories, Cognitive Psychology 8: 382-439.

Rosener, Judy B. "Ways women Lead," Harvard Business Review on Women in Business, HBSP (2005)

Zaleznik, A. "Managers and Leaders: Is there a difference?" Harvard Business Review, (May-June 1977)

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