Leadership Studies Resource Guide

From Business: The Ultimate Resource
Since the 1950s, brainstorming has been put forward as a significant antidote to all forms of organizational rigidity and defensiveness—and an important catalyst for liberating organizational creativity.

For Max Weber charisma is first a matter of authority and its legitimacy. A charismatic leader is not, as he explains in Economy and Society (1921 [trans. 1968]), merely forceful and strong but one whose authority is based on supporters' “devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and on the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him.”

From Business: The Ultimate Resource
A style of leadership that uses standards, procedures, and output statistics to regulate the organization. A command and control approach to leadership is authoritative in nature and uses a top-down approach.

From The Dictionary of Alternatives
The term has its origins in the turn within radical politics away from COLLECTIVISM and towards issues of individual consciousness and emancipation.

From Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology
Groupthink is a condition in which highly cohesive groups in “hot” decision situations display excessive levels of concurrence seeking that suppress critical inquiry and result in faulty decision making.

From Collins Dictionary of Sociology
The notion that societies are so organized that those who occupy top positions and positions of authority tend more readily to have their versions of the truth accepted, while the views of those who are ‘underdogs’ or ‘outsiders’ often go unrepresented.

From Encyclopedia of Ethics
Integrity is ascribed to people, newspapers, works of art, nations, and other things, but it will be considered here simply as human virtue.

From The Penguin English Dictionary
Somebody or something that ranks first, precedes others, or holds a principal position; a person with commanding authority or influence.

From Encyclopedia of Women and Gender
THE ISSUE OF GENDER AND LEADERSHIP has been an important topic in the past 30 years as women have become a stronger presence in the work-force. Meta-analyses examining differences in men's and women's leadership style, emergence, evaluation, and effectiveness have found few gender differences. Given the lack of empirical support for gender differences in leadership, the important question is, then, why are women not better represented in leadership positions?>MORE

From Elsevier's Dictionary of Psychological Theories
The earliest investigation of leadership that is regarded as uniquely psychological is attributed to the Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) in his 16th century book “The Prince.” As defined in psychological research, the term leadership involves the notion of persuading people to ignore their individual concerns and devote themselves instead to a common goal that is important for the welfare of the group. In another definition, leadership refers to the direction, supervision, or management of a group or an organization. Originally, leadership was thought to be a fixed attribute of a person, trait, or a series of traits.

From QFinance: The Ultimate Resource
A form of employee development whereby a trusted and respected person, the mentor, uses his or her experience to offer guidance, encouragement, career advice, and support to another person, the mentee.

From The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology
The state of being calmly, intentionally and actively aware of what one is feeling, thinking and doing; hence the state of being attentive to the moment without becoming entangled in it.

In psychology, the intention of achieving a goal, leading to goal-directed behavior. Some human activity seems to be best explained by postulating an inner directing drive.

From Reader's Guide to the Social Sciences
Political leadership is, for both good and ill, a concept central for understanding political processes and decisions. Individual leaders have presided over political regimes, some of which have plummeted into indescribable evil, notably Hitler's Third Reich and Stalin's Soviet Union. In modern times, major international disputes have to be resolved by leading statesmen meeting in secret conclave, from the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 to the six-monthly meetings of the European Union's heads of government today. Election campaigns are often contested around the personalities of the party leaders. Yet the concept of political leadership has never been adequately defined. One reason is the eclectic nature of the subject, which requires its prospective definer to cover a wide range of academic disciplines. Another is the wide range of individuals and regimes that any attempt at definition must encompass.

From Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought
A neologism, denoting any person or group that has a vital interest (a ‘stake’) in the success or conduct of an enterprise. In discussing business enterprises the stakeholder is usually contrasted with the shareholder.

From Business: The Ultimate Resource
ollaboration by a group of people to achieve a common purpose. Teamwork is often a feature of day-to-day working, and is increasingly used to accomplish specific projects, in which case it may bring together people from different functions, departments, or disciplines.

From Encyclopedia of Positive Psychology
Transactional leaders offer social exchange – money for labor, or recognition in exchange for loyalty. Transformational leaders raise leadership to a higher level. Transformational leaders inspire followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes, and in the process, they help develop followers’ own leadership qualities. Transformational leaders are often seen as visionary and as agents of change.

Values refer to moral principles or other judgments of worth. The term is used by sociologists in a number of different ways. First, they are discussed at an epistemological and methodological level as in Max Weber's notion of value-relevance.