The subject of leadership has been studied for eons. Yet few people, scholars and practitioners alike, have come to any universally accepted definition. Here are some samples:
"While management works in the system, leadership works on the system." [1]
"...the genius of leadership lies in the manner in which leaders see and act on their own and their followers' values and motivations." [2]
"Leadership is an affair of the heart, not of the head." [3]
"Leadership is the process of persuasion or example by which an individual (or leadership team) induces a group to pursue objectives held by the leadership or shared by the leader and his or her followers." [4]
"Leadership is what gives an organization its vision and its ability to translate that vision into reality." [5]
"Leadership is an art, something to be learned over time, not simply by reading books." [6]
"Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts toward goal achievement in a given situation." [7]
"Leadership is the privilege to have the responsibility to direct the actions of others..." [8]
As these definitions demonstrate , however, there appears to be an overall trend towards emphasizing people relations as having as much importance ” perhaps more ” as production. The following review on leadership thinking and studies provides a similar revelation.
[1] Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill, First Things First , Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994, p. 245.
[2] James M. Burns, Leadership , Harper & Row, New York, 1979, p. 19.
[3] James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, The Leadership Challenge , Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1987, p. 271.
[4] John W. Gardner, On Leadership , The Free Press, New York, 1990, p. 1.
[5] Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, Leaders , Perennial Library, New York, 1985, p. 20.
[6] Max De Pree, Leadership Is an Art , Dell, New York, 1989, p. 3.
[7] Paul Hersey and Kenneth H. Blanchard, Management of Organizational Behavior , Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1982, p. 94.
[8] Wess Roberts, Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun , Warner Books, New York, 1987, p. xiv.