The theory of evolution argues that survival depends on adaptation to the environment. Biological, psychological and behavioural characteristics in living things evolve or emerge in an ongoing battle to survive in a changing environment. Through the prism of evolution, leadership emerged because of the social needs of groups—that is, leadership is necessary for groups to […]
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Women leaders must manage conflicting stereotypical role expectations. Their gender role expectations are centred on what psychologists call communal attributes, such as kindness, empathy and nurturing. At the same time, their leadership role expectations involve agency attributes, such as being aggressive and self-confident. These simultaneous, contradictory expectations often trap women leaders in no-win situations. On […]
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What makes a good leader? The answer is often given in the context of the leader’s impact on followers — a natural response since the effectiveness of a leader is defined not by what he or she does, but by what he or she is capable of getting others to do. For this reason, theories […]
Read More… from Understanding Follower Attitudes Helps Decipher Leadership Success
Diverse backgrounds on top management teams (TMT) can lead to the creation of knowledge-based faultlines. These faultlines are the result of top managers clustering into TMT subgroups based on shared knowledge and expertise. Researchers debate whether these subgroups are positive or negative: some believe the subgroups allow better information processing, while others believe that they […]
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In recent years, humility has become increasingly accepted as a central feature of great leadership. Bestselling business books such as Good to Great, which considered humility as one of the two core attributes of great ‘level-five’ leaders, speeches and memoirs by business and non-business leaders, and numerous academic papers all highlight the importance of humility […]
Read More… from How Leadership Humility Is Defined in the East and in the West
A number of academic studies have shown that because many of us form impressions about potential leaders from their facial characteristics, certain facial characteristics (for example, a ‘competent’ look) can help people achieve leadership positions. At least six different studies show that CEOs who share certain facial characteristics command higher salaries or are hired by […]
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High levels of ethical leadership can have unintended consequences, demotivating employees and making pro-social and co-operative behaviours less likely, according to recent research in Europe and the US. The research, based on three field studies and an experiment, finds a negative, linear relationship between ethical leadership and employee deviance: the more ethical the leader, the […]
Integrity — defined as the ability to act with honesty and strong moral principles — is often considered a crucial character strength for top executives. But what about middle-level executives? These managers are in line for top-level leadership positions in future, and play a vital role in any organization, from leading many different people and […]
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‘Charismatic leadership’ has received much attention from researchers over the past few decades, lending support to theories that it is capable of fostering higher levels of employee and team performance in organizations. The term was first used in the 1940s by German sociologist Max Weber, who envisioned ‘charismatic leaders’ as leaders able to inspire passionate […]
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Through their research, the authors set out to examine the effects that leaders at different levels in an organization have on each other. To do so, they investigated the relation between leadership alignment and strategy implementation in a large health care organization of more than 3,000 physicians, who work in 19 large medical centres or […]
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