{"id":399,"date":"2023-10-17T17:53:06","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T17:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/?p=399"},"modified":"2023-10-17T17:53:37","modified_gmt":"2023-10-17T17:53:37","slug":"what-is-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/17\/what-is-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Leadership?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brad Bell<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leadership is an important concept in psychology.  What is leadership?   One important question concerns how to define leadership.  There are many possible leadership definitions.  In this article, I wish to provide a leadership definition that is different from many other possible definitions of leadership.   This may help in thinking in creative ways about leadership.

<\/strong>A <\/strong>D<\/strong>efinition of <\/strong>L<\/strong>eadership<\/strong>:

Leadership is the collaborative process of developing and<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong>implementing ideas to achieve positive change in an organizatio<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong>n.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are some important elements of the above definition.  First, leadership is perceived to involve a thoughtful process of developing good ideas. <\/em> Leadership development is about learning to develop good ideas.  Leadership is not simply the process of communicating and implementing a vision or plan.  It would not matter whether there is someone in an organization who can effectively implement a vision or plan if the ideas that are part of the vision or plan are not likely to produce positive change in the organization.  Ideas may sound convincing, but they may be too simplistic, based on faulty assumptions, or fail to take into account all relevant variables.  The foundation of good leadership is good ideas<\/em>.  The process of selecting ideas must involve extensive critical evaluation.  The ideas should reflect a full-scale model of organizational change.  This model should be comprehensive, based on research findings, and involve a complete analysis of the causal relationships among the variables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second,\u00a0leadership is perceived to be a collaborative process<\/em>. \u00a0Leadership may often be viewed as reflecting the influence of one\u00a0particular person. \u00a0In contrast, the above definition suggests that\u00a0positive outcomes may be a product of the collaborative efforts of a\u00a0number of individuals (team leadership). \u00a0\u00a0No one person may be able\u00a0to develop all of the possible ideas about organizational change. \u00a0Sometimes the best ideas are an integration of ideas from a number of\u00a0individuals. \u00a0Organizations should strive to consider ideas from\u00a0everyone in the organization. \u00a0All ideas should be evaluated using the\u00a0same objective standards (e.g., consistency with scientific evidence). \u00a0Evaluating all ideas using the same objective standards can be viewed\u00a0as an element of authentic leadership.

Third,\u00a0leadership is perceived to involve achieving positive<\/em>\u00a0c<\/em>hange<\/em>. \u00a0Leadership is not merely providing direction to maintain\u00a0current standards or procedures. \u00a0Leadership is about striving for positive change that may involve creating new standards and\u00a0procedures. \u00a0It may involve evaluating the culture of the organization\u00a0to find ways to improve the culture. \u00a0It may also involve revising the\u00a0vision and mission statements. \u00a0\u00a0This element of the leadership definition provides insight concerning the leadership vs. Management\u00a0distinction. \u00a0Leadership, but not management, may involve\u00a0organizational change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brad Bell Leadership is an important concept in psychology.  What is leadership?   One important question concerns how to define leadership.  There are many possible leadership definitions.  In this article, I wish to provide a leadership definition that is different from many other possible definitions of leadership.   This may help in thinking in creative ways about leadership.A Definition of Leadership: Leadership … Continue reading “What Is Leadership?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concepts","category-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions\/401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}