The Nature of Leadership

Citation

Upton, M. (2012), "The Nature of Leadership", European Journal of Training and Development, Vol. 36 No. 5, pp. 562-564. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090591211232101

Book synopsis

In the first chapter of the 2nd edition of The Nature of Leadership, the editors provide an overview of the definitions, study and history of leadership. They do so by summarising the “major paradigms and current issues relating to leadership” (p. 14), thus opening this book with a call to leadership researchers and practitioners alike to expand the impact of leadership beyond a single‐level focus on either the “leader” or “follower”. The book is then divided into four additional parts (Parts II, III, IV and V).

Part II (Leadership: Science, Nature and Nurture) includes four chapters and offers insights and tools for conducting research that moves the study of leadership toward theoretical integration, across multiple levels. Specifically, Lord and Dinh (Chapter 2) propose “that theoretical integration in the leadership field requires a better system for addressing levels of analyses issues” (p. 14). A primary challenge for researchers and practitioners who want to move toward theoretical integration is knowing what research methods are best suited for said studies. The authors of Chapter 3 (Zyphur et al.) offer five advanced quantitative techniques to advance leadership research including latent polynomial regression, multilevel member weighted modeling (MWM), intercept‐as‐mean latent growth modeling (IGM), multilevel structural equation modeling, and latent class cluster analysis. In Chapter 4, Day tackles questions about “the nature of leadership development […] specifically the question of whether leaders are born or made” (p. 15) and conducts some analysis on the available evidence. Van Vugt then “proposes Evolutionary Leadership Theory (ELT) as a new approach to the study of leadership, connecting the diverse lines of research in the social, biological, economic, and cognitive sciences” (p. 15), in the concluding chapter of Part II.

Part III (The Major Schools of Leadership) includes chapters on individual differences in leadership, types of leadership, and views of leadership from followers. Judge and Long (Chapter 6) address individual differences in leadership and the authors urge students and scholars to remember that “individual differences matter […] (as) a useful starting point for theory building” (pp. 15‐16); “leaders demonstrate different states and styles based on their dispositions”, and “ leaders do not operate in a vacuum” (p. 16). Addressing types of leadership, Ayman and Adams (Chapter 7) suggest that leader characteristics and outcomes can depend on the influencing processes with Antonakis (Chapter 8) examining transformational and charismatic forms of “Neo‐charismatic” theories of leadership. Uhl‐Bien, Maslyn and Ospina (Chapter 9) examine relational leadership through a multiple‐theory and multi‐paradigmatic lens and Brown (Chapter 10), “considers key assumptions about followers and the role that followers have played in much of the previous leadership literature” (p. 17). Finally, Wassenaar and Pearce (Chapter 11) offer their view of shared leadership, focusing on the objective of leading to group and organisational goal achievement.

Den Hartog and Dickson (Chapter 12) begin Part IV (Leadership and Special Domains) with a review of the research on the relationship between leadership and national culture. Carli and Eagly (Chapter 13) provide research on the constraints placed by gender‐based expectations of leaders on the type of leadership enacted. The “notion that identify shapes perceptions, attitudes, and behavior” (p. 18) is then used as the foundation for Chapter 14 (van Knippenberg), as an overview of the identity approach to leadership. Written from the perspective of a philosopher, Ciulla (Chapter 15) concludes Part IV with her article focusing her research on ethics and leader effectiveness.

Part V is the concluding section and includes Bennis' insights on leadership for the purpose of “provid(ing) practical examples, subtly integrating and applying many of the book's themes, and bring(ing) to light the nature of authentic leadership” (p. 19).

Evaluation

I found the 2nd Edition of The Nature of Leadership to be a thorough examination of leadership with an additional focus on prompting researchers and practitioners to move toward theory integration as a means of further advancing the study in this field. While I have studied “around” the topic of leadership, the opening chapter by Day and Antonakis provided the necessary mental foundation on which to build and enhance my understanding of leadership and, specifically, leadership theory integration for the remainder of the book.

From an understanding perspective, the editors wisely placed the chapter addressing the levels of analysis of interest to most researchers and practitioners studying leadership right after their call for theory integration. Doing so reminds the reader that this book is not simply regurgitation or rehashing of previous leadership research. Forging ahead with multilevel theory integration presents a unique problem in that existing research methods and models are not always compatible with multilevel theory research. Thankfully, the editors recognised this and provided a chapter on advances in research methods for the purpose of conducting multilevel research.

When I started reading Parts III and IV, my initial concern was that the authors of the included chapters had drifted away from the editors stated purpose to advance leadership research and practice. I quickly found that my concerns were unfounded. Rather, the chapter authors each delve further into aspects and domains of leadership ripe for theory integration with Chapter 9 providing an explicit examination of relational leadership through a multi‐paradigmatic and multiple‐theory lens and Chapter 11 providing a unique perspective of shared leadership across and between levels of analysis.

Having completed my own research examining various approaches to multilevel theory building, I would recommend this book for two primary audiences. First, for anyone interested in the advancement of leadership research and practice beyond an isolated examination of “leaders” and “followers”, this book provides a framework for doing just that. Second, for anyone interested in theory integration in general and, specifically, theory that integrates multiple levels of analysis, this is a helpful text. Theory building and theory integration involving levels of analysis is no simple task to accomplish, but The Nature of Leadership provides an excellent road map for those interested in both.

In the authors' own words

“Given how much is currently known about the nature of leadership, we believe that researchers are in a position to integrate overlapping and complementary conceptualisations of leadership […] It is only through efforts to consolidate findings that leadership research will go to the next level where we may finally be able to construct and test more general theories of leadership. Previous research has laid the foundations for such theories. Now leadership researchers need to begin to conceptualise ways in which many of the diverse findings can be united and otherwise synthesised and integrated, examples of which are evident throughout the chapters of this book” (pp. 13‐14).

About the reviewer

Matthew Upton, PhD, Visiting Assistant Professor, Human Resource Development, Director of Student & Career Services, Bush School of Government, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA. Matthew Upton earned his doctorate in Human Resource Development in the College of Education & Human Development at Texas A&M University in College Station. He has worked in human resources and career services for over 13 years and has also taught graduate courses in career development, strategic planning, change theory/organisation change and research in the Human Resource Development program at Texas A&M for six years. His primary research interests are multilevel theory building, career development and organisational change. Matthew Upton can be contacted at: mupton@tamu.edu