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The article addresses the relationship between social distance and charismatic leadership. Current theories of charismatic leadership in organizations have borrowed ideas from the literature on socially distant charismatic leaders and applied them to leadership situations that involve direct contacts between leaders and their immediate subordinates. This article argues that while social distance is not a necessary condition for charismatic leadership, there are fundamental differences between distant charismatic leadership and close charismatic leadership. The article attempts to identify these differences through a theoretical analysis of the two leadership situations and through an exploratory content analysis of interviews about close and distant charismatic leaders.

This chapter deals with the issue of distance between leaders and followers. I claim that distance from a leader is not only a reflection of time and space (i.e., objective distance) but also connected to followers’ emotions toward the leader manifested in their construal of their leaders. I report the findings of initial investigations that demonstrate how the patterns of construal of leaders as close or distant can be explained by construal level theory as well as through psychological theories of emotions. Finally, I discuss implications to theories of leadership and followership.

Environments coined as “VUCA” (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) are hotbeds for new modi operandi in organisations that involve a shift from face-to-face towards distant leadership, as well as from “classical” towards agile organisation principles.

At the same time, digital collaboration tools have found their way into daily business operations. As the above changes arguably leave deep imprints on performance indicators, our work accordingly illuminates potential impacts on employee engagement. Based on a German sample, we conduct a qualitative investigation featuring in-depth interviews.

Our findings indicate a curvilinear inverted (approximate) U-shaped relation between what we dub “leadership richness continuum” (including specific characteristics of leadership, agility, as well as the application of a digital collaboration tool) and engagement.

Although our work may inspire practicing managers, we also contribute to theory development providing a new theoretical model for employee engagement.

This chapter focused on challenges and tensions that characterize leadership in the military context. It aims to identify and analyze key paradoxes that are reflected in this unique setting, while exploring the challenges, opportunities, and advantages posed by these core paradoxes for leadership. It addresses different types of paradoxes, among them: (a) shared leadership versus hierarchical leadership, (b) flexibility and creativity versus conformity and discipline, (c) complexity and chaos versus simplicity and linearity, (d) hegemonic and prototypical leadership versus leadership of multiple identities, and last (e) distant leadership and exchange relationship versus intimate leadership and communal relationship. For each focal paradox, we uncover the dynamics, processes, management tensions, and possible subsequent outcomes. We suggest that leadership that is able to effectively attend to competing expectations and paradoxical tensions is essential in the current hybrid and complex organizational structure and unique context of the military. The chapter draws on interviews and prior research of leadership in the Israeli military, as well as other global military contexts, to gain a more nuanced understanding of the challenges of modern military leadership.

Due to the many changes that have occurred over the last two decades, especially in connection with the ‘new managerialism’, academia is a complex working environment. Multiple skills are demanded from professors, such as acting as entrepreneurs and mentors with designated leadership competences. This paper investigates the leadership role of academic group leaders in the context of higher education in Germany. It is argued that a servant leadership approach can enable professors to provide effective academic leadership in the current university context. This is due to its strong human orientation and low power distance and its focus on facilitating academic excellence, creativity and innovation. The discussion notes the importance of developing academic group leaders and describes some practical means of implementing servant leadership in higher education.

Notions of leadership change over time. The last two decades have been dominated by US models of “heroic” leadership, based largely on predominately male‐biased samples, which have been focused on studies of “distant” leaders, but these are being challenged by the findings from more recent studies which question the potential dangers of adulating the few “gifted” “charismatic” individuals, not least of which because of the disasters they may cause. In addition, there is a growing interest by organisations of identifying how they can increase “engagement” amongst their employees, since this process appears to contribute significantly to organisational success. This study seeks to replicate an earlier study of “nearby” leadership in UK public sector organisations.

The study gathers qualitative data from a sample of female and male managers at various levels in three UK FTSE100 companies, developing a pilot questionnaire, and then gathering quantitative data from 743 managers in a range of UK and Hong Kong private sector organisations, and testing the validity of the instrument in predicting job satisfaction, motivation, commitment, and other psychological variables found to affect performance.

The model of “nearby” leadership to emerge in the private sector was highly similar to the public sector model, but very different from the “heroic” notions of leadership. Twelve dimensions of leadership emerged, all of which were found to predict the criterion variables outcome measures. This has led to the creation of a private sector version of the “(Engaging) Transformational Leadership Questionnaire”™, and provides empirical evidence of it validity among male and female managers in two countries.

There is a need to extend research on the ETLQ in a wider sample of organisations and industries, and to undertake longitudinal studies to examine the predictive validity of the instrument on external outcome variables.

The findings have immediate practical application to leadership development, selection, promotion, appraisal, performance management, and culture change activities.

This investigation has adopted an inclusive approach to investigating the nature of day‐to‐day leadership behaviours that have a significant effect on the levels of stress, job satisfaction, motivation, commitment, engagement, and other psychological outcomes that have been found to significantly affect organisational performance in private sector organisations. It has also tested the validity of a new 360‐feedback instrument on a sample of over 700 direct reports of managers who exert a powerful influence on the motivation, job satisfaction, and commitment of staff at various levels of leadership, based on male and female managers, and individuals from different ethnic backgrounds, in a range of private sector organisations, which focuses on a new model of “nearby” leadership

This paper aims to describe the development of a wholly new model of transformational leadership and its applications in practice.

The paper provides a description of a wholly new, inclusive model of transformational leadership and the way in which it can be applied in practice, in the context of embedding good leadership within the culture of an organisation and ensuring “best practice” in 360‐degree feedback.

The paper finds that the Transformational Leadership Questionnaire (TLQ)™, which is both gender‐ and ethnicity‐inclusive measure of “nearby” leadership, differs fundamentally from the kind of “heroic” models that have emanated from the USA and which have dominated the literature. Comparative data are presented of the mean scores on the TLQ, based on direct reports' ratings of their line manager, across a wide range of public sector organisations, including local government, the NHS, schools, and two central government agencies. Patterns emerge in areas of strength and developmental need, and the implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the impact of leadership behaviour and its effect on the psychological safety and well‐being at work of staff.

The following needs are identified: ‐ to adopt a model of leadership that is relevant to the needs of organisations in the twenty‐first century; to embed good leadership practices at all levels; to ensure that, when 360‐degree feedback is given, it is done so in a way that conforms to the principles of ‘best practice’.

The following model of “nearby” leadership that is described is relevant to leaders at all levels in public and private sector organisations. It points to the consequences of poor leadership behaviour, and the need for the adoption of a model of leadership that is relevant to the needs of the twenty‐first century.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between perceived power and transformational leadership in the public sector.

The authors investigate this topic empirically in the context of German police forces using a between-groups design, manipulating power and statistically analyzing the results on the multifactor leadership questionnaire.

Police officers with a high perception of power achieve significantly lower scores on transformational leadership compared to their low power counterparts.

The study contributes to advancing public leadership theory by showing that transformational leadership, which is considered as particularly useful in public organizations, is likely to be adversely affected by leaders’ power. Furthermore, it also extends on the literature on power by providing first empirical evidence that power has a significant impact not only on factors such as the pursuit of a goal, social behavior, or affect, but also on leadership.

The results suggest either to control power accumulation in leadership positions of public organizations, for instance by implementing flat hierarchies, or to come to terms with more authoritative leadership styles in top management.

To the best of knowledge, the authors provide the first study that investigates the impact of power on transformational leadership in the public sector using an experimental design and quantitative empirical data.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the Chinese leader–follower interaction model in school cases considering followers’ effect at varying social distances.

This study uses a case study approach.

First, Chinese leader–follower interactions in school cases are flexible in practice. Second, within leader–follower flexible interactions, contradictory perceptions and field-of-work consciousness foster different behavior choices between leaders and followers. Third, perceptions concerning the proximity of leaders to followers are positively influenced in relation to hierarchical distinctions and negatively influenced owing to private connections. Finally, the perceived leader distance of leaders from followers further influences the contradictory perceptions and field-of-work consciousness of leaders and followers and positively influences the degree of flexible leader–follower interaction.

This study examined a single institution; hence, results may have been influenced by school-specific features and conditions. Future research should study more organizations to explore whether their unique characteristics and contexts could affect leader–follower interactions, thus providing more generalized and universally applicable conclusions.

First, this study proposed a leader–follower flexible interaction model in school cases and the concepts of field-of-work consciousness and contradictory perceptions, exploring the active effects of followers in the leadership process to offer guidance toward better understanding the leadership process. Second, it was found that private connections between leaders and followers, as well as hierarchical differences, influenced the perceptions of both leaders and followers concerning leader distance in a Chinese context, and the influence of leader distance on leader–follower interactions was also analyzed.

Professor Beverly Alimo‐Metcalfe speaks to Spotlight editor Sarah Powell about the transformational imperatives of leadership.