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Theories of outstanding, historically notable, leadership have traditionally emphasized charisma. Recent research, however, suggests that charisma may represent only one pathway to outstanding leadership. Outstanding leadership may also emerge from ideological and pragmatic leadership. In this article, we examine the conditions influencing the emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders. It is argued that different conditions operating at the environmental, organizational, group, and individual levels influence the emergence and performance of each of these three types of leaders. Implications for understanding the origins and impact of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders are discussed.

Multi-Level Issues in Organizational Behavior and Leadership is Volume 8 of Research in Multi-Level Issues, an annual series that provides an outlet for the discussion of multi-level problems and solutions across a variety of fields of study. Using a scientific debate format of a key scholarly essay followed by commentaries and a rebuttal, we present, in this series, theoretical work, significant empirical studies, methodological developments, analytical techniques, and philosophical treatments to advance the field of multi-level studies, regardless of disciplinary perspective.

Dramatic economic, political, and societal changes at local, national, and global levels, along with commitments to achieve Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (UNESCO, 2000), are prompting national education leaders around the world to restructure and reenvision their education systems (OECD, 2008; Olson, 2008). Decentralization is one of the key structural changes governments are using to promote greater efficiency and to increase local participation in education related to decision making, finances, and accountability in schools. As the Ministry of Education (MOE) of the Sultanate of Oman makes the shift to a decentralized structure, it recognizes that its school administrators require new leadership skills in order to make the necessary changes. Implementing decentralization requires a shift in principals' work and thus their professional identity. “By building the leadership capacity of principals as leaders at the school level, (Oman's) MOE officials hope to strengthen the principals' ability to implement school reforms for the 21st century” (Seward International, Inc., 2008, p. 6).

Mumford, Hunter, Friedrich, and Caughron (2009) consider and evaluate conditions that may influence how charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders emerge and perform. In particular, they look at differing conditions that operate at the individual, group, organizational, and environmental levels, and suggest how conditions at these multiple levels of observation may drive how each of the three types of outstanding leaders emerges and performs in society. This commentary considers how scholars might use their work to make predictions about outstanding leadership, and which conditions might be ideal for the emergence of each of the three types of outstanding leadership.

Articulation of a vision is commonly held to be a critical component of theories of outstanding leadership – both transformational and charismatic leadership. Although there is reason to suspect that vision contributes to leader performance, less is known about the nature and origin of viable visions. In the present chapter, we argue that leaders’ visions can be viewed as a prescriptive mental model reflecting beliefs about the optimal functioning of an organization. To test this proposition, outstanding leaders possessing two contrasting types of prescriptive mental models were identified: ideologues whose models stress the maintenance of extant standards and charismatics whose models stress adaptive change. These two types of prescriptive mental models were associated with distinct patterns of leader behavior in a sample of notable historic leaders. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to current theories of outstanding leadership.

Mumford, Friedrich, Hunter, and Caughron (2009) propose a multilevel theory of leadership intended to allow for the emergence and performance of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders. In their commentaries, Hunt and Davis (2009) and Simonton (2009) provide additional support for this model. Their observations also broach questions about how charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leadership styles should be measured, and how hypotheses should be developed with regard to multilevel influence on leader emergence and performance. This commentary discusses the implications of these observations for future research on styles of outstanding leadership.

In this chapter the authors discuss that despite public sector reform being a primary concern of successive national leaders of the Philippines, ‘massive – and sometimes impressive – reorganization plans have not met their declared objectives’. They note that intractable and stubborn problems of Weberian bureaucracy, such as excessive rules and regulations, overlapping structures and procedures, inefficient procedures, lack of coordination, excessive partisan politics and corruption, remain. They examine how leadership can play a pivotal and key role in addressing these problems. Specifically, they argue that reforms should be multi-dimensional, going beyond reorganization and shifting organizational boxes and encompassing changes in behaviour, perspectives and attitudes. Using a concept of ‘phronetic leadership’, they examine three cases of national, local and civil society leaders, as well as a survey of university leaders. They conclude that leaders can make a difference by developing capacities of themselves and of others, and pushing the boundaries of continuous improvement. However, to be sustainable, public sector reforms have to be complemented by reforms of institutions, structures and procedures and anchored in behaviour, values and a common vision that is communicated well and owned by all.

Through collective management at Cisco Systems in the United States, practitioners at all levels of management, rather than just a select few, overcame various contradictions through “strategic collaborations” across divisions within the company to respond to the challenge of new business innovation. Moreover, through skillful management of leadership at the formal organization layer, the informal organization layer, and the psychological boundary layer (the boundary layer between the two aforementioned layers), all practitioners of the company demonstrated holistic leadership, which enabled creative dialogue, cooperation, and understanding as well as rapid decision-making and action. Strategic collaboration based on holistic leadership enables outstanding ideas to be readily incorporated into the organization and to be examined and acted on by a single team. This chapter discusses processes whereby collective management based on Cisco System’s holistic leadership changed staff behavior and the corporate culture to achieve business innovation.