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Do men and women have a different or a similar approach to the leadership role? Various leadership styles and behaviour of managers have been researched in several countries to identify similarities and differences between men and women leaders. The present study examines the leadership style and behaviour of UK managers, using a questionnaire method in gathering data. The study found that women managers delegate less than their men counterparts, but there are no statistical differences between their directive, consultative and participative leadership styles. The study also found that, in leadership behaviour, men and women leaders differ significantly only in inspirational motivation but not in the other six aspects of leadership behaviour. The article explores the implications of these results.

Until recently, little research has been directed at the measurement of the impact of governmental support on the firm. The major focus of this article is on the methodological and measurement issues that appear to have a confounding effect and may account for broad equivocality of the findings in many of the studies. An evaluation paradigm is developed and applied to the research reviewed. The article concludes with a synthesis of the issues and provides specific directions for future research.

Recent criticism of the UK's public sector has rekindled the debate about public service leadership in comparison with the private sector, particularly in the context of the financial austerity we face for years ahead. This article first reviews recent research on leadership and compares the public and private sectors, finding both commonalities and differences. The article then considers the kind of leadership required of public service leaders in the present economic climate and to handle crises and emergencies. The place of individual leadership and collective leadership and consensus is discussed, with a suggestion that charismatic individual leadership may play a more important role in the public sector than it typically has done in less turbulent times in the past. The public sector is becoming more like the private sector in this respect. The article ends with key implications of the analysis for leadership in practice.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of interaction in the process of leadership. Interaction has been claimed to be a leadership competence in earlier research into leadership in the Royal Navy. The aim of this research is to define how interaction works within naval teams.

The research uses Grounded Theory. Following a series of leadership discussions in separate focus groups, discussion topics were coded and subjected to recursive qualitative analysis. The grounded approach is used to synthesise and develop existing leadership theory strands as well as to extend the trait-process approach to leadership.

The research discovers the key interaction behaviours of engagement, disengagement and levelling. Our findings support recent developments in follower-centric perceptions of leadership and in interaction specifically. The authors develop engagement theory by combining it with the less well researched area of leadership resistance. The authors then re-frame resistance as social levelling, a more comprehensive interaction mechanism.

The research is highly contextual because of its qualitative approach. Some of the detailed reactions to leadership behaviours may not found in other naval or military teams and are unlikely to be generalisable to non-military environments. However, the mechanism described, that of engagement, disengagement and levelling is considered highly generalisable if not universal. Rather than develop new theory fragments in an already confusing research environment, the authors fuse engagement and resistance theory to extend trait-process theories of leadership. The result is a coherent and integrative model of leadership dynamics which frames leadership in the mundane interaction of leaders and followers.

Interaction as a competence is strongly supported as is the encouragement of cultures which promote interaction. Selection procedures for future leaders should include interaction skills. The use of subtle methods of resistance are highlighted. Such methods may indicate poor interaction long before more overt forms of resistance are apparent.

The continual monitoring of leaders and implied ambivalence towards leadership could be critical to our understanding of leadership. A dynamic feedback circle between leaders and followers may be a more useful paradigm for the characterising of leadership throughout society. A better understanding of the power of followers to frame and re-frame leadership would help to manage the expectations of leaders.

This research uniquely uses Grounded Theory to extend current theories (competence based leadership and trait-process theories of leadership), explaining the complexity of leadership interaction. The research also synthesises and develops engagement and levelling (resistance to leadership) theories for the first time. As such the project suggests a full range model of follower response to leadership including subtle forms of resistance to power. The value of group-level analysis using focus groups is recommended, especially for other collective leader-follower approaches to leadership. The research is of interest to those studying leadership process theories, competencies, leader-follower traditions, engagement and power/resistance research.

The purpose of this paper is to take a fresh look at the leadership and management debate through exploring underlying power assumptions in the literature.

The paper is a conceptual discussion that draws on the power-based literature to develop a framework to help conceptually understand leadership in relation to management.

The paper highlights the historically clichéd nature of comments regarding conceptual similarities and differences between leadership and management. The paper draws attention to a problem within this debate – a confusion regarding assumptions of power. As a result the paper brings to the forefront perspectives of management that are of an emergent and non-work perspective which enables the development of a framework of the literature that includes managers “doing” leadership, managers “becoming” leaders, “being” leaders and managers, and leaders “doing” management. The paper goes on to explore the meaning and potential behind each part of the framework and suggests a need to develop an understanding of “doing” leadership and management and “being” managers and leaders through an exploration of “becoming” in organisations.

This paper provides a new perspective on the leadership and management or leadership vs management question by introducing a non-work, emergent or personal perspective on management. Furthermore, this paper concludes that whether leadership and management are similar or different is dependent upon which power construct underlies each phenomenon, a consideration that has been neglected in the leadership and management debate for some time.

The purpose of this paper is to report on an empirical study of the effectiveness of transformational, transactional and laissez‐faire leadership across hierarchical levels in manufacturing organizations in the UK. The aim was to develop a framework of leadership across hierarchical levels that would be useful for leadership development programmes and interventions.

Managers from 38 companies completed a 360‐degree version of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. Multiple responses – self, superior, subordinate and peer ratings – were obtained for 367 managers of whom 15 per cent were female and 85 per cent male, aged between 21 and 62 years (mean=42 years), from 38 organizations in the UK manufacturing sector. Of the 367 subjects, unanimous (cases were used only if all ratings agreed on the hierarchical level of the subject) opinions on hierarchical level were gained for 215 (58 per cent), which includes 30 top‐level managers, 33 directors, 54 senior managers, 43 middle managers and 55 lower managers. Data concerning time span were also obtained for 253 managers.

The findings of the research show a distinct pattern of behaviours across different hierarchical levels of organizations. Transformational leadership is equally effective across hierarchical levels in organizations, whereas transactional leadership is not effective at the uppermost hierarchical levels in organizations but effective at levels lower down. Laissez‐faire leadership is ineffective at all hierarchical levels.

A framework of effective leadership behaviours across hierarchical levels in organizations was developed from the findings. This framework can be used as a basis for leadership development in UK manufacturing organizations and potentially wider more general organization contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factor structure of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) in a UK context. For a number of years studies have failed to reproduce the original MLQ factor structure. A paper published in Leadership & Organization Development Journal by Alban‐Metcalfe and Alimo‐Metcalfe in 2000 suggested that, in the UK context, contextually different views on leadership could be prevalent. This paper therefore reports a UK‐specific factor structure.

The paper used a dataset from a recent piece of research on leadership by the first and third authors. The sample consisted of 367 managers from 38 UK‐based manufacturing organisations. The research used multiple ratings that consisted of 366 self‐ratings, 315 superior‐ratings, 238 peer‐ratings and 325 subordinate‐ratings and these ratings covered all levels across participating organisations – CEO, MD, directors, senior, middle and lower level management.

The findings uncovered a variant of the MLQ model that comprises active constructive leadership, active management‐by‐exception, and passive avoidant leadership. The findings also lend support to those who suggest that passive management‐by‐exception and laissez‐faire leadership are the same, or a similar, concept and support contingent reward as highly positively correlated with transformational leadership. Particularly interesting is the stand‐alone nature of active management‐by‐exception and which supports claims that there is a different view of leadership in the UK from that held in the USA.

The originality of the paper is based around the understanding of the MLQ in the UK and has produced a model of the full range leadership model that relates to the UK manufacturing context.

Several studies have examined the leadership styles and behaviour of managers across hierarchical levels to see whether or not the styles and behaviour are similar. The present study collected data from over 400 managers in the UK to research the topic. It found that generally there are significant differences in the leadership styles between senior and first‐level managers, but not between senior and middle‐level managers or between middle and first‐level managers. The study suggests that differences in the leadership styles practised by managers may be blurred in organisations with short chains of command, while it will tend to be pronounced in organisations with long chains of command, other things being equal. Overall, while there was a weak but statistically significant difference between the leadership styles of senior and first‐level managers, the differences in their leadership behaviour was statistically strong. The implications of these results are explored.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of interaction in the process of leadership. Interaction has been claimed to be a leadership competence in the Royal Navy. The aim of this research is to define how interaction works within naval teams.

The research uses grounded theory. Following a series of leadership discussions in separate focus groups, discussion topics were coded and subjected to recursive qualitative analysis. The grounded approach is used to synthesize and develop existing leadership theory strands, as well as to extend the trait-process approach to leadership.

The research discovers the key interaction behaviors of engagement, disengagement and levelling. The findings support recent developments in follower-centric perceptions and in interaction specifically. The authors develop engagement theory by combining it with the less well-researched area of leadership resistance. The authors then re-frame resistance as social levelling, a more comprehensive interaction mechanism.

This research uniquely uses grounded theory to extend current theories (competence-based leadership and trait-process theories of leadership), explaining the complexity of leadership interaction. The research also synthesizes and develops engagement and levelling (resistance to leadership) theories for the first time. As such, the project suggests a full range model of follower response to leadership, including subtle forms of resistance to power. The value of group-level analysis using focus groups is recommended, especially for other collective leader–follower approaches to leadership. The research is of interest to those studying leadership process theories, competencies, leader-follower traditions, engagement and power/resistance research.

The need for effective leadership has become paramount to meet the challenges of the 21st Century and a growing number of academics and senior managers have recently come to recognize the importance of emotional intelligence (EI) for effective leadership. Furthermore, Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee (2002) have contended that the higher up one advances in an organization, the more important EI becomes. In this paper the authors have focused on evidence at the very top of the organization, the Board. They review the findings from a major study of UK boards and re‐analyze the data on tasks and competencies relating to EI constructs. Their results show that EI competencies are considered to be extremely important according to the majority of a large sample of UK directors in a survey and they go on to argue that many of the tasks (outputs) of the Board require EI competencies, as well as many aspects of Team Process (for Organizing and Running the Board). The authors also produce new findings which support Goleman's hypothesis that the higher one advances, the more important EI becomes. Possible explanations for the findings are discussed and the paper concludes with a review of important current and future research such as the full integration of EI elements into instruments to assess leadership competence and style, and the effect that organization culture has on these constructs.