Leadership and Management

2. Theoretical background

“The interests of the organization and its members need to be aligned. Such is a task for the transformational leader” (Bass, 1999b, p. 9). With the aim of being able to explain the effectiveness of a leader in times of rapid organizational or environmental change, the concept of transformational leadership was drawn upon. Therefore, much of the leadership research conducted in the last 25 years dealt with this leadership concept. In order to better understand the research situation that this concept was ‘born’ into, the next chapter will firstly try to define leadership and then shortly describe some earlier leadership theories, whereby the focus will be upon theories that are, in my opinion, somehow related to transformational leadership. After this short introduction into the history of leadership research, transformational leadership and the most prominent questionnaire that assesses this behavior, the Multifactor Leadership, will be discussed.

2.1

Leadership

The concept of leadership has an ambiguous status in organizational practice, as it does in organizational theory. In practice, management appears to be of two minds about the exercise of leadership. Many jobs are so specified in content and method that within very broad limits differences among individuals become irrelevant, and acts of leadership are regarded as gratuitous at best, and at worst insubordinate. (Katz & Kahn, 1966, p. 300)

2.1.1. Leadership definitions

“The term leadership is a word taken from the common vocabulary and incorporated into the technical vocabulary of a scientific discipline without being precisely redefined” (Yukl, 2002, p. 2). There exist numerous definitions of leadership, almost as

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many as there are scientists who work on the concept of leadership (Stogdill, 1974), trying to narrow this concept down in terms of traits, behaviors, influence, interaction patterns, role relationships, occupation of an administrative position, or...