Leadership and its early history

Leadership is "organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal". The leader may or may not have any formal authority. Students of leadership have produced theories involving traits, situational interaction, function, behavior, power, vision and values, charisma, and intelligence among others.

The search for the characteristics or traits of leaders has been ongoing for centuries. History's greatest philosophical writings from Plato's Republic to Plutarch's Lives have explored the question of "What qualities distinguish an individual as a leader?" Underlying this search was the early recognition of the importance of leadership and the assumption that leadership is rooted in the characteristics that certain individuals possess. This idea that leadership is based on individual attributes is known as the "trait theory of leadership".

For decades, this trait-based perspective dominated empirical and theoretical work in leadership. Using early research techniques, researchers conducted over a hundred studies proposing a number of characteristics that distinguished leaders from nonleaders: intelligence, dominance, adaptability, persistence, integrity, socioeconomic status, and self-confidence just to name a few.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, however, researchers took a drastically different view of the driving forces behind leadership. It was found that while some traits were common across a number of studies, the overall evidence suggested that persons who are leaders in one situation may not necessarily be leaders in other situations. Subsequently, leadership was no longer characterized as an enduring individual trait posited that individuals can be effective in certain situations, but not others. This approach dominated much of the leadership theory and research for the next few decades.

9. Review the terminology of the text:

теория лидерства, представление, основанное на теории качеств, официальные полномочия, проницательность, индивидуальные отличительные черты, теория качеств (черт) руководителя, отличительная черта, постоянная характеристика, методика исследований, движущая сила, уверенность в себе, социально-экономическое положение, практические и теоретические работы.

Дата добавления: 2015-08-27