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Fact and Fiction:
The Changing Nature of Leadership
Myths About Leadership Truths About Leadership
The myths about leadership The truths about leadership we
date back to the turn of the 20th propose are based on our collective
century when leadership was first research and years of study and
formally studied by psychologists and teaching, and on our own experiences
sociologists. In ancient Greece, only as leaders. We propose the
men with potbellies were thought to following:
be great leaders. In Celtic lands,
birds were thought to confer 1. Leaders are made, not born.
leadership powers. Historically, some Many people have the capacity
believe that only people with to lead an organization,
charismatic personalities make community, family, profession,
powerful leaders. The myths of and, most important,
leadership include: themselves. Some individuals
will not describe themselves as
• Leaders are born, not made. leaders based on traditional
• Leadership is hierarchical, and notions of formal leadership
you need to hold a formal when, in fact, they do make a
position (have status and difference in their organization
power) to be considered a through their commitment,
leader. values, and actions toward
• You have to have charisma to change. Leaders are not born
be an effective leader. with innate characteristics or
• There is one standard way of skills predisposing them to be
leading. leaders (Gardner, 1990). A
• It is impossible to be a person's environment can
manager and a leader at the influence the development of
same time. leadership skills and interests
• You only need to have (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy,
common sense to be an 1993; Komives, Owen,
effective leader. Longerbeam, Mainella, &
Osteen, 2005).
Excerpted from Komives, S.R., Lucas, N., & McMahon, T.R. (2013). The Changing Nature of
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/posting.php?ID=1304
2. In today's fluid organizations, charismatic. For every positive
leadership occurs at all levels. example of a charismatic
Progressive organizations are leader, we can find a negative
striving to flatten their charismatic. For example,
hierarchies to empower people Martin Luther King Jr. is
throughout the organization to described positively as a
participate in the leadership charismatic leader who
process. Manz and Sim's organized a nation to fight for
(1989) self-managing teams civil rights for all its citizens,
concept is an example of whereas Adolph Hitler is
people at the "worker-level" viewed negatively as an
being responsible for high- example of a charismatic
level decision making and leader who influenced a nation
behavioral control over an to senselessly and unmercifully
organization's process and kill millions of people because
outcomes. People find of their race, religion, sexual
meaning in their orientation, or disability.
organizational life and work
through shared experiences 4. There is not one identifiable
and a feeling of being right way to lead an
empowered to make a organization or group. On an
contribution or difference. individual level, a person's
leadership approach or style
3. Having a charismatic might be influenced by his or
personality is not a her sex, cultural identity, or
prerequisite for leadership. A personal value system. On an
charismatic leader is one who organizational level, the
has "profound and unusual context of the setting might
effects on followers" (Yukl, determine the type of
1994, p. 318). Charismatic leadership required to be
leaders are often described as effective. Leading volunteer
visionaries who have a strong civilian organizations calls for
desire for power; leaders have a very different leadership
been called impression approach than does leading a
managers who have a keen for-profit organization.
ability to motivate others and
set an example for others to
follow (Yukl,
1994). However, many
effective and accomplished
leaders are not described as
Excerpted from Komives, S.R., Lucas, N., & McMahon, T.R. (2013). The Changing Nature of
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/posting.php?ID=1304
5. Some leaders and scholars associated with both processes
believe it is important to make (Gardnre, 1990). It behoves
a distinction between the leaders who also perform
processes of management and managerial tasks such as
leadership (Bennis & Nanus, resource allocation and
1985; Gardner, 1990; organizing systems to be
Zaleznik, 1977). Gardner goes effective managers and to
to great lengths to describe the perform those functions
differences between the well. It is possible, and in
functions of managers and some cases desirable, for a
leaders. He defines a manager person to be an effective leader
as "the individual so labelled while being an effective
[who] holds a directive post in manager. The functions of
an organization, presiding over both leadership and
the processes by which the management, if they can be
organization functions, distinguished, are necessary in
allocating resources prudently, organizations. Most
and making the best possible important is the ability to
use of people" (p. 3). The discern when and how to
manager is closely bound to an facilitate management and
organization or institution, administrative functions in the
whereas a leader may not have leadership process and who
an organization at has the best strengths to
all. Florence Nightingale is an execute those tasks.
example of such a leader. Yet
others find the exercise of 6. Leadership is a discipline that
determining the differences is teachable (Gardner, 1990;
between leadership and Parks, 2005). Any participant
management to have little with a desire to lead or to
utility and use the terms assume leadership
interchangeably (Yukl, 1994). responsibilities can be taught
certain skills and
Another proposition is that processes. Leadership is not
managers are preoccupied with just common sense. Catherine
doing things the right way, the Great, John F. Kennedy,
whereas leaders focus on doing Sitting Bull, and Harriet
the right thing (Zaleznik, Tubman did not rise to
1977). There are distinctions greatness
between management and serendipitously. They had a
leadership, and there is also mission or purpose and they
overlap in the functions all experienced life events that
Excerpted from Komives, S.R., Lucas, N., & McMahon, T.R. (2013). The Changing Nature of
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/posting.php?ID=1304
shaped their values and might have started early in
sharpened their elementary school as the lead
skills. Learning about in your sixth-grade play, or it
leadership and developing as a may have begun later in your
leader is a lifelong process career when you become an
involving preparation, elected official or community
experience, trial-and-error, activist at the age of fifty.
self-examination, and a
willingness to learn from
mistakes and successes. Your
own leadership development
References
Bennis, W.G., & Thomas, R.J. (2002). Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining
Moments Shape Leaders. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Gardner, J.W. (1990). On Leadership. New York, NY: Free Press.
Hughes, R. L., Ginnett, R.C., & Curphy, G.J. (1993). Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of
Experience. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin.
Komives, S.R., Owen, J.E., Longerbeam, S., Mainella, F.C., & Osteen, L. (2005). “Developing
a Leadership Identity: A Grounded Theory.” Journal of College Student Development, 46, 593-611.
Manz, C.C., & Sims J., H.P. (1989). SuperLeadership: Leading Others to Lead Themselves. New
York, NY: Berkley Books.
Parks, S.D. (2005). Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a Complex World. Boston, MA:
Harvard Business School Press.
Excerpted from Komives, S.R., Lucas, N., & McMahon, T.R. (2013). The Changing Nature of
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/posting.php?ID=1304
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