Talk:Leadership

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[edit] Lack of Scholarship

This article is so poorly written as to defy description. An article on leadership that makes no mention at all of its true function, which is to manage the overall production of goods and services that enable the standard of living a society requires. It is almost like this article was written in a "vacuum", a veritable "dream state" of contributors repeating what they read in some old book or magazine. There is literally no thinking going on at all in the contributions to this article, they are just "cut and paste". Just think about it, without production who needs leaders? If as human beings we decided we weren't going to produce anything anymore, leadership would not be necessary except at the most basic tribal level for common defence. Oh, by the way, those tribal leaders all got wiped out by leaders who oversaw the production of superior weapons. So it is the volume and type of production that a leader oversees that they derive their power from. Please make an effort to write an article that has even the slightest bit of truth and analysis. Oh, by the way, the "natural born leader" is one who disagrees with everyone else, you can put that in too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.229.151 (talk) 13:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article introduction

The distinction made between actual and potential leadership seems fairly irrelevant to me. Anything that can be done can also be potentially done; this quality is in no way unique or peculiar to the quality of leadership; nor does it particularly serve to characterise the nature of leadership. Am I perhaps missing something, or is it just waffle? the niki says

Divided the previous material into three categories--1) Leadership as a position of authority, 2) Leadership by a group, and 3) Other. Added examples to illustrate the first two categories. Rednblu 09:38 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

A major problem to this introduction is the lack of a good definition of leadership upon which to build. House is a start but his definition is narrowly focused on organizations - traditional, hierarchical organizations. Leadership is conducted within group settings, voluntary settings, any social setting. There is the potential for a complete article just dealing with the definition of leadership in and of itself. Leadership has been much discussed and written of probably since the beginning of human communication. Academic defintions have varied considerably over time. To me, the simplest definition of leadership is "A leader is an individual working to achieve goals with and through others." Can we build from there? BillK 17:34, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with this comment and had included a section called. "Definitions of Leadership" with a (what I thought) refreshing definition by Arthur Carmazzi.

"According to Arthur F Carmazzi: Leadership is not about changing the mindset of the group, but in the cultivation of an environment that brings out the best and inspires the individuals in that group. It is not the ability to influence others to do something they are not committed to, but rather to nurture a culture that motivates and even excites individuals to do what is required for the benefit of all. It is not carrying others to the end result, but setting the surrounding for developing qualities in them to so they may carry each other."

I figured it would be a good start. It was apparently deleted. So who decides what is good and what is not. is this a real wiki?

Steve Coldwell 211.24.170.130 08:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

That is far too verbose to be a definition. Nor does it define. Deipnosophista 16:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Well can you come up with a definition that Everybody likes? if not, perhaps wikipedia might give readers the opportunity to decide for themselves from a variety of definitions. 202.169.242.190 09:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

well done in filling this article up, we like the meat in the various elements of leadership Aziz 213.42.21.148 16:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Perspective of leadership

IMHO, the front article has mainly dealt with

  • Transformational perspective
  • Competency perspective

It could be good if we mention something about these other perspectives

  • Romance perspective
  • Behavioral perspective
  • Contingency perspective

Oh, and some guy Fred Fiedler that success of a leader depend on how well matched his natural leadership style matches the situation on hand, kind of go against the path-goal leadership theory. Some lame tools Leadership Grid may fall somewhere in the article

It might make more sense to lay the page out by the major schools of leadership theory:

  • Trait/Skills
  • Behavior
  • Contingency
  • Relational
  • Principled
  • Ethical
  • Transformational/Transactional

Then move to leadership in an applied setting:

  • Business settings
  • Small Teams and Groups
  • Military
  • Political

[edit] Material removed

I have removed:

"Yet other usages have a leadership which does not lead, but to which one simply shows respect (compare the courtesy title reverend)."

To have leadership without leading is an oxymoron. mydogategodshat 02:30, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I have also removed:

"such entities encourage their followers and believers to worship leadership, to respect it, and to strive to become proficient in it. Followers in such a situation may become uncritically obedient."

If these followers are becoming so proficient in leadership, how is it that they are also becoming uncritically obedient? mydogategodshat 02:41, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Theories of Leadership

The Ronald Heifitz Lone Ranger comparison is incomplete.

(previous post did not have a signature. What follows below is not connected with the Lone Ranger comment)

This section and some other apparently "self-created" sections mingle commercial leadership consultants in with theorists. Without debating the potential value of what Messrs. Carmazzi, Farr and others who have inserted links to their consulting home pages, these shameless self-promoters have blended themselves in with the likes of Burns, Heifetz, House and others who are genuine, reconized theoreticians in the field.

If you do split this page, please park these folks under something called Leadership Training or Consulting, and provide more nuanced analysis of the real scholarship in the field.

This page is at best a good start on the topic. The references at the end are both thin and out of date. 209.244.187.99 10:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

You may wish to actually CHECK the credentials Before you include your own SELF Judgement of "Recognised" theorist. by nature those whos "theories" actually work, are in the consulting business - What are your credentials to determine what works and what does not? this page had some good quotes and material the WAS ACTUALLY USEFUL before it was deleted. And if you think that not recognising who came up with theories just because they are in business, then thats would be just stealing.

Steven Coldwell 211.24.170.130 08:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] leaders

if the following is not in here anywhere, it should be: true leaders figure out how to motivate people toward the goal. they learn how to energize a team. if someone on the team gives a leader trouble the leader must not take it personally and must continue to figure out how to motivate the team member and how to energize persons by way of those persons' membership within a team. A leader's demeanor must be steady. a leader's authority is only truly undermined when he/she cannot effectively motivate the team toward the goal. TheBridge 07:24, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Leadership

What's going on with these two sentences under the subheading Historical Views on Leadership?

"In the autocratic/paternalistic strain of thought, traditionalists recall the role of leadership of the Roman [[pater familias]]. feminist thinking, on the other hand, may damn such models as patriarchal and posit against them emotionally-attuned, responsive, and consensual empathetic guidance and matriarchies."

Is the bold type there for a reason to which I'm oblivious?

The sentence structure seems a little awkward and unclear.

Also, this sentence is incomplete:

"(Note that the Oxford English Dictionary traces the word "leadership" in English only as far back aant leadership]]."

[edit] Article length

Does anyone else think this article should be split into multiple articles on leadership? I think a history of leadership article and another on theories of leadership would make good splits. Thoughts? --Noetic Sage 04:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

ME AGREE LONGTIME

[edit] Ringleader

I'm not sure that "ringleader" ought to redirect to leadership. It seems more appropriate to redirect it to the article about Ringmasters, and perhaps acknowledge in the ringmasters article that the term "ringleader" can be used in a somewhat slang sense to describe any form of leader. Does anyone else agree? --65.28.73.99 03:41, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree "ringleader" seems more to fit the definition of "Management" -Recon10096

[edit] Leadership Readiness

Leadership is a much written and talked about term. We have seen authors and management gurus talking about leadership styles, theories and even how great leaders worked to rise to the occasion to save the day for their nations. There are numerous articles and material available on internet as well. A simple search for the term “leadership” in Google will give you approximately 164,000,000 (164 million) results. So what is different about this course titled “Leadership Readiness” being taught at SZABIST (Karachi, Pakistan) for the first time by Mr. Wali Zahid? It is not about the above mentioned questions. It is about what it takes to become a leader. What factors are involved in shaping up a leader, in preparing him / her to take up the leadership role, getting him / her ready to be precise? It is a prologue to leadership or becoming a leader. In studying the various aspects of readiness and during various brainstorming sessions in class we have developed a leadership readiness model. These and other documents shall be posted on the blog specifically made for it. http://readiness.wordpress.com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fnaik (talk • contribs) 21:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Leadership in primates

Someone needs to fix this section, Humans are equally related to both Chimps and Bonobos.

I personally belive this to be in the wrong section. this artcle is in the "Business" project. do we dare remove it? or at least move it to the right location

[edit] Leadership Selection

I feel there should be a comparative analysis of the way leaders are selected. "Leadership as a phase of life" should be brought together with elements describing charismatic leadership. Additionally, there should be a new sub-section describing arbitrary standards used in history (whoever is the tallest, drawing of straws, etc.)

-Leng

[edit] This article sucks

Something has gone badly wrong here. I'm going to slash some text out of it in an attempt to make it less bad. It still won't be good when I'm done. --Xyzzyplugh 13:32, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The so called "definition" at the beginning of the article does not belong in an encyclopedic entry. Furthermore, it is a recursive definition which is meaningless. Yusubstitution 01:47, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's good. If it were a recursive definition which happened to be meaningful, it would be a very, very bad sign. 1 would start to equal 0 and so forth.--Joel 20:14, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I strongly agree that this article needs a complete rewrite. It's full of subtle spam (trying to get rid of some myself). Please if anyone is interested in rewriting this article then go ahead; the article desperately needs it. Pm master 12:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
OK, I just had a shot at the whole thing. Unfortunately, lots of useless sections still exist, the article is way too long, and someone should really do something about it. I'm not a guru on the subject so gurus out there, please do your best to make this article a good, cohesive article, because right now it certainly is not.Pm master 13:18, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and verb conjugation in English is quite easy, it's a form of art to get it wrong so many times in one article. I'll tries to corrects some of it when I have time. 217.18.252.226 (talk) 15:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

i subscribe to 12 leadership forums including leadingblog (blog of the year), i am well read on many philosophies and apply many of these in my own organisation. yes i have oppinions but i beleve i have a good overview. am i a guru, no but i can tell you what the gurus teach almost verbatum. yet, here we have someone asking for savy information on leadership and yet, anything i have writen has been deleted...

are you experts or are you not? if not, then please do not impose uninformed judgements on our comments

S. Coldwell 211.24.170.130 16:51, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

If possible this article just gets worse as time goes by. Begin with the recursive definition, go on to the sentence "Leadership is a quality a person may have." which begs a large number of questions, and you'll lose the will to go further. I see no way of resolving the problem. Deipnosophista (talk) 21:34, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The article definitely needs a complete rewrite. I got so frustrated with this article that I decided to just ignore it. I know probably this is not the right thing to do but most contributors are actually spammers and if they don't add a link, they'll add one of their opinions (ala "According to John Smith"). Unfortunately because of these people we have a very incoherent article that doesn't meet the very basics of wikipedia standards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pm master (talk • contribs) 21:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

psy - gotta say, this is so ironic that the article about Leadership seems stymied and completely unfocused by a lack of leadership. Sorry for not helping (yet! I may be back) but I'm gonna see if the "followers" article provides some antidote! (2008-04-02)

[edit] New section

Is it possible to add / create new section of leadership:

  • Autocratic leadership
  • Democratic leadership

--NAHID 20:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stubifying The Article

I urge anyone with experience on the subject to stubify the article.

[edit] Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia

Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia, meaning the content should be Objective. Please guys, this is not a biography nor a place to spread your theories or what you think. Please, don't add a section starting with "According to John Smith", while you are, in fact, John Smith. Thanks for your understanding. This article is already very very bad right now it's almost unreadable. Thanks!

Is not an encyclopedia a place to look for "notble" theories and information. I have noted that there are many Biogrphies and Theories already included, John C Maxwell, Tom Peters, Ken Blachard. These are All Americans, I do Assume this is not just for Americans or for those only known to Americans.

Steve Coldwell (Malaysia) 211.24.170.130 09:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

i agree, why should leadership gurus be exclusive to the perseption of americans. there are many influential leadership gurus in asia also, and not political ones who make a difference for better leadership in multinational companies. we asians have oppinions too, but it not agreed by all americans. Lily 16:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A new approach

I propose a new way forward on this. I have contributed a short summary on leadership, which opens the path to separate articles on organisational leadership (House, Fiedler &c &c &c), and on leadership in other areas (eg military, sport). I hope this is helpful. Deipnosophista 05:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I think a better way to start would be to define Leader objectively, since it is an easier word to define, e.g., one who directs or influences the actions of others. Then proceed to define leadership very sparsely, e.g. a character trait or ability that makes a leader effective. Adding any more to this definition would not be objective, since it is a matter of opinion as to what exactly makes a leader effective or good. This article should include a representative list of official roles that are considered leaders, e.g. kings, generals, coaches, executives, etc. and the corresponding "others" that they lead. There could also be a list of famous individuals that are considered to have had great leadership ability historically, although that would of course be a matter of opinion. Napoleon and Roosevelt come to mind. Probably also a mention that people can lead without having any officially given title, like Joan of Arc or Martin Luther King, Jr. Lay the foundation with cold facts, then y'alls can get into your theories about what makes a good leader. I think the theories mentioned should preferably be those that have had the most influence on society, not necessarily what people believe to be most accurate, since again, the very nature of leadership is extremely subjective, hence the terrible state of this article. Plato's Republic and Machiavelli's The Prince seem like good candidates. Maybe Sun Tzu's Art of War. I'm not familiar with more modern theories since it seems like the waters are muddied with a bunch of hacks just trying to sell books.--Edwardstirling (talk) 05:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV edits

I suspect the recent POV edits by IPs [1] [2] are User:Thementor editing anonymously. This user has been making promotional and POV edits, some more blatant than others, to several articles, centering around promoting the company "XCEO" and Curtis J. Crawford. Jfire (talk) 04:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The citation

The citation removed from this article (see history) may, if anybody finds it important, be inserted in Wikiquote instead. Mikael Häggström (talk) 10:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bad quality standard section

I had to move the following section "The embodiment of leadership" from the article to here, because of several issues, which need to be sorted out before reinsertion of anything of it:

  • It's just a citation. To meet Wikipedia quality standards, the gist of it need to be found and reinserted.
  • That "medical research" need citation before any reinsertion
  • It needs more concrete, encyclopaedic explanation. As for now it's actually rather confusing. Mikael Häggström (talk) 10:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The embodiment of leadership

Most research into leadership mistakenly focused on cognitive and intellectual processes, forgetting the important fact that every cognitive process is an embodied process. In the book Leading People the Black Belt Way, Timothy Warneka accurately points out that, “Great leadership begins with the body.”

People are living, organic beings, and medical research is increasingly recognizing the truth that mind and body are, in fact, one. While we often speak about mind and body as separate entities, great leaders understand that mind and body are, in reality, two sides of the same coin. Superior leaders recognize further that an awareness of their own physical selves is a critical component of their success. In a very real way, our toes, stomachs, and shoulders are on equal footing (pardon the pun) with our thoughts and ideas. As with any other tool, however, leaders must be trained to use embodied leadership technology appropriately and effectively.

In leadership, as in the martial arts, your stance is critical to your success. If you have a weak stance, then every way you lead will be fundamentally flawed. For example, if you have a weak stance in your emotional life, then you will have significant difficulties when you attempt to lead other people relationally. Recalling that we are embodied beings, I do not mean the word stance to be understood only metaphorically. I am also using the word stance in the literal sense, in terms of how leaders actually carry themselves physically when they lead others. Learning embodied stance will deepen your capacity for experiencing your own emotions, and better equip you to cope with the emotions of others, from the lighthearted to the highly conflicted. Your stance, you will learn, has a very literal, not to mention enormous impact on your ultimate success as a leader[1].

[edit] Contradiciton between 'B' Class asessment and 'May need to be rewritten' tags?

As a relative newbie, I'm struggling to understand how this article has both a 'B'class asessment, but also has a 'may need to be re-written' tag. Has the quality of the article deteriorated since it was assessed as 'B' Class article? If so, would a revert to the point in time when it was assessed as 'B' class be preferable to a complete re-write? I am basing this query on the assessment scale criteria description

"Has several of the elements described in "start", usually a majority of the material needed for a comprehensive article."82.44.221.140 (talk) 14:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Leadership by Rudolph Guliani

I was looking for Leadership by Rudolph Guliani, but it redirected me here. I am curious if there is any reference to the book.--Mynameisnotpj (talk) 12:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

See Leadership (book). Kuru talk 12:34, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pathetic Article

This article is so pathetic I cannot believe it. We had a take on it maybe a year ago (someone stubbed the article), but the article was very soon cluttered with nonsense, commercial/promotional material, etc... I've totally lost all hope on this article. See the problem isn't really with the article itself as much as it is with its contributors. Pm master 03:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)