BE different

Leadership –too vague to be useful?

Leadership is a concept frequently used in management and politics but it is seldom, if ever, defined.

If it is not defined it cannot be used to explain and describe events. In addition when authors discuss leadership it is also muddled up with wishful thinking and value judgements.

In the philosophy of science you can define concepts any way you like for your research purposes as long as they are defined –this approach is referred to as conceptual nominalism. The idea that there is one “true” definition is rejected in science –referred to as conceptual essentialism.

Leadership emerges from individuals interacting, it is an “emergent social property” and cannot be described or explained without reference to a leader and their followers or a manager and team members.

I recently saw a respected article that referred to a manager “who got things done” as exhibiting leadership qualities, clearly this is too broad to be useful –even if you could define “things” and “done”! We have found that the most “useful” or “fruitful” definition for our purposes has been to define leadership as a “situation where team members accept the authority of their manager willingly and enthusiastically.” This definition allows for the fact that in business life there are a multitude of different types of manager who exhibit leadership “qualities”. The only common thread is that team members accept their authority willingly and enthusiastically. When it comes to value judgements the nature of the team or the type of authority, nice or nasty, democratic or authoritarian is not relevant.