Leadership effectiveness

A cursory glance at the academic literature shows that the phenomenon of leadership has intrigued scholars across domains, particularly those from social psychological and organization behavioral disciplines. In fact, a Google Scholar search for the word "leadership" in the title of the article yields more than 150,000 results.

Noel Tichy and David Ulrich

"So what does it take to transform an organization's technical, political and cultural systems? The transformational leader must possess a deep understanding, whether it be intuitive or learned, of organizations and their place both in society at large and in the lives of individuals. The ability to build a new institution requires the kind of political dialogue our founding fathers had when Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams and others debated issues of justice, equity, separation of powers, checks and balances, and freedom. This language may sound foreign to corporate settings but when major organization revitalization is being undertaken, all of these concepts merit some level of examination."

Tichy, N. M., & Ulrich, D. O. (1984). The leadership challenge: A call for the transformational leader. Sloan Management Review, 26(1), 59–68.

Mary Parker Follett

"To some men the manner of giving orders seems a very simple affair...Yet, on the other hand, the shrewd common sense of many a business executive has shown him that the issuing of orders is surrounded by many difficulties...More over psychology and our own observation, shows us not only that you cannot get people do things most satisfactorily by ordering them or exhorting them; but also that even reasoning with them, even convincing them intellectually, may not be enough. Even the 'consent of the governed' will not do all the work it is supposed to do, an important consideration for those who are advocating employee representation. For all our past life, our early training, our later experience,all our emotions, beliefs, prejudices, every desire that we have, have formed certain habits of mind that the psychologists call habit-patterns, action-patterns, motor-sets. Therefore it will do little good merely to get intellectual agreement; unless you change the habit-patterns of people, you have not really changed people."

Follett, M. P. (1926). The giving of orders. Classics of public administration, 66–74.