Leadership

Description

The subject of leadership raises many questions: What is it? How does it differ from management and command? Are leaders born or bred? Who are the leaders? Do we actually need leaders?

Inevitably, the answers are provocative and partial; leadership is a hugely important topic of debate. There are constant calls for 'greater' or 'stronger' leadership, but what this actually means, how we can evaluate it, and why it's important are not very clear.

In this Very Short Introduction Keith Grint prompts the reader to rethink their understanding of what leadership is. He examines the way leadership has evolved from its earliest manifestations in ancient societies, highlighting the beginnings of leadership writings through Plato, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli and others, to consider the role of the social, economic, and political context undermining particular modes of leadership.

Exploring the idea that leaders cannot exist without followers, and recognising that we all have diverse experiences and assumptions of leadership, Grint looks at the practice of management, its history, future, and influence on all aspects of society.

About the author

Keith Grint, Professor of Public Leadership, Warwick Business School

Reading Guide

What is leadership? Are leaders born or bred? How do leaders lead? In this Very Short Introduction, Keith Grint considers these questions, prompting the reader to rethink their understanding of what leadership is. He examines the way leadership has evolved over time and explores how it is perceived, and used, in society today.

Download this VSI Reading Guide as an Adobe PDF (28 KB)

Questions for Thought and Discussion

• Is leadership just a way of displacing responsibility for collective problems onto the shoulders of individuals?
• What is leadership?
• Since leadership competencies are always related to individuals why do we need to worry about followers?
• Why don’t we have any followership courses?
• Is transformational leadership really the key to organizational success?
• Since organizational success and failure are usually the consequences of collective action and inaction can we really measure the influence of individual leaders?
• If collaborative leadership is the future, and women are more collaborative than men, why are women still so underrepresented at the top levels of organizations?
• If the success of leaders is determined by their ‘correct’ reading of the situation, why is it that ‘incorrect’ readings don’t always result in leadership failure?
• If leaders who took their country to war were required to put their own children on the front line would we still have so many wars?
• What is the role of a belief in destiny in the success of leaders?
• Do the followers of what we regard as ‘unethical’ leaders regard them as unethical?
• Has leadership changed across time?
• Is leadership culturally shaped or biologically determined?
• Why are so many of our examples of leaders drawn from the military?
• If charisma is objective can you recognize charismatic leaders who don’t speak a language you recognize?
• Is Plato right in his assumption that our leaders should be appointed experts not elected politicians?
• If democratic leadership is so important in stabilizing failing states why isn’t it important to stabilize failing corporations?
• Is democracy the best system of political leadership or the best system for removing political leaders?
• What is more important to leadership, knowledge, skill or wisdom?

A Selection of Other Books by Keith Flint

• Grint, K. Organizational Leadership (with John Bratton and Debra Nelson) Mason: (Southwestern/Thompson Press 2005)
• Grint, K. Leadership: Limits and Possibilities. (London: Palgrave/Macmillan 2005)
• Grint, K. Beyond Command: Perspectives on Air Force Leadership, edited with John Jupp (London: HMSO 2006)
• Grint, K. Leadership, Management & Command: Rethinking D-Day, (London: Palgrave/Macmillan 2008)
• Grint, K. (ed. With Stephen Brookes). The Public Leadership Challenge, (London: Palgrave/Macmillan 2010)
• Grint, K. (ed. With Alan Bryman, David Collinson, Brad Jackson and Mary Uhl-Bien) Sage Handbook of Leadership, (London: Sage 2010)
• Grint, K. (ed. With David Collinson & Brad Jackson) Sage Major Works of Leadership, (London: Sage 2010)

Further Reading

• Burns, J. (1978) Leadership (New York: Harper & Row)
• Heifetz, R. A. and Linsky, M. Leadership on the Line. (Harvard University Press 2002)
• Jackson, B. And Parry, K. A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Leadership (London: Sage 2007)
• Machiavelli, N. The Prince. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998)
• Rosenzweig, P. The Halo Effect. (London: Simon & Schuster 2007)
• Tacitus. The Annals of Imperial Rome (Penguin, 1973)

Table of contents

1:What is leadership?
2:What isn't leadership?
3:What was leadership?
4:Leaders: born or bred?
5:Who are the leaders?
6:How do leaders lead?
7:What about the followers?
8:Do we need leaders?
References
Further Reading