Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice

3

REVISITING THE MEANING OF LEADERSHIP

Joel M. Podolny, Rakesh Khurana, and Marya L. Besharov

Introduction

Through the 1960s, leading organizational theorists regarded the concept of leadership to be worthy of serious intellectual inquiry. Scholars such as Weber, Barnard, and Selznick believed that one could not fully understand what those in organizations believe or how they behave without reference to the presence (or absence) of organizational leaders. Leaders are the source of institutionalized values which, in turn, condition the actions of organizational members. Yet, for at least the past thirty years, the concept of leadership has been subject to criticism and marginalization by the dominant organizational paradigms and perspectives. ...