In the best of times, we tend to forget how urgent the study of leadership is. But leadership always matters, and it has never mattered more than it does now.
—Warren Bennis (2007, p. 2)
Leadership is a lot like love. Everyone thinks it is special, but hardly anyone agrees on a definition. Warren Bennis (a student of the subject for six decades) put it this way: “It is almost a cliché of the leadership literature that a single definition of leadership is lacking” (2007, p. 2). In an earlier review (Bennis & Nanus, 1985, p. 4) he noted that
no clear and unequivocal understanding exists as to what distinguishes leaders from nonleaders, and perhaps more important, what distinguishes effective leaders from ineffective leaders.
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