Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance

Living Edition
| Editors: Ali Farazmand

Leadership in Organizations

Living reference work entry
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_106-1
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Synonyms

Direction; Guidance; Management

Definitions

Leadership is the act of engaging others to pursue activities toward a specific goal. Organizational leadership involves engagement that supports goals that enhance the state of the organization.

Introduction

Leadership is not one approach and studying leadership is not an exact science. Definitions and explanations have varied over time. More importantly, organizational leadership style needs to vary to accommodate individual skills, organizational mission, and environmental factors.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the Supreme Commander of the European Allied Forces during World War II and the 34th President of the United States, said that “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it …” In Eisenhower’s view, leadership is essentially about motivation and interaction with others (Eisenhower 1954). Many years before, Max Weber studied leadership in which he noted that the...

Keywords

Ethical Leadership Political Leader Transformational Leader Ethical Climate Organizational Citizenship Behavior 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing AG 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Political Science and Public AdministrationRoosevelt UniversityChicagoUSA