Talk:Leadership/Archive 1

The biggest myth
The biggest myth of the the history of mankind = the need of LEADERSHIP!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.66.126.2 (talk) 13:14, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Leadership-It is standing up for people and helping others and leading.It is being polite, it is having respect. It is beleiving in ur group that your leading and showing them ur strong and that you really do beileve in them.It is important to know that being a leader is a big job and not taking full responsablity for your actions.You have to strive to do your best andcontinue doing that.To sum it all up Leadership is Leardership, Take your kob and do it, do it well, show you are a real leader,don't show off, just lead, thats all, beleive in yourself.

unsigned comment added by 24.167.189.194 (talk) 21:53, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

This article sucks
Something has gone badly wrong here. I'm going to slash some text out of it in an attempt to make it less bad. It still won't be good when I'm done. --Xyzzyplugh 13:32, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The so called "definition" at the beginning of the article does not belong in an encyclopedic entry. Furthermore, it is a recursive definition which is meaningless. Yusubstitution 01:47, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, that's good. If it were a recursive definition which happened to be meaningful, it would be a very, very bad sign.  1 would start to equal 0 and so forth.--Joel 20:14, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I strongly agree that this article needs a complete rewrite. It's full of subtle spam (trying to get rid of some myself). Please if anyone is interested in rewriting this article then go ahead; the article desperately needs it. Pm master 12:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, I just had a shot at the whole thing. Unfortunately, lots of useless sections still exist, the article is way too long, and someone should really do something about it. I'm not a guru on the subject so gurus out there, please do your best to make this article a good, cohesive article, because right now it certainly is not.Pm master 13:18, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, and verb conjugation in English is quite easy, it's a form of art to get it wrong so many times in one article. I'll tries to corrects some of it when I have time. 217.18.252.226 (talk) 15:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

- i subscribe to 12 leadership forums including leadingblog (blog of the year), i am well read on many philosophies and apply many of these in my own organisation. yes i have oppinions but i beleve i have a good overview. am i a guru, no but i can tell you what the gurus teach almost verbatum. yet, here we have someone asking for savy information on leadership and yet, anything i have writen has been deleted...

are you experts or are you not? if not, then please do not impose uninformed judgements on our comments

S. Coldwell 211.24.170.130 16:51, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

If possible this article just gets worse as time goes by. Begin with the recursive definition, go on to the sentence "Leadership is a quality a person may have." which begs a large number of questions, and you'll lose the will to go further. I see no way of resolving the problem. Deipnosophista (talk) 21:34, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The article definitely needs a complete rewrite. I got so frustrated with this article that I decided to just ignore it. I know probably this is not the right thing to do but most contributors are actually spammers and if they don't add a link, they'll add one of their opinions (ala "According to John Smith"). Unfortunately because of these people we have a very incoherent article that doesn't meet the very basics of wikipedia standards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pm master (talk • contribs) 21:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

psy - gotta say, this is so ironic that the article about Leadership seems stymied and completely unfocused by a lack of leadership. Sorry for not helping (yet! I may be back) but I'm gonna see if the "followers" article provides some antidote! (2008-04-02)

Article introduction
The distinction made between actual and potential leadership seems fairly irrelevant to me. Anything that can be done can also be potentially done; this quality is in no way unique or peculiar to the quality of leadership; nor does it particularly serve to characterise the nature of leadership. Am I perhaps missing something, or is it just waffle? the niki says

Divided the previous material into three categories--1) Leadership as a position of authority, 2) Leadership by a group, and 3) Other. Added examples to illustrate the first two categories.  Rednblu 09:38 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

- A major problem to this introduction is the lack of a good definition of leadership upon which to build. House is a start but his definition is narrowly focused on organizations - traditional, hierarchical organizations. Leadership is conducted within group settings, voluntary settings, any social setting. There is the potential for a complete article just dealing with the definition of leadership in and of itself. Leadership has been much discussed and written of probably since the beginning of human communication. Academic defintions have varied considerably over time. To me, the simplest definition of leadership is "A leader is an individual working to achieve goals with and through others." Can we build from there? BillK 17:34, 14 July 2007 (UTC) - I agree with this comment and had included a section called. "Definitions of Leadership" with a (what I thought) refreshing definition by Arthur Carmazzi.

"According to Arthur F Carmazzi: Leadership is not about changing the mindset of the group, but in the cultivation of an environment that brings out the best and inspires the individuals in that group. It is not the ability to influence others to do something they are not committed to, but rather to nurture a culture that motivates and even excites individuals to do what is required for the benefit of all. It is not carrying others to the end result, but setting the surrounding for developing qualities in them to so they may carry each other."

I figured it would be a good start. It was apparently deleted. So who decides what is good and what is not. is this a real wiki?

Steve Coldwell 211.24.170.130 08:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

That is far too verbose to be a definition. Nor does it define. Deipnosophista 16:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Well can you come up with a definition that Everybody likes? if not, perhaps wikipedia might give readers the opportunity to decide for themselves from a variety of definitions. 202.169.242.190 09:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

- well done in filling this article up, we like the meat in the various elements of leadership Aziz 213.42.21.148 16:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Leadership Selection
I feel there should be a comparative analysis of the way leaders are selected. "Leadership as a phase of life" should be brought together with elements describing charismatic leadership. Additionally, there should be a new sub-section describing arbitrary standards used in history (whoever is the tallest, drawing of straws, etc.)

-Leng

POV edits
I suspect the recent POV edits by IPs  are User:Thementor editing anonymously. This user has been making promotional and POV edits, some more blatant than others, to several articles, centering around promoting the company "XCEO" and Curtis J. Crawford. Jfire (talk) 04:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

New section
Is it possible to add / create new section of leadership: --NAHID 20:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Autocratic leadership
 * Democratic leadership

Stubifying The Article
I urge anyone with experience on the subject to stubify the article.

Contradiciton between 'B' Class asessment and 'May need to be rewritten' tags?
As a relative newbie, I'm struggling to understand how this article has both a 'B'class asessment, but also has a 'may need to be re-written' tag. Has the quality of the article deteriorated since it was assessed as 'B' Class article? If so, would a revert to the point in time when it was assessed as 'B' class be preferable to a complete re-write? I am basing this query on the assessment scale criteria description

"Has several of the elements described in "start", usually a majority of the material needed for a comprehensive article."82.44.221.140 (talk) 14:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Pathetic Article
This article is so pathetic I cannot believe it. We had a take on it maybe a year ago (someone stubbed the article), but the article was very soon cluttered with nonsense, commercial/promotional material, etc... I've totally lost all hope on this article. See the problem isn't really with the article itself as much as it is with its contributors. Pm master 03:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Ringleader
I'm not sure that "ringleader" ought to redirect to leadership. It seems more appropriate to redirect it to the article about Ringmasters, and perhaps acknowledge in the ringmasters article that the term "ringleader" can be used in a somewhat slang sense to describe any form of leader. Does anyone else agree? --65.28.73.99 03:41, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree "ringleader" seems more to fit the definition of "Management" -Recon10096

Leadership in primates
Someone needs to fix this section, Humans are equally related to both Chimps and Bonobos.

I personally belive this to be in the wrong section. this artcle is in the "Business" project. do we dare remove it? or at least move it to the right location

ChrisTW (talk) 07:25, 27 December 2008 (UTC)I think this section has been recently rewritten and adds an interesting perspective on leadership which naturally isn't limited to the business context. It could be made more relevant to leadership ChrisTW (talk) 07:25, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

The embodiment of leadership
Most research into leadership mistakenly focused on cognitive and intellectual processes, forgetting the important fact that every cognitive process is an embodied process. In the book Leading People the Black Belt Way, Timothy Warneka accurately points out that, “Great leadership begins with the body.”

''People are living, organic beings, and medical research is increasingly recognizing the truth that mind and body are, in fact, one. While we often speak about mind and body as separate entities, great leaders understand that mind and body are, in reality, two sides of the same coin. Superior leaders recognize further that an awareness of their own physical selves is a critical component of their success. In a very real way, our toes, stomachs, and shoulders are on equal footing (pardon the pun) with our thoughts and ideas. As with any other tool, however, leaders must be trained to use embodied leadership technology appropriately and effectively.

''In leadership, as in the martial arts, your stance is critical to your success. If you have a weak stance, then every way you lead will be fundamentally flawed. For example, if you have a weak stance in your emotional life, then you will have significant difficulties when you attempt to lead other people relationally. Recalling that we are embodied beings, I do not mean the word stance to be understood only metaphorically. I am also using the word stance in the literal sense, in terms of how leaders actually carry themselves physically when they lead others. Learning embodied stance will deepen your capacity for experiencing your own emotions, and better equip you to cope with the emotions of others, from the lighthearted to the highly conflicted. Your stance, you will learn, has a very literal, not to mention enormous impact on your ultimate success as a leader.

Leadership by Rudolph Guliani
I was looking for Leadership by Rudolph Guliani, but it redirected me here. I am curious if there is any reference to the book.--Mynameisnotpj (talk) 12:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * See Leadership (book). Kuru  talk  12:34, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

--Michael Billington (talk) 10:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The geoleader
this seems to be more leadership characteristics than a "style". this is a copy of what was removed, perhaps it would be better suited in Leadersip characteristics, any ideas?

"The geoleader ( Wibbeke, 2008) is the one who recognizes that cultures are always evolving and one's own intercultural education never ends. This leader realizes that to be effective in intercultural situations, there must be development of sufficient personal and organization capability. This leader must shift from the old mechanistic mindsets of the industrial era to the flexible adaptive perspective of organizational life as what it is, a complex socio-cultural system. This leader develops the ability to perceive, discern, and adapt to the situations within which they work, to suspend judgment, and are able to work comfortably and effectively with ambiguity. This leader maintains a self-awareness in order to lead effectively in intercultural situations. Finally, this leader holds and maintains equal concern for the bottom line and for stakeholder groups despite background or location."

Some paragraphs removed
I have removed:


 * "Yet other usages have a leadership which does not lead, but to which one simply shows respect (compare the courtesy title reverend)."

To have leadership without leading is an oxymoron. mydogategodshat 02:30, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I have also removed:


 * "such entities encourage their followers and believers to worship leadership, to respect it, and to strive to become proficient in it. Followers in such a situation may become uncritically obedient."

If these followers are becoming so proficient in leadership, how is it that they are also becoming uncritically obedient? mydogategodshat 02:41, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Theories of Leadership
The Ronald Heifitz Lone Ranger comparison is incomplete.

(previous post did not have a signature. What follows below is not connected with the Lone Ranger comment)

This section and some other apparently "self-created" sections mingle commercial leadership consultants in with theorists. Without debating the potential value of what Messrs. Carmazzi, Farr and others who have inserted links to their consulting home pages, these shameless self-promoters have blended themselves in with the likes of Burns, Heifetz, House and others who are genuine, reconized theoreticians in the field.

If you do split this page, please park these folks under something called Leadership Training or Consulting, and provide more nuanced analysis of the real scholarship in the field.

This page is at best a good start on the topic. The references at the end are both thin and out of date. 209.244.187.99 10:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

You may wish to actually CHECK the credentials Before you include your own SELF Judgement of "Recognised" theorist. by nature those whos "theories" actually work, are in the consulting business - What are your credentials to determine what works and what does not? this page had some good quotes and material the WAS ACTUALLY USEFUL before it was deleted. And if you think that not recognising who came up with theories just because they are in business, then thats would be just stealing.

Steven Coldwell 211.24.170.130 08:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Moved to talk for discussion
The following two subsections, originally second-level headings after "Leadership in organizations", were added in place of sourced material that even included internal links to related articles. This new information appears to be from a consulting company, so WP:SPAM, WP:COI, and WP:COPY are all concerns as well as proper referencing. --Ronz (talk) 15:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Leadership In Today's World

One of the most important traits as a leader is to lead by example. Followers are able to see for themselves the leader’s values and to use the cliché, actions does speak louder than words. In various teambuilding programmes, facilitators frequently come across frustrated employees who could be model workers but are instead, totally demotivated by the actions, of their leaders.

Many bosses seem to feel that since they are the ones at the top, no one has the right to question their actions. These same bosses will soon realize if they didn’t already, that they are sadly mistaken. Unhappy workers generally result in a drop in productivity and in extreme cases, the employees just look for greener pastures!

Another important trait would be that the leader must feel personally responsible for his resources particularly, the human resource. In the mad chase to achieve our own personal goals, most of us tend to forget that we are dealing with humans, with the ability to feel and think.

An effective leader should also be aware of the needs of the group he is leading and the needs of the individuals. If he is to push for his personal needs alone without consideration for the rest of the members, the leader at the end of the day, may find himself the only member left in the team. This may be the most difficult and tedious among all the necessary traits but as with all natural laws, the higher the sacrifice, the bigger the gain. The outcome of this characteristic would more likely than not result in more permanency of the team.

Leadership in politics
The following isn't yet ready for the article because it is more about political systems than leadership.ChrisTW (talk) 07:30, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Representative democracy
In representative democracies the people retain sovereignty (popular sovereignty) but delegate day-to-day administration and leadership to elected officials. In the United States, for example, the Constitution provides an example of recycling authority. In the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the American Founders rejected the idea of a monarch, but they still proposed leadership by people in positions of authority, with the authority split into three powers: in this case the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary. Under the American theory, the authority of the leadership derives from the power of the voters as conveyed through the electoral college. Many individuals share authority, including the many legislators in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Values-based leadership

According to D'Jungle People Experiential Consultants, great leaders are those with strong foundation with values such as honesty, integrity, fairness and kindness. These virtues in the leader and the members of his team minimizes politicking, in-fighting, back-stabbing and mutual suspicion etc. and who better to set the example than the leader?

With strong values, great leaders are those that are able to cascade down the values throughout the whole organisation and at the same time, enabling team members to achieve their potential.

Removal from criticisms section
I've removed the following block of text from the "Criticism of the concept of leadership" due to the amount of bias contained in it: "Moving to the public domain-presidents, senators, people in congress - such positions are dubbed as leaders. In this domain, representatives ARE desirably NOT "leaders". The representative simply take the view of the group being represented and help to move forward with these objectives. If they don't follow what the representatives have asked, they should easily be removed and replaced. Ask yourself when the last time such a system of representation existed! When "leaders" in the form of politicians come to town there is a parade of celebration and cheering without any room for such rationality but plenty of room for empty rhetoric and in some cases a rock star status.People need to ask themselves why they would want leaders, given the brutal history of such unaccountable people, and not representatives." If anyone has a particular need for this idea to appear in the article, then it will most likely need re-writing and a source to support it.

Leadership and vision
Removed this text as it is uncited and depicts only one perspective about the topic. Editor br (talk) 01:03, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Removed text

Many definitions of leadership involve an element of Goal management|vision — except in cases of involuntary leadership and often in cases of traditional leadership. A vision provides direction to the influence process. A leader or group of leaders can have one or more visions of the future to aid them to move a group successfully towards this goal. A vision, for effectiveness, should allegedly:
 * appear as a simple, yet vibrant, image in the mind of the leader
 * describe a future state, credible and preferable to the present state
 * act as a bridge between the current state and a future optimum state
 * appear desirable enough to energize followers
 * succeed in speaking to followers at an emotional or spiritual level (logical appeals by themselves seldom muster a following)

For leadership to occur, according to this theory, some people "leaders" must communicate the vision to others "followers" in such a way that the followers adopt the vision as their own. Leaders must not just see the vision themselves, they must have the ability to get others to see it also. Numerous techniques aid in this process, including: narratives, metaphors, symbolic actions, leading by example,incentives, and penalty|penalties.

Stacey (1992) has suggested that the emphasis on vision puts an unrealistic burden on the leader. Such emphasis appears to perpetuate the myth that an organization must depend on a single, uncommonly talented individual to decide what to do. Stacey claims that this fosters a culture of dependency and conformity in which followers take no pro-active incentives and do not think independently.

Kanungo's charismatic leadership model describes the role of the vision in three stages that are continuously ongoing, overlapping one another. Assessing the status quo, formulation and articulation of the vision, and implementation of the vision.

Environment leader
Non-notable work to be together with other theories of significant presence in peer-reviewed journals. Editor br (talk) 05:28, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

The environment leader ( Carmazzi, 2005) is the one who nurtures group or organizational environment to affect the emotional and psychological perception of an individual’s place in that group or organization. An understanding and application of group psychology and dynamics is essential for this style to be effective. The leader uses organizational culture to inspire individuals and develop leaders at all levels. This leadership style relies on creating an education matrix where groups interactively learn the fundamental psychology of group dynamics and culture from each other. The leader uses this psychology, and complementary language, to influence direction through the members of the inspired group to do what is required for the benefit of all.

The bureaucratic leader  (Weber, 1905) is very structured and follows the procedures as they have been established. This type of leadership has no space to explore new ways to solve problems and is usually slow paced to ensure adherence to the ladders stated by the company. Leaders ensure that all the steps have been followed prior to sending it to the next level of authority. Universities, hospitals, banks and government usually require this type of leader in their organizations to ensure quality, increase security and decrease corruption. Leaders who try to speed up the process will experience frustration and anxiety.

The charismatic leader(Weber, 1905) leads by infusing energy and eagerness into their team members. This type of leader has to be committed to the organization for the long run. If the success of the division or project is attributed to the leader and not the team, charismatic leaders may become a risk for the company by deciding to resign for advanced opportunities. It takes the company time and hard work to gain the employees' confidence back with other type of leadership after they have committed themselves to the magnetism of a charismatic leader.

The servant leader (Greenleaf, 1977) facilitates goal accomplishment by giving its team members what they need in order to be productive. This leader is an instrument employees use to reach the goal rather than a commanding voice that moves to change. This leadership style, in a manner similar to democratic leadership, tends to achieve the results in a slower time frame than other styles, although employee engagement is higher.

managerial grid/Wikipedia
Does this mean that Jimmy Wales is an impoverished style of leader?--217.112.186.121 (talk) 15:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Edits made to Leadership
Hi, I am not sure what you were trying to do to Leadership, but I reverted your edits. You had removed the headers from a few sections, and replaced them with ;. This made it un-readable. It could also be taken as vandalism, which I don't think it was, I think it may have just been a mistake. Just try to be more careful in the future. Thanks. --Navy blue84 (talk) 13:26, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it was not a mistake, and it was not vandalisme. Please have a look again at my edit and things will become clear. Hopefully considering what I had done as vandalism was a misunderstanding. --Nabeth (talk) 17:05, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
 * to answer more precisly, if you look in the article, dictator is just a subsection of Kurt Lewin styles (I have therefore put it back again). Concerning the removing of the sub-sections, I considred that using a subsection for each level was not neccessary. But I have not restaured this back, becasue this is this time not an error, but a matter of taste. Best regards. --Nabeth (talk) 17:11, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

leadership and emotions
this paragraph is incoherent at the end —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.9.154.26 (talk) 18:03, 1 May 2009 (UTC)