True Leadership: Leading with Meaning

Abstract

Leadership is an enduring subject for research, writing, and discussion. There are almost endless theoretical and fundamental explanations as to what leadership is and what makes a good leader. The research has gone through various different phases. Intended for all audiences but specifically written for an Executive Education course, this technical note identifies some of the contemporary theories and prominent thinkers in the field of leadership and outlines the basics of their views. Excerpt UVA-E-0364 Rev. Dec. 2, 2011 True Leadership: Leading with Meaning Leadership is one of the world's oldest preoccupations. —Bernard Bass Leadership is an enduring subject for research, writing, and discussion. There are almost endless theoretical and fundamental explanations as to what leadership is and what makes a good leader. As Ralph Stogdill observes in his 900-page survey of scholarly research on the topic, “There are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept.” It seems that practically every CEO of a Fortune 500 company has written his or her own leadership book—some bestsellers, many not—as have a host of politicians and presidents. Many of these works fall into a blueprint format and invariably portray the leader as succeeding against Herculean obstacles and barriers. Then there is a raft of motivational books on leadership, but the sad fact of these, according to Bruce Pasternack, “is that leadership manuals deliver mainly truisms, pap, and gross generalizations.” And few even attempt to describe the process of becoming a leader. . . .