ABSTRACT

Many have lost patience with this kind of activity because leadership research findings are often contested and shocking to some, and there is no universally agreed-upon definition of leadership. Until relatively recently, the latter was a cause of some considerable concern (Barker 1997; Rost 1991). Historically, leadership study has been dominated by U.S.-based leadership psychology and, true to form, psychologists generally believe that the answers to questions about leadership reside in the powerful inner motor all leaders supposedly have.1 Moreover, most have done so using the discourse of science and the search for generalizable knowledge. The trouble is this inner motor has rather complex inner workings that resist the urge to generalize either because multivariate research produces too many qualifications and contingencies, or the advice from the business press can be obvious and banal.