ABSTRACT
What is distance in leadership relationships? Much of the interest in distance and leadership stems from two sources: First, a growing recognition that the majority of leadership theories have been presented as theories that apply equally to all levels of leadership and this may be a mistake. Thus, transformational leadership theory (Bass & Avolio, 1993), for instance, has been presented as applying equally to the leadership of CEOs and to the leadership of first-line supervisors. Yet the two situations are very different in many respects, one of which is the fact that upper echelon leaders do not have direct contacts with the majority of their followers and the latter do not have direct experiences with the leader. This difference may have significant implications for the nature of the leadership process and for the relationships which develop between leaders and followers. For instance, the reasons for accepting and following a direct leader may be different from the reasons for accepting and following a distant leader.
