ABSTRACT
Most of the chapters in this volume were presented as papers at a small research conference held in 2001 at the Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The purpose of this conference was to explore new ideas about the psychology of leadership, an important and long-enduring research topic within the field of social psychology. It was the opinion of the editors of this book and the conveners of the conference that the social psychological study of leadership had launched off into several new, interesting, and important directions. It was also our belief that interest in the topic, within both social and organizational psychology as well as within the business community, had grown rapidly. It was an ideal time, therefore, to ask some of the world’s leading scholars to come together to describe their thinking and research. This book is the result of those efforts. The contributions span traditional social psychological areas as well as organizational theory. They examine leadership as a psychological process and leadership as afforded by organizational constraints and opportunities. Our goal has not been to focus the chapters on a single approach to the study and conceptualization of leadership but rather to display the diversity of issues that surround the topic.
