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The Socila Scientific Study of Leadership: Quo Vadis

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The attached article, "The Socila Scientific Study of Leadership: Quo Vadis?" reviews the history of the study of leadership and the prevailing theories of leadership that have gain empirical support.

Define leadership and contrast leadership and management. What do you consider the 3 most important differences between leaders and managers? Substantiate your arguments with material from the House & Aditya article or other articles on the topic.

Summarize the conclusions of trait theories of leadership. Also try to identify the main differences between past and more recent trait theories.

Identify the central tenets and main limitations of behavioral theories.

Describe the main contribution of contingency theory of leadership.

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The Socila Scientific Study of leadership is examined.

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Leadership:

Leadership is defined as the process through which a group or individual influences others to obtain certain objectives and goals which results to improved in the direction of an organization both in coherency and cohesiveness. It can also be defined as the ability to inspire and motivate others to take a new direction that will improve the efficiency and coherency of the group. Leaders are able to do this by applying their leadership skills and knowledge. Though leadership is learned the knowledge and skills that are processed by the leader are often influenced by their traits and attributes such as character, ethics, values and beliefs. Skills and knowledge are said to directly leadership process that a person uses while the personal attributes and traits are what makes a leader unique (Bateman & Snell, 2007).

Contrasting Leadership and management:

Unlike leadership as defined above, management is a process of exercising supervisory, administrative and executive direction of an organization in order to improve organizational performance. A basic contrast of this two is that a manager often leads while a leader manages. A person can be a great manager, a great leader or both, but both these two areas often require a mastery of certain competencies and skills. While management produces consistency and order, a leader produces change and movement. A leader innovates while a manager administers, a leader develops while a manager maintains, a leader inspires trust but a manager relies on control. While a leader has a long range perspective, a manager often has a short term perspective, a leader is followed while a manager rules, a leader originates while a manager imitates, a leader asks what and why while a leader asks how and when, a leader focuses on people while a manager focuses of structures and systems, a leader investigates while a manage accepts reality, a leader challenges the status quo, while a manager accepts the status quo, and finally a leader has her or his eye on the horizon while a manager has his/ her eyes on the bottom line (Coutts, 2000; House & Aditya, 1997).

Three most important ...

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