Defining and Researching Leadership as a Behavioral Construct: An Idiographic Approach

The authors first discuss the problem of defining leadership, suggesting three minimal criteria: (1) demonstrated personal causation, (2) observed relationships between behavior and its effects, and (3) substantive performance outcomes. The authors then stress the importance of considering environmental influences on the leadership process and suggest an idiographic approach to researching leadership under such theoretic assumptions for leadership. The rest of the article presents a demonstration study for this approach. After first obtaining qualitative data concerning the problem and the context, the authors use a single-case experimental design to analyze quantitatively the impact that a production manager had on the performance of his unit. The authors feel that this article therefore represents a significant departure from the traditional ways in which leadership has been defined and researched.

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