LEADERSHIP

Leadership



Leadership

Introduction

Leadership is a concept used in many different contexts with an array of meanings. Accordingly, there is a lack of common understanding as to what leadership is and what constitutes exemplary leadership. In fact, a Google search of leadership definition leads to more than 22 million results. In everyday language, the word leadership is used in a variety of ways, resulting in a myriad of quite different understandings of the same word (Northouse, 2010). These different understandings can also be distinguished by something someone is (position), something someone has (skill), and something someone does (activity). These are three different concepts that are worth distinguishing. Some of the significant models of leadership in an organizational context are adaptive leadership and the relational model of leadership.

Annotated Bibliography for Two Articles

Adaptive Leadership

Gary, Y., & Rubina, M. (2010). Why adaptive leadership is essential. New York: Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research.

This study aims to analyze the significance of adaptive leadership. The concept of adaptive leadership is understood, like many adaptive leadership models, as an action or process. It is described that adaptive leadership as “the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive”. They use the word thrive to portray the process by which an organism successfully adapts to changing conditions.

This evolutionary metaphor of a living system needing to adapt to survive is applied to organizations. Organizations exist within the larger system or environment of our global society. Like living organisms, they must learn to adapt to changes in the larger environment. There are many examples of organizations that have failed to adapt and survive due to changes, such as economic downturns, in the larger society. For example, the adaptive challenge of having a younger generation of employees entering the workforce who are more community oriented and technologically savvy could be ...