Psychology, meet Leadership
From Don Blowowiak's LeadershipNow blog ...
“Despite its importance to the United States and the world, leadership has not been a leading topic in the field of psychology,” writes Robert J. Sternberg of Tufts University in the current issue of American Psychologist, published by the American Psychological Association (to which I happily pay membership dues).
“Most psychology departments.” Sternberg notes, “have no one doing research directly bearing on leadership. Among the highly ranked psychology departments, leadership is scarcely to be found as a topic of research.”
Of course, there is, though Dr. Sternberg doesn’t mention it, specialized leadership academic journals such as The Leadership Quarterly. But, like most business people, most psychologists, and even most leadership development specialists would likely find many of its articles arcane, turgid, and at $141 a year, a tad pricey for the “quarterly” which is published six times a year (indicative of the confusion that reigns in leadership “scholarship”).
Twisted leaders have been the leading cause of death, more virulent than plague. The American Psychologist, the general magazine for myriad professional students of behavior, devotes an entire issue to current theory and research on leadership, “not to present only the latest findings or cutting-edge research, but rather, to serve as a tutorial providing background that might whet readers’ appetites to read more.”
The magazine features pieces from six leading thinkers in the academy (including Sternberg) about the role of personal traits, situations and systems that affect leadership. In my humble opinion, much too little is said or noted about the role of constituents (I hate the term followers!) in the leadership mix. Leadership is at its core a relationship but much too much attention in studies of leadership focus on but one component in that relationship which is why the central “truth” of leadership often seems to evade its investigators. They are looking for cause in the wrong place…
To introduce the special issue, Warren Bennis, the prolific and polished dean of leadership gurus, weighs in on, “The Challenges of Leadership in the Modern World.”
Dr. Bennis confesses, “After studying leadership for six decades, I am struck by how small is the body of knowledge of which I am sure.” He notes that, “the subject is vast, amorphous, slippery, and, above all, desperately important” as a topic worthy of serious study. After all, he points out, “In bad times, which have been plentiful over the millennia, twisted leaders have been the leading cause of death, more virulent than plague.”
Read the rest of the article ...
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“Despite its importance to the United States and the world, leadership has not been a leading topic in the field of psychology,” writes Robert J. Sternberg of Tufts University in the current issue of American Psychologist, published by the American Psychological Association (to which I happily pay membership dues).
“Most psychology departments.” Sternberg notes, “have no one doing research directly bearing on leadership. Among the highly ranked psychology departments, leadership is scarcely to be found as a topic of research.”
Of course, there is, though Dr. Sternberg doesn’t mention it, specialized leadership academic journals such as The Leadership Quarterly. But, like most business people, most psychologists, and even most leadership development specialists would likely find many of its articles arcane, turgid, and at $141 a year, a tad pricey for the “quarterly” which is published six times a year (indicative of the confusion that reigns in leadership “scholarship”).
Twisted leaders have been the leading cause of death, more virulent than plague. The American Psychologist, the general magazine for myriad professional students of behavior, devotes an entire issue to current theory and research on leadership, “not to present only the latest findings or cutting-edge research, but rather, to serve as a tutorial providing background that might whet readers’ appetites to read more.”
The magazine features pieces from six leading thinkers in the academy (including Sternberg) about the role of personal traits, situations and systems that affect leadership. In my humble opinion, much too little is said or noted about the role of constituents (I hate the term followers!) in the leadership mix. Leadership is at its core a relationship but much too much attention in studies of leadership focus on but one component in that relationship which is why the central “truth” of leadership often seems to evade its investigators. They are looking for cause in the wrong place…
To introduce the special issue, Warren Bennis, the prolific and polished dean of leadership gurus, weighs in on, “The Challenges of Leadership in the Modern World.”
Dr. Bennis confesses, “After studying leadership for six decades, I am struck by how small is the body of knowledge of which I am sure.” He notes that, “the subject is vast, amorphous, slippery, and, above all, desperately important” as a topic worthy of serious study. After all, he points out, “In bad times, which have been plentiful over the millennia, twisted leaders have been the leading cause of death, more virulent than plague.”
Read the rest of the article ...
posted by mick yates @ 5:06 PM permalink
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