Post-Heroic Leadership

Paper Summary:

This essay critically evaluates post-heroic leadership in the light of the leadership theories. It does this by first demonstrating how complicated and contested the term "leadership" is. It then gives a brief summary of Huey's understanding of what post-heroic leadership is. The essay critically evaluates post-heroic leadership (as Huey sees it) through the perspective of the Trait theories of leadership, the behavioral theories of leadership (through a close look at the Michigan studies), the contingency theories, and the more modern Transactional and Transformational leadership models.

From the Paper:

"Even when experts agree that management and leadership are different concepts, experts still disagree as to what the reasons are for this difference (Robbins, 1998). Greenberg and Baron claim that the primary function of a leader is to "create the essential purpose or mission of an organization and the strategy for attaining it" (Greenberg & Baron, 1997, p434). They then contrast this with what they say is the job of a manager: to implement the vision that the leader has come up with. They therefore believe that the difference between the leader and the manager is that manager's cope with "complexity", whereas leaders cope with "change" (Greenberg & Baron, 1998). They claim that the confusion between these two terms stems from the fact that the distinction between establishing a mission and implementing it is often blurred in practice. This is because many leaders are called upon not only to come up with the vision, but also to help manage and implement it. Another reason for the difficulty in attempting to distinguish between managers and leaders is that, while many managers do not make good leaders, a substantial proportion of managers do (Greenberg & Baron: 1998). "

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