Academic Study of Leadership
According to Robert Donmoyer, the field of leadership studies “only began to develop during the second half of the twentieth century,” beginning with the theories presented by James MacGregor Burns (who is considered the founding father of the field).[1] In response to his scholarship, there emerged a wide array of conceptions on what leadership is, but no consensus on what leadership studies, as a discipline, should consist of or how it should operate.
A common thread among leadership scholars, however, is acknowledging the difference between management and leadership—the former deals specifically with budgeting, delegation, and strategic planning, whereas the latter is more focused on the “mobilization of people to tackle difficult tasks.”[2]That said, “leadership does not necessarily mean solving problems, but does mean creating the environment and facilitating the processes that enable the community to tackle the issues” they are confronted with.[3]
The academic study of leadership therefore represents an area of study that is beyond a mere “position,” but is rather a process and a relationship among people.[4]As leadership encompasses individual and organizational levels of analysis, and organizations themselves range in size and function, it is problematic to provide a concise definition. To do so would invariably oversimplify a complex, dynamic, and evolving process.[5]It is also unrealistic to expect one variation of leadership to work equally for all organizational contexts.[6]As a result, the study of leadership is best understood as a complex and diverse field of study, one that utilizes various methodological and theoretical approaches.
Largely a leader-centric field of study, leadership has evolved to include follower-centric as well as dyadic and team-centric perspectives. Each of these categories can be divided further, including the study of visionary leadership,[7] destructive leadership,[8] servant leadership,[9] authentic leadership,[10] team leadership,[11]leadership in an executive context,[12]transcendent leadership,[13]and so on.
According to the University of Toronto’s Strategic Leadership Advanced Certificate program, leaders need to know where their organization is headed, how it will get there, and who is going to make it happen.[14] This is essentially why leadership development is crucial to all areas of academia and organizations, whether in Business, Education, Medicine, Engineering, Neuroscience, or Religion. It is, in its very essence, interdisciplinary.
[1]Robert Donmoyer’s course syllabus for LEAD 602: Leadership, Inquiry, and Research, Part I: Conflicting Conceptions of Leadership and Knowledge,
[2] Tricia Bertram Gallant and Cheryl Getz, “Facing Organizational Complexity and Change: A Case-in-Point Approach to Leadership Development,” in Rethinking Leadership In a Complex, Multicultural, and Global Environment: New Concepts and Models for Higher Education, ed. Adrianna Kezar (Sterling: Stylus Publishing, 2009), 97.
[3] Ibid.
[4] “Jepson School of Leadership Studies,” Richmond University, accessed March 18, 2015,
[5] David V. Day, “Introduction: Leadership and Organizations,” in The Oxford Handbook of Leadership and Organizations, ed. David V. Day (New York: The Oxford University Press, 2014), 4
[6] Ibid., 5.
[7] See: Daan van Knippenberg, M. Venus, and D.A. Stam, (2013).“The Value of Emotion in Visionary Leadership.”RSM Insight, 15.3, 8-10; Knippenberg, D.L. van “Making Sense of Who We are: Leadership and Organizational Identity,” in The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Identity, eds. M. Pratt, M. Schulz, B. Ashforth & D. Ravasi(New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).
[8] Robert B. Kaiser and S. Bartholomew Craig, “Destructive Leadership in and of Organizations,” in The Oxford Handbook of Leadership and Organizations, ed. David V. Day (New York: The Oxford University Press, 2014), 260-284.
[9]M. Donia, A. Panaccio, and U. Raja, “Servant Leadership and Employee Well-being: The Moderating Role of Motives” (paper presented at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology annual meeting, Honolulu, USA, May 2014).
[10]Bruce Avolio, S.T. Hannah and F.O. Walumbwa, “Authentic Leadership and Effects on Follower Moral Courage, Psychological Capital, and Performance,” Business Ethics Quarterly 21.4 (2011), 555-557.
[11] James A. Burruss, Debra A. Nunes, and Ruth Wageman, Senior Leadership Teams: What it Takes to Make them Great (Watertown, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2008).
[12]L.A. DeChurch, D. Doty, N.J. Hiller, T. Murase, and E. Salas, (2010). “Leadership Across Levels: Levels of Leaders and their Levels of Impact,”Leadership Quarterly 21.6 (2010), 1065-1089.
[13] John Jacob Zucker Gardiner,“Transcendent Leadership: Pathway to Global Sustainability,”paper presented atWorking Collaboratively for SustainabilityInternational Conference, Seattle University, Seattle, Washington, April 12, 2009.
[14] “Stratetic Leadership Advanced Certificate,” University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, accessed March 18, 2015,