Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Management Department Faculty Publications Management Department 1-2009 Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions Bruce Avolio University of Nebraska - Lincoln, [email protected] Fred Walumbwa Arizona State University, [email protected] Todd J. Weber University of Nebraska - Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/managementfacpub Part of the Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods Commons Avolio, Bruce; Walumbwa, Fred; and Weber, Todd J., "Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions" (2009). Management Department Faculty Publications. 37. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/managementfacpub/37 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Management Department at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Management Department Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Published in Annual Review of Psychology 60 (2009), pp. 421-449; doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163621 Copyright © 2009 by Annual Reviews. Used by permission. http://psych.annualreviews.org Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions 1 2 3 Bruce J. Avolio, Fred O. Walumbwa, and Todd J. Weber 1 Department of Management, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0491; email: [email protected] 2 Department of Management, The Arizona State University, Glendale, Arizona 85306-4908; email: [email protected] 3 Department of Management, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0491; email: [email protected] Abstract This review examines recent theoretical and empirical developments in the leadership literature, beginning with topics that are currently receiving attention in terms of research, theory, and practice. We begin by examining authentic leadership and its development, followed by work that takes a cognitive science approach. We then examine new-genre leadership theories, complexity leadership, and leadership that is shared, collective, or distributed. We examine the role of relationships through our review of leader member exchange and the emerging work on followership. Finally, we examine work that has been done on substitutes for leadership, servant leadership, spirituality and leadership, cross-cultural leadership, and e-leadership. This structure has the benefit of creating a future focus as well as providing an interesting way to examine the development of the field. Each section ends with an identification of issues to be addressed in the future, in addition to the overall integration of the literature we provide at the end of the article. Keywords: authentic leadership, cognitive leadership, complexity leadership, cross-cultural leadership, new-genre leadership, shared leadership Contents Introduction .................................................................................................. 422 Overview of Authentic Leadership ............................................................423 Authentic Leadership Defined ........................................................... 423 Future Focus Required ........................................................................424 Authentic Leadership Development ..........................................................424 Heritability and Leadership ............................................................... 425 Examining Evidence for Positive Leadership Interventions ........ 425 Future Focus Required ....................................................................... 425 Cognitive Psychology and Leadership .................................................... 426 Emerging Cognitive Constructs .........................................................426 Prototypical Abstractions of Leadership ......................................... 427 Future Focus Required ........................................................................428 421 422 AVOLIO, WALUMBwa, & WEBER IN ANNUAL REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY 60 (2009) New-Genre Leadership ................................................................................428 New-Genre Versus Traditional Leadership .................................... 428 Boundary Conditions for New-Genre Leadership ..........................429 Future Focus Required ....................................................................... 429 Complexity Leadership ............................................................................... 430 Complexity and Traditional Leadership Theory ............................ 430 Future Focus Required ....................................................................... 431 Shared, Collective, or Distributed Leadership .........................................431 Shared Leadership Defined .................................................................431 Research Evidence . ..............................................................................432 Leader-Member Exchange ...........................................................................433 Extensions to LMX .............................................................................. 433 Future Focus Required ........................................................................434 Followership and Leadership .................................................................... 434 Romance of Leadership ....................................................................... 434 Updates on Follower-Centric Views .................................................435 Future Focus Required ....................................................................... 435 Substitutes for Leadership ......................................................................... 436 Future Focus Required ....................................................................... 436 Servant Leadership ..................................................................................... 436 Future Focus Required ....................................................................... 437 Spirituality and Leadership .........................................................................437 Future Focus Required ........................................................................437 Cross-Cultural Leadership .........................................................................438 Project GLOBE ..................................................................................... 438 Global Leadership ................................................................................ 438 Comparative Leadership ................................................................... 439 Future Focus Required ........................................................................ 439 E-Leadership ................................................................................................. 439 Common Questions with E-Leadership .......................................... 440 Group and Virtual Tea .........................................................................441 Closing Comments and Integration ...........................................................441 IJ Introduction organization in the United States. Today, the field of leadership focuses not only on the One of our goals for this integrative re- leader, but also on followers, peers, supervi- view is to examine the ways in which the sors, work setting/context, and culture, in- field of leadership is evolving and the conse- cluding a much broader array of individuals quences of its evolutionary path for the mod- representing the entire spectrum of diver- els, methods, and populations examined. For sity, public, private, and not-for-profit orga- example, at the outset of the field of leader- nizations, and increasingly over the past 20 ship, the primary focus was on studying an years, samples of populations from nations individual leader, who was most likely a around the globe. Leadership is no longer male working in some large private-sector simply described as an individual character- LEADERSHIP: CURRENT THEORIES, RESEARCH, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS 423 istic or difference, but rather is depicted in ical piece by Luthans & Avolio (2003), the Authentic leader- various models as dyadic, shared, relational, advent of work on authentic leadership de- ship: a pattern of strategic, global, and a complex social dy- velopment came as a result of writings on transparent and eth- namic (Avolio 2007, Yukl 2006). transformational leadership, in which au- ical leader behav- ior that encourages We organize our examination of how thors such as Bass & Steidlmeier (1999) sug- openness in sharing leadership is evolving by discussing signif- gest that there are pseudo versus authentic information needed icant areas of inquiry that represent current transformational leaders. to make decisions pillars in leadership research, some under- Luthans & Avolio (2003) also introduced while accepting fol- standably taller than others. We highlight the concept of authentic leadership devel- lowers’ inputs the current state of each particular area of opment into the literature with the goal of inquiry, and discuss what we know, what integrating work on (Luthans 2002) positive we don’t know, and what remains interest- organizational behavior with the life-span Transformational leadership: leader ing possibilities to pursue in future research. leadership development work of Avolio behaviors that Given our