Deana M. Raffo

Teaching followership in leadership education.

This paper provides leadership educators with a resource for teaching followership. It presents a lesson for teaching students about followership in contemporary society by including key concepts and follower characteristics followed by class activities and assignments designed to engage students in active learning and self-reflective processes. A dose of whimsy enhances this lesson with the use of a YouTube video that eloquently and humorously illustrates the crucial role followers play in organizational life.

A potential generation gap: perspectives on female leadership

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the potential relationship between generational membership and perspectives on female leadership. Design/methodology/approach – Participants from Generation X (birth years from 1961 to 1980) and Generation Y (birth years from 1981 to 2000) rated 10 descriptor words, which came from Kouzes and Posner’s ten most admired leadership characteristics. Participants were put into three gender conditions: rating a male leader, female leader or gender-neutral leader. Findings – Differences did not emerge for the gender conditions, probably due to the methodology implemented. However, findings indicated that Generation X members admired competency and honesty more than Generation Y members, while Generation Y members admired ambitiousness and determination more than Generation X members. Social implications – By examining the perceptions of different generations, we can begin to track potential changes in this country’s perspective on female leadership. Originality/v...

Charisma as an attribute of transformational leaders: what about credibility?

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model describing potential relationships among transformational leadership, charisma, credibility and organizational performance.,This paper is conceptual, based on a review of current transformational leadership, charisma and credibility literature.,The authors present a model where credibility is an antecedent of transformational leadership; transformational leadership has a positive effect on organizational performance; and charisma positively moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational performance.,A model to integrate credibility into transformational leadership research is proposed.,This paper considers credibility as an important attribute of transformational leadership, and thus credibility may have significant implications for practitioners in leadership development strategies.,Currently, there is a lack of research on the role of credibility in leadership. The authors discuss the importance of measuring leader credibility and generating a credibility scale.