James G. Hunt

Toward a contextual theory of leadership

We propose moving leadership theory and research to another level—one that recognizes that current leadership scholarship is not invalid but incomplete. Such scholarship needs to be looked at in different ways and with various approaches relevant for different circumstances. Macro views need increasing recognition, but to supplement rather than replace currently emphasized meso/micro perspectives. Also, human agency is not to be replaced with mechanistic prescription, but leadership scholars are in a position to contribute to the strategy and organization theory research that currently minimizes leader influence. This philosophy is illustrated through the interplay of leadership with the four contexts of: stability, crisis, dynamic equilibrium, and edge of chaos; the latter operationalized through a complexity theory/dynamic systems perspective. We discuss each context and leadership, in terms of patterning of attention and network leadership, and conclude with a brief measurement treatment. These contexts encourage researchers to reconsider temporality, causal relations, units of analysis, and dependent variables consistent with the social construction of human agency within the given context, to develop more robust models and leadership understanding.

Transformational/charismatic leadership's tranformation of the field: An historical essay

Abstract I use a framework by Reichers and Schneider (1990) to explore the evolution of leadership research across time. This analysis leads to development of the doom and gloom arguments about the field in the 1970s and early 1980s. Transformational and charismatic leadership is discussed as it takes off following the doom and gloom period. That takeoff is followed by revisiting the shift to transformational/charismatic leadership and considering why some of the leading and next-generation scholars set off in this new direction. I then link transformational/charismatic leadership with more traditional approaches and finish with conclusions concerning forces for change, assessing where the leadership field is currently, and providing a future assessment with some caveats. I conclude that a crucial contribution of transformational/charismatic leadership has been in terms of its rejuvenation of the leadership field, regardless of whatever content contributions it has made. This rejuvenation came about because of what most would consider a paradigm shift that has attracted numerous new scholars and moved the field as a whole out of its doldrums.

Leadership Complexity and Development of the leaderplex Model

Researchers have considered cognitive, social, and behavioral aspects of leadership, but except for Zaccaro (1996a, 1996b), not all three simultaneously. A comprehensive treatment of all three aspects in one model enhances the understanding of leadership. We review research in the areas of cognitive, social, and behavioral complexity and propose an integrative framework—the Leaderplex Model. We set forth propositions to stimulate integrative, empirical leadership research in such areas as diversity, global organizations, team-based organizations, charisma, and hierarchy.

The effects of visionary and crisis-responsive charisma on followers: An experimental examination of two kinds of charismatic leadership

Abstract A single factor, seven-level, repeated measures, unbalanced experiment was conducted with 191 college undergraduates to test Boal and Brysons (1988) assertions that: (1) there are at least two forms of charismatic leadership under crisis conditions—visionary and crisis-responsive; and (2) once the crisis condition has abated, the effects of crisis-responsive leadership deteriorate comparatively faster than other forms of charismatic leadership. The experiment consisted of four crisis condition leadership treatments (crisis-responsive, visionary under crisis, exchange under crisis, and low expressiveness under crisis) and three no-crisis condition leadership treatments (visionary no crisis, exchange no crisis, and low expressiveness no crisis) at time one followed by low expressiveness no crisis at time two. Two graduate student “leaders” who memorized carefully prepared scripts delivered the leadership treatments. Analysis consisted of 28 a priori comparisons of cell means and repeated measures ANOVA to determine significant main effects as well as interactions. We found support for our hypothesis that there are two forms of charisma (visionary and crisis-responsive) and that, in the absence of crisis, the effects of crisis responsive charisma decay faster than do the effects of visionary charisma. Some men see things as they are and ask why? I dream things that never were and ask, why not? —Robert F. Kennedy as quoted in Teds eulogy for Robert ( Kennedy, 1968 , p. 58) There are no great men. There are only great challenges which ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet. —W. F. “Bull” Halsey in Lay and Gilroy (1959) The quotes above capture the essence of much of the current literature concerning charismatic leadership. Is charisma primarily based on the vision of an extraordinary leader or does it evolve from rising to face extraordinary circumstances, such as a crisis? Strong adherents of Weber (e.g., Beyer, 1999; Trice & Beyer, 1986 , pp. 118–119) argue that he considers the following five interacting elements as crucial in producing charisma: 1. An extraordinarily gifted person; 2. A social crisis or situation of desperation; 3. A set of ideas providing a radical solution to the crisis; 4. A set of followers who are attracted to the exceptional person and who come to believe that he or she is directly linked to transcendent powers; and 5. The validation of that persons extraordinary gifts and transcendence by repeated successes. Trice and Beyer (1986) viewed charisma as a sociological phenomenon that emerged from the interaction of all of these elements, and argued that all of them must be present to some degree for charisma to occur.

Environment and Organizational Effectiveness.

I This research was partially supported by the College of Business Administration, Kent State University and the Office of Research and Projects, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. The authors are indebted to Arlyn Melcher and Anant Neghandi for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Assistance with the statistical analysis was provided by Buddy Myers and Richard Pope. This investigation of environmental complexity is based on a unique conceptual view of organizational environments which distinguishes among broad factors facing many organizations, conditions unique to a system, and interorganizational characteristics. Environmental complexity is viewed as the interaction between environmental risk, dependency, and interorganizational relationships. Research questions concerning complexity in the task environment are investigated in 26 small, rigidly structured social service organizations in a populous midwestern state. Results show that neither complexity nor risk is associated with organizational effectiveness. Both task environment dependency and interorganizational interaction alone and in combination are positively and significantly correlated with effectiveness. Some of the results may be unique to the sample, but a separation of internal and external conditions alters typical interpretations of external impacts. A more careful differentiation among internal, external, and linkage variables is recommended.1

Leadership déjà vu all over again

Much leadership literature neglects its historical-contextual antecedents and as a result over-emphasizes zeitgeist, or tenor of the times social forces. This neglect impedes leadership research by encouraging academic amnesia and promoting a strong feeling of research deja vu among many researchers and practitioners. In this article, we develop a leadership historical-contextual superstructure consisting of evolutionary antecedents, paradigmatic antecedents, purpose and definitional antecedents, stakeholder antecedents, levels of analysis and temporal antecedents, and research dissemination antecedents. We use this superstructure to analyze current work in the increasingly important relational leadership research stream to illustrate how the superstructures use can aid leadership researchers and practitioners in avoiding leadership deja vu and academic amnesia and help build a more cumulative field.

Entrepreneurial Processes as Virtuous and Vicious Spirals in a Changing Opportunity Structure: A Paradoxical Perspective

We develop the beginnings of a grounded theory of entrepreneurship based on the idea that entrepreneurship, in terms of a changing opportunity structure–-consisting of opportunity detection, opportunity facilitation and motivation to pursue opportunity–-can be viewed through a paradoxical perspective that considers the interplay of organizational and individual capabilities as virtuous and vicious spirals across time. The virtuous spiral led toward successful change because of supportive organizational and individual capabilities across time. The vicious spiral led away from successful change because of countervailing organizational and individual capabilities. Paradoxically, however, we found that entrepreneurship developed in both types of spirals. We discuss these points based on two case studies of Finnish banks and bank managers within the fundamentally changing opportunity structure of the banking business in the late 1980s.

Multi-level leadership: Grounded theory and mainstream theory applied to the case of general motors

Abstract Selected aspects of Hunts (1991) extended multiple-organizational-level leadership model are used in an illustrative analysis of a case narrative emphasizing Roger Smiths almost decade-long tenure as chair and CEO at General Motors. The illustrative analysis compares and contrasts ways in which grounded theory and mainstream perspectives can be applied to help explain what occurred at various hierarchical-organizational levels during Smiths tenure. Propositions based on the case narrative and selected aspects of Hunts model are developed and discussed in terms of grounded theory and mainstream perspectives. Two illustrative propositions are analyzed using levels-of-analysis theory in combination with the hierarchical organizational levels emphasized in Hunts framework.

International perspectives on international leadership

Abstract The ever-increasing awareness by businesses in every part of the world that distant organizations and distant events affect their own activities is driving new thinking about leadership just as it has affected all areas of business. Corporate-level leaders—chief executives and top-level management teams—find themselves challenged by a broad array of strategic alternatives for engaging in global competition. Leaders at all organization levels find themselves concerned with matters of multicultural relations and whether, what, and how cross-border learnings may be possible. Scholars working with international leadership find motivation for their research in these pressing problems. They grapple with questions of how far scientific social research can take us, and how the organization science ideas and methods developed in the United States and other technologically-advanced societies can be used elsewhere in the world. In this article, we deal with the kinds of efforts underway to deal with tensions between global consistency and local uniqueness in the nature and exercise of phenomena related to what social scientists have come to analyze under the label “leadership.” These tensions affect scholarly exchange no less than they affect multinational management. This article offers a context for this focus for both international leadership research, in general, and the work in this special issue, in particular.

Top management leadership: Inside the black box

Abstract Based on leadership categorization theory from the cognitive sciences, a partial model of top management leadership is developed. The model looks inside the leadership black box and considers the personal and organizational consequences of matches and mismatches between three levels (superordinate, basic and subordinate) and two dimensions (substantive/content and symbolic/process) of leadership category prototypes and perceived leadership behaviors. The model also considers the impact of environmental, industry, organizational and personal background variables on the leadership category prototypes. The prototype/behavior match notion is explicated in considerable conceptual and empirical detail to encourage future research and the research implications of the model in general are discussed.