Leadership Models, Methods, and Applications

Abstract Over the last decade, the leadership field has grown in a number of new directions. The models of leadership being developed and intensively studied today focus more on what constitutes charismatic or transformational leadership, as opposed to the transactional models of leadership. More of the literature is being generated from overseas as the discipline of leadership globalizes. Methodologies used to study leadership are expanding and include quantitative and qualitative strategies. Leadership is now being modeled and investigated across levels of analysis, including individual, dyadic, collective or shared, and strategic. And more attention is being directed towards examining leadership in the ‘new’ organizational forms. We've attempted to capture the pace of change in the leadership field and to highlight areas where future research discoveries are needed. Our goal was not to simply review the literature on leadership published since last handbook. Instead, we began by outlining areas that clearly require further exploration like the emerging area of virtual team leadership. We've also highlighted the need to study the complex process of leadership development, given the vast amount of attention and resources being dedicated to this area, as well as the opportunity to have ubiquitous leadership development with support from advanced information technology. We've attempted to cover where leaders come from, who they are, what they do, who follows them, and how the context affects what they are able to accomplish. We've included followers in our discussion of leadership, since without followers the field of leadership would be a glass half full.