Synonyms
Accountability; Ethics; Followers; Integrity; Leaders; Legitimacy; Probity; Responsibility; Supporters
Introduction: Assessing Leadership
This account of leadership effectiveness is a general guide to a complicated problem. The core problem is how we measure the impacts leaders have and how we distinguish effective from ineffective leaders. Students of leadership encounter many examples of excellent or poor leadership, and of admirable or regrettable individual leaders. The task is to reflect on these examples and to devise a systemic account of leadership effectiveness to help explain the general difference between excellent and poor leadership. This entry develops one such systemic account reflecting recent examinations of leadership where ethics is often the missing ingredient.
Individual leaders have certain qualities of vision and inspiration which help them make their influence. Leaders are characterized by an inner sense of vision which helps them accept the heavy...