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Essay on Leadership in Organizations

Decent Essays

© National College for School Leadership 2003 1
Leadership in Organizations
Gary Yukl
2001, Prentice Hall
Gary Yukl is Professor of Management and Leadership at the State University of New York in
Albany, and a board member of the Leadership Quarterly journal. He is a well-known scholar and author on leadership. Leadership in Organizations was first published in 1981. This fifth edition was published in 2002, and the formerly 19 chapters have been consolidated into 15
(which includes a new chapter on ethical leadership and diversity). This has been done in order to accommodate a 15-week course.
Each chapter covers a particular aspect of leadership research study, with a concluding summary and questions for …show more content…

Yukl observes that much of the research over the last 50 years has involved dyadic (one individual to another specific individual) relationships between a leader and a follower. Within this context, he goes on to look at a number of follower-based theories including: leader-member exchange (LMX), leader attributions about subordinates, follower attributes and implicit theories, follower contributions to effective leadership, and social learning theory (self-management). All of this emphasises the importance of the follower role to a leader. Within the 10 guidelines the author proposes for becoming an effective follower, he suggests specific phrases which might be used in a given situation; for example, in a situation where a follower might disagree with a proposed action by a leader: “You know I respect what you are trying to accomplish, and I hope you won’t mind if I express some honest concerns about this proposal”.
Yukl states at three points within the text that “influence is the essence of leadership”. This is covered in Chapter 6, which concerns power and influence. Here different types of power are studied, though the focus is on the French and Raven taxonomy of five types of power: reward, coercive, legitimate, expert and referent. Guidelines are proposed for using legitimate authority, reward authority and coercive power. Yukl even describes the tone of voice a leader

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