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The Role Of Leadership As A Leader Centric Or Individual Level Phenomenon

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The conceptualization of leadership as a leader-centric or individual level phenomenon has long been dominant in both research and practice (Friedrich et al. 2009). As organizations have taken on more complex structures in response to the speed of operational, strategic and technological change, the limitations of top-down models of leadership are increasingly apparent (Thorpe et al. 2011). In response, there has been significant advancement in research on a number of different constructs that describe those situations where leadership is a shared process rather than the role of a single individual. These include shared and distributed leadership (Carson et al., 2007; Gronn 2002; Pearce & Conger 2003; Pearce et al. 2008), team leadership (Burke et al. 2011; Day et al. 2004), and collective leadership (Friedrich et al. 2014; Friedrich et al. 2009; Mumford et al. 2012). These concepts, within this nascent area of collectivistic leadership research and practice, are at times used interchangeably and at times differentiated through various models. This ambiguity, and the limited base of empirical research support, is a key challenge for future research and practice.

The aim of this paper is to review the relevant literature on the concept of collectivistic leadership in order to determine to what extent it can be understood as a singular model of leadership theory, and to identify areas for further research.

This paper focuses principally on Friedrich et al.’s (2014)

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