Overview of the current leadership theories: what it means to lead?

Abstract

Like all terms in social science, the concept of leadership is obviously arbitrary and subjective. Over the last decade, important advancements have been made contributing to our understanding of effec-tive leadership. Although recent theoretical works have emphasized the context sensitivity of leadership, empirical research in this field is still rare. As a consequence, scientists and practitioners still cannot rec-ommend specific leadership behaviors to organizational leaders for certain situations with any great cer-tainty, as knowledge in this field is fragmentary. This gap in the literature calls for research on the im-portant area of the contextual dimensions of organizational processes such as leadership.