The Nature of Organizational Leadership: Understanding the Performance Imperatives Confronting Today's Leaders (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) [Hardcover]

Stephen J. Zaccaro (Editor), Richard J. Klimoski (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0787952907 | ISBN-13: 978-0787952907 | Publication Date: March 21, 2001 | Edition: 1

The quality of an organization's top leaders is a critical influence on its overall effectiveness and continuing adaptability. Yet, little current research examines leadership within the context of organizational structure, such as how leaders influence organizational performance in those key moments when an executive's action is critical to driving the organization forward. This book represents a significant contribution to the literature of leadership, combining a contextual approach to organizational leadership with an in-depth treatment of the cognitive, social, and affective dynamics underlying that leadership. The Nature of Organizational Leadership, using an interdisciplinary approach that draws from the work of scholars in both management and psychology, provides a much-need organizational perspective on the problems to confronted by top executive leaders and the requisite behaviors, attributes, and outcomes necessary to lead organizations effectively.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book does an excellent job of integrating the leadership literature...." (Personnel Psychology, Spring 2002)

From the Inside Flap

Leadership has always been a major topic of research in psychology, spawning thousands of empirical and conceptual studies. Too often, however, such findings assume that leadership at the top of the organization reflects the same psychological and sociological dynamics as leadership at lower organizational levels. This book, the fourteenth volume in the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology's Organizational Frontiers Series, brings together scholars from the fields of both management and psychology to offer a more broadly defined perspective of organizational leadership, showing how the quality of leadership clearly changes across organizational levels.This valuable resource describes the nature of organizational leadership and the performance imperatives-cognitive, personal, political, technological, financial, and staffing-confronting organizational leaders. Examining these imperatives in detail, the book weaves them into postulates for effective leadership at the top of the organization. The authors identify the "leadership moments" those imperatives give rise to-the places where key leadership decisions, choices, and actions need to occur to ensure organizational effectiveness-and describe their implications for practice and application. The contributors describe the leadership attributes and processes needed to meet performance imperatives and explore how to identify and develop effective executives, examining leader selection, training and development, and assessment. The Nature of Organizational Leadership provides a contextual framework for understanding executive leadership that is lacking in prior theories and models in the psychological literature, systematically integrating multidisciplinary contributions to produce a conceptual perspective that will influence future research on organizational leadership. Stephen J. Zaccaro is associate professor of psychology and associate director of the Center for Behavioral and Cognitive Studies at George Mason University. He is the coauthor (with Anne W. Riley) of Occupational Stress and Organizational Effectiveness.Richard J. Klimoski is professor of psychology, director of the Center for Behavioral and Cognitive Studies, and associate dean, College of Arts and Sciences, at George Mason University. He is the coauthor (with Neal W. Schmitt) of Research Methods in Human Resources Management.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Pfeiffer; 1 edition (March 21, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787952907
• ISBN-13: 978-0787952907
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,800 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THOUGHFULLY PROBING THE NATURE AND DYNAMCIS OF LEADERSHIP., July 24, 2001

By 

Gerry Stern "Stern's Management Review Online" (Culver City, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Nature of Organizational Leadership: Understanding the Performance Imperatives Confronting Today's Leaders (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) (Hardcover)

This book on leadership, well grounded in research, distinguishes itself by seeking to move the study of leadership forward through integrating literature from the strategic management area and psychological literature.

The book's key theme is that understanding leadership requires fathoming the contextual dynamics underlying and driving it. These dynamics give rise to critical periods when organizational effectiveness demands leadership-specific leadership moments.

The chapters explore seven leadership performance imperatives: (1) cognitive (information processing and problem-solving); (2) social (interpersonal skills, roles); (3) personal (e.g., career and image management); (4) political (cultivating and using of power); (5) technological (use and impact of technology); (6) financial; and (7) senior staffing (recruiting, assessing, developing people).

Each essay represents insightful thinking. The chapter on behavioral complexity and social intelligence, for example, concludes that there are the four key qualities of executive leadership work: co-option of stakeholders, foresight, systems thinking, and the creation of structure. This is just a snippet, but, hopefully, gives you some sense of the book's richness. This is a first-rate book on leadership! Stern's Management Review Online highly recommends it. We believe that this collection of essays provides a significant contribution to understanding the nature and dynamics of leadership. Its overall quality, organization, and, most importantly, wealth of thoughtful content make this book a top-notch addition to any business library.