Leadership
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Academy of Management Review 2010, Vol. 35, No. 4, 627–647.
WHO WILL LEAD AND WHO WILL FOLLOW? A SOCIAL PROCESS OF LEADERSHIP IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN ORGANIZATIONS
D. SCOTT DERUE SUSAN J. ASHFORD University of Michigan
We propose that a leadership identity is coconstructed in organizations when individuals claim and grant leader and follower identities in their social interactions. Through this claiming-granting process, individuals internalize an identity as leader or follower, and those identities become relationally recognized through reciprocal role adoption and collectively endorsed within the organizational context. We specify the dynamic nature of this process, antecedents to claiming and granting, and an agenda for research on leadership identity and development.
Scholars have begun to question traditional conceptualizations that position leadership as top-down, hierarchical, and equivalent to formal supervisory roles in organizations (Ancona & Backman, 2008; Bedeian & Hunt, 2006). While holding a formal position within an institutionalized hierarchical structure clearly conveys some meaning with respect to leadership, this hierarchical perspective does not explain why some supervisors are not seen as leaders (Bedeian & Hunt, 2006) or why some individuals are seen as leaders despite not holding “leaderlike” positions (Charan, Drotter, & Noel, 2000; Spreitzer & Quinn, 2001). Recently, theorists have begun to conceptualize leadership as a broader, mutual influence process independent of any formal role or hierarchical structure and diffused among the members of any given social system (Bedeian & Hunt, 2006; Collinson, 2005; Gemmill & Oakley, 1992; Gronn, 2002; Parry, 1998; Uhl-Bien, Marion, & McKelvey, 2007). Although references to this distributed form of leadership date back to the work of Selznick (1957), this perspective is becoming more prominent in contemporary leadership theories. For example, Quinn (1996) argues that leadership is a state of...
WHO WILL LEAD AND WHO WILL FOLLOW? A SOCIAL PROCESS OF LEADERSHIP IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN ORGANIZATIONS
D. SCOTT DERUE SUSAN J. ASHFORD University of Michigan
We propose that a leadership identity is coconstructed in organizations when individuals claim and grant leader and follower identities in their social interactions. Through this claiming-granting process, individuals internalize an identity as leader or follower, and those identities become relationally recognized through reciprocal role adoption and collectively endorsed within the organizational context. We specify the dynamic nature of this process, antecedents to claiming and granting, and an agenda for research on leadership identity and development.
Scholars have begun to question traditional conceptualizations that position leadership as top-down, hierarchical, and equivalent to formal supervisory roles in organizations (Ancona & Backman, 2008; Bedeian & Hunt, 2006). While holding a formal position within an institutionalized hierarchical structure clearly conveys some meaning with respect to leadership, this hierarchical perspective does not explain why some supervisors are not seen as leaders (Bedeian & Hunt, 2006) or why some individuals are seen as leaders despite not holding “leaderlike” positions (Charan, Drotter, & Noel, 2000; Spreitzer & Quinn, 2001). Recently, theorists have begun to conceptualize leadership as a broader, mutual influence process independent of any formal role or hierarchical structure and diffused among the members of any given social system (Bedeian & Hunt, 2006; Collinson, 2005; Gemmill & Oakley, 1992; Gronn, 2002; Parry, 1998; Uhl-Bien, Marion, & McKelvey, 2007). Although references to this distributed form of leadership date back to the work of Selznick (1957), this perspective is becoming more prominent in contemporary leadership theories. For example, Quinn (1996) argues that leadership is a state of...