The emergence of individual and collective leadership in task groups: A matter of achievement and ascription

Abstract

This review synthesizes conceptual and empirical research on the emergence of individual and collective leadership in task groups, and proposes avenues for leadership research. To advance multilevel study of leadership emergence, including emergence of distributed and shared leadership, the paper reviews research on individual leader emergence, structured around two identified theoretical mechanisms-one of leadership achievement (i.e., based on functional behaviors) and another of leadership ascription (i.e., based on nominal characteristics). These approaches compete to elucidate individual leader emergence in task groups as influenced by individual traits, states, and behaviors. However, current approaches to leadership in groups rely on functional achievement explanations of how collective leadership emerges, influenced by positive states and behaviors. Attention to ascription-achievement mechanisms in leadership emergence is warranted at the collective level of analysis.

Gender and leadership emergence: A meta‐analysis and explanatory model

“…Having provided arguments for why agency and communion are related to participation, we now address the relation of participatory behavior with leader emergence. Consistent with the "babble hypothesis," which theorizes that those who speak more are viewed as leaderlike (Bass, 1990, p. 93;Riggio, Riggio, Salinas, & Cole, 2003), past research indicates that participation is a concrete action that prompts others to infer an individual is well-suited for the leader role (Bales, Strodtbeck, Mills, & Roseborough, 1951;Bass, 1949;Leaper & Ayres, 2007;Mullen et al, 1989;Zeleny, 1939; for a review see Paunova, 2015). Scholars have theorized that participation affects emergent leadership perceptions by increasing members' relative salience within the group (Mullen et al, 1989;Shaw, 1959).…”

Political activity of the Russian youth: a mobilization potential of the sources of political information

“…More than that, the growth of social demand for an effective management system [29] and power institutions for political innovation sounds more and more actively. Various scholars talk about an objective request to study the youth motivation for participation in public and political projects in leadership positions [30], as well as the principles of organizing the work of leaders with members of their movements and organizations [31], [32], [33], [34]. Independent objects of analysis are the leadership phenomena for the young people studying in high school [35], as well as differences in leadership models of various representatives from certain gender groups [36].…”

Collective Global Leadership in Self-Managed Multicultural Teams: The Role of Team Goal Orientation

“…One strong value-added component of this present research is that it bridges the study of global leadership with the study of collective, shared, and distributed forms of leadership, which has recently been of scholarly interest (Paunova, 2015). The literature on collective leadership views leadership very differently from traditional views of leadership, arguing that leadership is an emergent process that is not housed in one individual but rather is distributed throughout a group, arising and subsiding in different individuals or subgroups of individuals.…”