departments are replaced by highly autonomous teams, organized around products, processes, clients
or services. A presumption in the traditional bureaucracy is that the higher the organizational level, the
more information the individual possesses and the better informed he or she is with respect to goal
setting and decision making. In the new forms, hierarchical organization is seen to give way to
RSHUDWLQJ ³KRUL]RQWDOO\ ́ 'ecisions are pushed downward to where relevant knowledge and
information reside.
Hence, the 21st century presents a context where there is an increased awareness of the need for shared
leadership, going beyond the impact of the individual leader, in order to generate faster learning to be
able to keep up with competition in a globalized economy. Related to this primary observation on the
current context are several sub-observations, i.e. 1) the scope of leadership has increased, from
focusing merely on internal functioning of the organization to including the external alignment of the
firm with its environment, 2) the meaning and function of different organizational levels is changing
and 3) smaller units are gaining in autonomy, functioning as small organizations. These sub-
observations are elaborated in subsequent chapters of this dissertation.
1.3 RESEARCH CONTEXT
One may argue that the leadership research context lags behind the current timeframe. Mainstream
leadership theories are (still) strongly embedded in the Industrial paradigm. These theories adopt a
reductionistic, Newtonian worldview, that aim to understand the leadership phenomenon by studying
its parts in isolation, focusing on individuals (i.e. leaders and followers) and their individual
perceptions, intentions, behaviors and personalities (Hollander, 1978; Uhl-Bien et al., 2000).
Mainstream leadership research builds on a taken-for-granted individualism. Traditional models of
leadership are based on the assumption that the leadership role is played by a single individual (Pearce
& Conger, 2003a) or by multiple individuals with separate responsibilities for different organizational
units following the institutional arrangement in an organizational hierarchy. Burns (1978) formulated
it well in his book, Leadership, and the quote has become famous ever since: ³7KHIXQGDPHQWDOFULVLV
underlying mediocrity [of leadership and leaders] is intellectual. If we know all too much about our
leaders, we know far too little about leadership [...] Leadership is one of the most observed and least
understood phenomena on eartK ́(pp. 1-2). In the same book, Burns (1978) lamented that there is no
school of leadership. He repeated this claim in the 1980s, describing leadership theory as being highly
diverse and lacking integration by quoting the observation of Stogdill (1974), which has been repeated
subsequently by Bass (1990a) that, ³7KHUHDUHDOPRVWDVPDQ\GLIIHUHQWGHILQLWLRQVRIOHDGHUVKLSDV
WKHUHDUHSHUVRQVZKRKDYHDWWHPSWHGWRGHILQHWKHFRQFHSW ́(p.11).