Some of the leadership processes that are most likely to add significant value at higher organizational
levels however, may involve indirect and systems-wide influence. For instance, middle managers are
responsible for managing multiple units, and typically providing direction to managers two or more
lower levels apart. Top-level leaders provide system-wide direction and influence, and in many cases
never meet all of the followers they influence (Hunt, 1991; Jacobs & Jaques, 1987; Zaccaro, 2001). In
this respect, leadership can be conceptualized as leading the organization, which has been studied
from a different disciplinary perspective, the strategic management perspective.
In the late 1980s, several social science researchers began to question whether leadership actually
made a difference in organizations while others suggested that perhaps the study of leadership had
reached its culminating point (Boal & Hooijberg, 2000). Despite their value in explaining subordinate
affect and team performance, dyadic leadership functions were unable to explain all the effects that
have been attributed to the leadership phenomenon (such as organizational outcomes) (Bass & Avolio,
1993)³%\WKHmid-1980s, a metamorphosis away from the study of supervisory leadership (House &
Aditya, 1997) WRZDUGWKHVWXG\RIVWUDWHJLFOHDGHUVKLSKDGEHJXQ ́(Boal & Hooijberg, 2000, pp. 515-
516). With this change in emphasis came a new found sense of excitement initially centering on
Upper Echelon theory (Hambrick & Mason, 1984) and the study of Top Management Teams (TMTs).
Whereas supervisory leadership theories focus on task- and people-oriented behaviors of leaders as
they attempt to provide guidance, support and feedback to subordinates (House & Aditya, 1997),
strategic leadership implies behaviors which aim at ensuring the prosperity and survival of the
organization (Boal & Hooijberg, 2000).
A valuable direction for future leadership is to more fully integrate the micro-and macro-oriented
perspectives of leadership (Hiller et al., 2011). Regarding leadership research, Blair and Hunt (1985)
argued, ³,IIXWXUHUHVHDUFKHIIRUWVDUHWREHRIJUHDWHUYDOXHWKDQWKRVHGRQHXSWRWKLVSRLQWWKH\PXVW
be collectively located within a broader and integrative program of research ́ (p.273). Their claim was
voiced in 1985, however, it still holds today. Ways of understanding leadership have surfaced in
different disciplines with limited, if any, cross-fertilization. Psychologists and those trained in micro
organizational behavior have taken issues such as job attitudes, work motivation, absenteeism,
turnover, and stress as their purview. Strategy researchers and those trained in macro organizational
behavior have, in turn, laid claim to issues such as organizational structure, strategy and environment.
This micro-macro split has become institutionalized. There are now separate divisions of the
American Psychological Association and the Academy of Management, and these separate divisions