5. Organisations, groups, leaders
In encounters between people or groups of people, many diffe-
rent types of relationships arise. These relationships create the
preconditions for how different situations are dealt with. In these
relationships or preconditions, what is often called leadership oc-
curs. The definitions concerning the leadership concept vary, de-
pending on which literature one consults or who one asks. Leader-
ship is often an elusive concept, but with the help of a number of
general layperson perceptions, a better understanding can be gai-
ned of what leadership entails (Bolman, et al., 1995). The first tells
us that leadership is the ability to get other persons to do what we
want. This perception equates leadership with power, which is a
rather generous definition, while at the same time it represents
a very narrow definition of leadership. Another common percep-
tion of leadership is that leaders through leadership motivate
people to get things done. Results are thus an important aspect of
leadership’s implications. A third perception of leadership is that
leaders provide visions, which adds the factors purpose, objective
and vision. An additional perception of leadership is that it con-
cerns facilitation, i.e. a participative, democratic, facilitative and
supportive task that helps coworkers or followers to find their
way and fulfil their tasks.
Besides these laypersons definitions, researchers in the field
also have their definitions concerning leadership. These defini-
tions are fairly similar. Hogan, et al. (1994) writes that leadership
deals with persuasion, not coercion. Those who cannot get others
to perform tasks for them through either their power or position
are not leaders. Leadership only occurs when other people comply
and follow certain objectives that are placed in or for a group.
There is a relationship between cause and effect, and a relations-
hip by definition between leadership and a group’s performance.
This is described by Hogan (1994) as persuading people to tempo-
rarily put aside individual opinions and following a common ob-