Thinking about leadership: contributions and contexts

It is useful to think of leadership in terms of the person, one-to-one relationships, a team approach and the collective relationships between groups. Discussion has explored many approaches, from behavioural to contingency and transformational approaches and beyond. Contingency leadership, for instance, emphasises the leader's attempts to match leader’s behaviour to various situations. The transformational leadership approach continues to dominate much of the literature, and recent research appears to support the view that successful contemporary leaders possess facilitative, charismatic and inspirational skills. Standardised organisational routines and different industry-specific contexts are common leadership obstacles; leaders must consider context in any transformation attempt.