530 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 9 No. 4 1998

Leadership: Theory and Practice By Peter G. Northouse and Associates Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications; 1997 274 + xviii pp., $22.95 (paper), ISBN O-8039-5769-6

Reviewed by John J. Sosik, Department of Management and Organization, The Pennsylvania State University, Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies, 30 East Swedesford Road, Malvern, PA 19355.

Peter G. Northouse and associates have targeted Leadership: Theory and Practice toward advanced undergraduate and graduate students. The book includes twelve crisp and concise chapters, each containing four sections. The first section presents a specific leadership topic and summarized relevant leadership research findings. The second section highlights strengths and criticisms of the leadership topic from both research and managerial perspectives. The third section discusses managerial application of the leadership topic along with three brief case studies. The fourth section presents a leadership questionnaire related to the leadership topic as well as a discussion of how the questionnaire measures the reader’s leadership style. Each chapter ends with a summary and references.

The content of the book includes chapters focusing on a broad overview of contemporary leadership perspectives. Chapter 1 provides a definition of leadership and brief discussions of differences between leadership and power, coercion, and management. Chapter 2 presents the trait approach to studying leadership (e.g., Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1991; Stogdill, 1948). Chapter 3 discusses leadership styles and behaviors including those examined in the classic Ohio State (e.g., Stogdill, 1974) and University of Michigan studies (e.g., Bowers & Seashore, 1966) and Blake and Mouton’s (1985) Managerial Grid. Chapter 4 considers Hersey and Blanchard’s (1988) Situational Leadership Model; while Fiedler’s (1967) Least Preferred Co-Worker Contingency Model is examined in Chapter 5. Additional contingency theories, including Path-Goal Theory (e.g., House & Dessler, 1974) and Leader-Member Exchange (e.g., Dansereau, Graen, & Haga, 1975) are the topics of Chapters 6 and 7, respectively. Chapter 8 considers transformational leadership with an emphasis on Bass and Avolio’s (1994) Full Range of Leadership Model.

The book also includes four chapters contributed by Northouse’s associates. In Chapter 9, Susan Kogler Hill presents a summary of team leadership theory drawn from writers such as Larson and LaFasto (1989) and Hughes, Ginnett and Curphey (1993). In Chapter 10, Ernest L. Stech considers leadership theory from a psychodynamic perspective (e.g., Freud, 1938; Jung, 1923; Zaleznik, 1977). Dayle M. Smith discusses research on women and leadership in Chapter 11. The book concludes with Chapter 12, in which Mary Ann Bowman presents a popouri of popular approaches to leadership including Servant Leadership (Greenleaf, 1977) Principle-Centered Leadership (Covey, 199 1) and steward- ship (Block, 1993).

The book has three main strengths. First, the book is well-written and is a “quick read.” Its structured presentation format facilitates reader understanding of the topics, comparison across topics, and interest. The figures and tables add value to the topics by highlighting important themes and concepts. By presenting both the strengths and criticisms associated with each leadership topic, the book provides the reader with an unbiased offering of

Book Reviews 531

leadership concepts and theory. Second, the book includes several excellent discussions of important contemporary leadership topics often not given enough attention in other leadership textbooks. For example, the chapters on Leader-Member Exchange theory, psychodynamics of leadership, and women in leadership provide a more rich presentation of information than that provided in textbooks such as Dubrin (1995) and Hughes et al. (1993). Third, except for Chapter 12’s presentation of popular approaches to leadership, the book presents leadership theory culled primarily from scientific research and attempts to translate research findings into practical applications.

Despite these strengths, the book suffers from several weaknesses. First, there is an insufficient number of examples given to illustrate leadership theory. Those given are not detailed enough and may be unclear to undergraduate students. The cases are not drawn from organizations most readers are likely to be familiar with and are too brief. It is my experience that both undergraduate and graduate student learning is facilitated from detailed examples of famous leaders from well-known organizations and governments. In fact, graduate students, who are generally application and “real world” oriented, may find the cases presented in the book to be trivial and/or contrived.

Second, the book neglects to present an adequate discussion of topics including how leadership relates to followership, cross-cultural and diverse workforces, creativity and innovation, quality and business process reengineering, and motivation of followers (e.g., Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993). Also neglected are topics concerning leadership succession and strategic leadership. Given the importance of these issues in contemporary organizations, an understanding of how such topics relate to leadership may be vital to students of leadership.

Third, some of the self-assessment questionnaires presented in the book are adaptations of published measures. While the book provides citations for where the original questionnaires can be obtained, the adapted questionnaires may not provide the reader with valid and reliable measures of the leadership concept purported to be assessed. Thus, the usefulness of such adapted measures may be limited for readers interested in self- assessment and assessment of others in class or in their organizations.

Fourth, there are several areas in the book where the author does not present a thorough overview of all aspects and/or perspectives on a leadership topic. For example, while discussing transformational leadership in Chapter 8, the author presents the most well- written and detailed textbook discussion of Bass and Avolio’s (1994) conceptualization of transformational leadership that I have come across. However, the author devotes only one and one-quarter pages of discussion to considerations of charisma (e.g., House, 1977; Weber, 1947), compared to Hunt (1991) who devotes a considerable amount of attention to charisma. Given that charisma is the most important element of transformational leadership (Bass, 1990) and charisma is a key motivational influence on followers (Shamir et al., 1993), the author’s lack of attention to charismatic leadership is unfortunate. The author also ignores the transformational/charismatic leadership perspectives of Sashkin and his associates (e.g., Sashkin, Rosenbach, Deal, & Peterson, 1992) and Conger and Kanungo (1987).

Fifth, the book presents leadership approaches/topics as disjointed topics with no clear overarching framework as to how the topics are related. For example, Path-Goal theory, an integral aspect of transactional leadership (Bass, 1990; House, 1996), is presented as being unrelated to transformational leadership. However, prior research (e.g., Avolio & Bass,

532 LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY Vol. 9 No. 4 1998

1988; Bass, 1985) suggests that transactional leadership may provide a base for effective transformational leadership. In contrast, Hunt (1991) and to a lesser extent Hughes et al. (1993), provide a synthesis of leader, follower, and situation concepts to integrate leadership concepts in a manner which facilitates student learning.

In sum, the book provides a marginally adequate review of contemporary leadership theory, a good summary of some specific topics (e.g., team leadership, women and leadership, psychodynamic leadership approach), and a weak application of leadership theory to practice. Given this assessment, it is my judgment that the book is not appropriate for Ph.D. students. A much more comprehensive review of contemporary leadership theory is provided in Bass (1990), Hunt (199 l), or Yukl (1994). In addition, the book may not be

sufficient for teaching leadership to MBA students, who generally are case and

application-oriented. For MBA students, the book should be supplemented with Harvard Business Cases or Hartwick Classic Leadership cases, experiential exercises, as well as a collection of articles from both practitioner-oriented and scholarly journals. Moreover, the book may not be appropriate for undergraduates who, like MBA students, enjoy learning from examples from organizations with which they are familiar. A more appropriate alternative for teaching undergraduates would be to use the Hughes et al. (1993) or DuBrin (1995) books supplemented with experiential exercises. As a final comment, the book is probably best advertised as a concise manager-oriented handbook of leadership and targeted toward managers participating in continuing education courses in leadership or organizational training and development.

REFERENCES

Avolio, B. J., & Bass, B. M. (1988). Transformational leadership, charisma, and beyond. In J. G. Hunt & B. R. Baliga, H. P. Dachler, & C. A. Schrieshiem (Eds.), Emer@g leadership vistas (pp. 29-50). Lexington, MA: Lexington.

Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and perf?ormance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press. Bass, B. M. (1990). Bass and Stogdill’s handbook of leadership. New York: Free Press. Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1994). Improving organizational effectiveness through

transformational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Blake, R. R., & Mouton, J. S. (1985). The managerial grid Ill. Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing. Block, P. (1993). Stewardship: Choosing service over self-interest. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-

Koehler. Bowers, D. G., & Seashore, S. E. (1966). Predicting organizational effectiveness with a four-factor

theory of leadership. Administrative Science Quarterly, II, 238-263. Conger, J. A., & Kanungo, R. N. (1987). Toward a behavioral theory of charismatic leadership. In J.

A. Conger, & R. N. Kanungo (Eds.), Charismatic leadership: The elusive factor in organizational effectiveness (pp. 78-97). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Covey, S. R. (1991). Principle-centered leadership. New York: Summit Books. Dansereau, F., Graen, G. G., & Haga, W. (1975). A vertical dyad linkage approach to leadership in

formal organizations. Organizational Behavior and Human Peflormance, 13,4678. DuBrin, A. J. (1995). Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Boston, MA: Houghton

Mifflin Company. Greenleaf, R. K. (1977). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and

greatness. New York: Paulist Press. Fiedler, F. E. (1967). A theory of leadership effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill. Freud, S. (1938). The basic writings of Sigmund Freud. New York: Modem Library.

Book Reviews 533

Hersey, P., & Blanchard, K. H. (1988). Management of organizational behavior: Utilizing human

resources (5th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. House, R. J. (1977). A 1976 theory of charismatic leadership. In J. G. Hunt, & L. L. Larson (Eds.),

Leadership: the cutting edge (pp. 189-207). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

House, R. J. (1996). Path-goal theory of leadership: Lessons, legacy, and a reformulated theory. Leadership Quarterly, 7, 323-352

House, R. J., & Dessler, G. (1974). The path-goal theory of leadership: Some post hoc and a priori tests. In J. G. Hunt, & L. L. Larson (Eds.), Contingency approaches to leadership (pp. 29-55). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

Hughes, R. L., Ginnett, R. C., & Curphy, G. J. (1993). Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of

experience. Homewood, IL: Irwin. Hunt, J. G. (1991). Leadership: A new synthesis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Jung, C. J. (1923). Psychological types. New York: Harcourt & Brace. Kirkpatrick, S. A., & Locke, E. A. (1991). Leadership: Do traits matter? The Executive, 5.48-60.

Larson, C. E., & Lafasto, F. M. J. (1989). Teamwork: What must go right/What can go wrong? Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Sashkin, M., Rosenbach, W. E., Deal, T. E., & Peterson, K. D. (1992). Assessing transformational leadership and its impact. In K. E. Clark, M. B. Clark, & D. P. Campbell (Eds.), Impact of leadership. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.

Shamir, B., House, R., & Arthur, M. (1993). The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory. Organization Science, 4, I-17.

Stogdill, R. M. (1948). Personal factors associated with leadership: A survey of the literature. Journal of Psychology, 25, 35-7 1.

Stogdill, R. M. (1974). Handbook of leadership: A survey of theory and research. New York: Free Press.

Weber, M. (1947). The theory of social and economic organizations. New York: Wiley. Yukl, G. (1994). Leadership in organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Zaleznik, A. (1977). Managers and leaders: Are they different? Harvard Business Review, 55,67-80.