Leadership, Power, and Positive Relationships

Abstract

This chapter aims to explore the construct of leadership as a particular kind of positive relationship at work. It discusses the notion of leadership itself and the characteristics of emerging models of leadership that highlight its relationality. The chapter identifies opportunities for learning about relational leading as revealed by certain gaps and limitations of these models. It offers a particular perspective on positive relational interactions informed by stone center relational cultural theory (RCT) and uses it to unpack a number of relational leadership constructs and identifies key opportunities for future research. The RCT perspective on gender and power as systemic variables offers an opportunity to unpack the multiple dimensions of social identity characteristics and their effect on leader-follower interactions. There are three characteristics that distinguish new, more explicitly relational models of leadership from more traditional conceptualizations: leadership skills, leadership processes, and leadership outcomes.