A Political Perspective on Leadership Emergence, Stability, and Change in Organizational Networks

Abstract

A political approach to leadership in organizational networks in presented. From a review primarily of the political science and public administration literatures, a theoretical perspective is developed suggesting individual, processual, structural, and environmental variables affecting leadership emergence, stability, and change. A list of hypotheses hopefully describes much of the political dynamics of organizational leadership. Based on the hypotheses, leadership may be seen as a more complicated and political process than much current literature indicates.