Leadership Is Often Misunderstood

Leadership is a crucial but often misunderstood topic. Much of the understanding comes from the tendency to think about leadership only in terms of the people in charge. The ideas of leaders and followers do not always converge, a fact that creates a fundamental ambivalence in the relationship between leaders and followers. We are often required to defer to people in leadership roles whose behavior is markedly inconsistent with qualities important in leadership. This may lead to frustration, alienation, and efforts to change leaders, jobs or careers.

From an article in the April 2008 AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST