Organization 21C: Someday All Organizations Will Lead This Way

The Situational Approach to Leadership

In sharp contrast to the heroic model is the situational point of view espoused by some scholars, most notably Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford University. To Pfeffer, leadership is an illusion. It is a quality that is attributable to people who are the beneficiaries of unusually favorable external conditions. The general who wins the battle becomes a “great leader,” while the one who loses becomes “the goat.” Similarly, the CEO whose stock price quadruples is a great leader, while we search for deficiencies in leadership talent in one whose stock tumbles. Pfeffer argues that leaders have little or no control over the key variables that determine organizational performance, and that the discretion they do have ...