The leader effect and behavioral complexity
Who made ‘you’ the leader?
In modernity, empirical research suggests leaders have significant effects, both positive and negative, on team, organizational, and national outcomes. Furthermore, it appears the impact of leaders may have increased over time and be greater when their institutional environment provides them with more leeway.
The research reviewed suggests that in contemporary challenging, dynamic, and opportunistic environments CEOs with substantial managerial discretion may account for fifteen to twenty percent of the variance in organizational performance. In more constrained environments the CEO effect is lower but still important. As these findings may well be a proxy for the impact leaders have on the performance of teams and units within organizations, it is understandable why so much time and effort has been devoted to identifying, assessing, and developing the behaviors that underpin leadership and managerial effectiveness.
