Emergent Leadership

An individual's leadership potential is a crucial determinant for the success of many organizational tasks, especially in today's business world where team work and self-managed work teams have become more and more important. But what factors are needed in order to be perceived as a potential leader? Have you ever wondered why certain individuals within a group of coequal group members are perceived as more "leaderlike" than others? This book tries to provide research based answers to these and similar questions by presenting a laboratory study conducted at University of Vienna in 2011. This study discusses in detail the topic of Emergent Leadership (a leadership substitute in cases when a formal organizational leader is absent or ineffective) and informs the reader about important determinants that are necessary in order to be perceived as "leaderlike". To be more precise, the author developed an integrated trait-behavioral model examining the individual and combined effects of personality traits and verbal communication behavior on perceived leadership. Such integrated leadership models have the potential to challenge previous findings about leadership beause of their (more) holistic and realistic characteristics. From a methodological perspective, a mixed method research design was applied combining both quantitative and qualitative approaches into one single study.