Digital Leader-Followership for the Digital Age: A North American Perspective

This chapter examines the emerging literature on contemporary leadership, particularly leadership in the digital age, digital leadership, e-leadership, and cyber leadership, in the context of socio-cultural changes, theoretical shifts in leadership studies, and leadership education changes observed in the United States in the last two decades. Although the above literature shows a shift from leader-centered and hierarchical to follower-centered and relational leadership, it is not clear how the old may yield to the new paradigm of leadership. There seem to be no discussion in the leadership literature on how to transition from pre-digital to digital era of leadership. While this study acknowledges the discontinuity and tension between the contemporary and the traditional leadership approaches, it offers theoretical and practical alternatives for transitioning from traditional to contemporary leadership in the digital age. Since leadership research has already shifted from single-role identity to multiple-role identities, which enables individuals to acquire and master both leading and following skills in today’s organizations, this study is optimistic that the leader-follower trade (LFT) or similar approaches may build bridges between digital native and digital immigrant generations of leader-followers for a smoother transition from hierarchical to distributed, shared, collective, and adaptive leadership for the digital age

Depersonalizing Leadership and Followership: The Process of Leadship and Followship

This article addresses the traditional view of leader (ship) and follower (ship) as separate persons and processes in leadership research. Attempts have been made to depersonalize leadership and followership by taking leaders out of leadership and followers out of followership, which is to say that leaders and followers are myth and do not exist as separate identities. The traditional views of leaders and followers as static persons and functions as well as leadership and followership as separate processes have been challenged by the depersonalized or person-less concepts of leadship and followship. A shift of focus in research seems necessary from the leader or follower to the dynamic inter-relational functions of leading or following as well as from leader- or follower-centric leadership or followership to role-focused and interchangeable process of leadship and followship in organizations

Leadership Models in Armenia

This paper addresses historical and contemporary issues of leadership in Armenia. Five leadership models have been acknowledged in Armenia during its four thousand year history: Monarchic, Church, National, Communist, and Democratic Leadership. Each model has been presented within its historical context and analyzed in light of current leadership behaviors in Armenia. The results of the study show that (a) current Armenian leaders seem to reflect the behaviors and attitudes of the historical leadership models above; (b) history should matter in leadership studies to understand leadership behaviors, in this case in Armenia, and how the past continues to shape their current worldviews and social identities; and (c) democracy imported to Armenia from the West, with little considerations of the historical characteristics of the Armenian people, has not produced the desired democratic reforms since 1991 independence. Perhaps an integrative approach to all five leadership models is necessary to address leadership challenges in Armenia today