The Leadership Triad
Leadership is a dynamic process that combines a triad of powerful, interdependent & complex variables – a leader, a follower & a (dynamic) environment. Each leadership scenario is completely unique & needs to be studied in depth to ascertain how to maximize performance, minimize toxic elements & achieve leadership goals.
Leaders (e.g., CEO, manager) are hugely powerful, & can be toxic or positive. I focus on the core complexities of leadership (toxic leadership, charisma, motivation, skills & trait theories, full range leadership, toxic & destructive leadership) in my core leadership texts Leadership: A Critical Introduction (Routledge), & Leadership: Performance Beyond Expectations (Routledge).
Followers retain great power (a power that is often under-valued or seriously underestimated). It can be toxic or positive (e.g., groupthink) & a hugely powerful force in facilitating, or resisting, a leader. Orthodox leadership & self-leadership theory sheds light on the critical importance of followers in the leadership process, which I apply to diverse, complex scenarios (e.g., I focus on toxic followership of political fake news campaigns in elections in Post-Truth Politics: A Brave New World? Routledge), and herding & diffusion of fraud in the financial markets during the 2008 financial crisis (The Physiology of Emotional & Irrational Investing: Routledge).
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The environment also plays a hugely powerful role in the leadership process at any given time. It is a hugely complex driver in determining human leader & follower behaviour and outcomes. For example, I focus on the concept at length (e.g., securitization, structure of the financial markets) in Charismatic Leadership: The Role of Charisma in the Global Financial Crisis (Routledge) and Evolution, Politics & charisma: Why Do Populists Win? (Routledge).