An Institutional Theory of Leadership

Abstract

Most theories of leadership are rooted in a psychological paradigm that treats leadership as an individual attribute, although one that may be situationally activated or constrained In this article, the authors propose a theory of leadership inspired by the institutional school of organizational analysis. Using an approach based on Weberian sociology, the authors link leadership to the legitimating principles and norms of the social structure in which leadership occurs. Four hypotheses are presented; (1) leadership strategies in any one sociocultural setting will have strong underlying similarities, (2) as an organization changes over time, strategies of leadership will also change, (3) organizations performing the same tasks-but based on different substantive principles-will exhibit different strategies of leadership, and (4) occupational and organizational subgroups based on distinctive norms will exhibit similar leadership styles across organizations, and will differ from other subgroups within a single organization. 7he authors conclude by proposing a research agenda based on institutional theory.