The Nature of Leadership

"Likewise, some individuals can be successful as leaders in some situations but not in others.  We would argue, however, that such success is a function of narrowly prescriptive leadership contexts that respond to a specific set of leader competencies, such as lower-level or direct line supervision (Jacobs & Jaques, 1987b; Zaccaro, 2001).  As leadership situations become more complex and varied, we suspect that personal attributes play a more substantial role in predicting success."  (104)