A recent paper in the journal Leadership Quarterly explores the very nature of leadership styles and how they play out, ultimately asserting that: "the common finding that positive leadership styles lead to positive outcomes […] might be an artifact of conflation rather than a reflection of reality” (p. 1).

Yet what are positive leadership styles and why have generations of leadership researchers so badly misinterpreted their impact?

Joining me on the Brain for Business podcast to discuss the findings of the paper is one of its co-authors, Professor Thomas Fischer of the University of Geneva.

About Thomas Fischer

Thomas Fischer is an Associate Professor at the University of Geneva and is the Yearly Review Editor of The Leadership Quarterly, the premier journal fully dedicated to leadership research. Thomas Fischer’s work focuses on managing people in organizations, and in particular on two topics. First, the conceptualization and measurement of leadership styles. Second, how people talk about their own leadership and whether their practice lives up to what they preach.

Details of the articles discussed in the podcast are as follows:

• Fischer, T., Dietz, J., & Antonakis, J. (2024). A fatal flaw: Positive leadership style research creates causal illusions. The Leadership Quarterly, 101771. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984323000978
• Fischer, T. (2023). Measuring behaviors counterfactually. The Leadership Quarterly, 34(6), 101750. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984323000760
• Fischer, T., & Sitkin, S. B. (2023). Leadership styles: A comprehensive assessment and way forward. Academy of Management Annals, 17(1), 331-372. https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/annals.2020.0340
• Alvesson, M., & Blom, M. (2022). The hegemonic ambiguity of big concepts in organization studies. Human Relations, 75(1), 58-86. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726720986847

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