REPORTER: SALIHA E.

SAADUDDIN
PROF: DR.TARHATA MAMACOTAO
SUBJECT: PUBLIC PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION

The Ambiguity of Leadership is a manner of leader communicates people in volatile

and uncertain message but accomplished the goals. Meaning, to say something that is not clear
but the people understand the message of a leader.
This report is divided in 6 parts which address three major leadership’s issues: (1) the
ambiguity of its definition and measurement; (2) the question of whether it affects organizational
performance; and (3) the process of selecting leaders and leadership as individual social actors.
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The second, Ambiguity of the Concept, is focused on the first major issue. Preview studies
on the dimensions and definitions of leadership concept are mentioned. All of them seem to have
an agreement relating leadership to social influence. The same is not true to the basic dimensions
of leadership behaviours, examples of dimensions are: group maintenance, task accomplishment,
closeness to supervision, and so on.

The third part, The Effects of Leaders, is an attempt to answer to the question “Is there
any evidence on the magnitude of effects of leadership?”. Based on several studies, this part is
subdivided in four parts, shows the reasons why it might be argued that the observed leader’s
effects on organizational outcome would be small and few studies that sustaining the idea:
Homogeneity of Leaders ( as leadership positions are selected, limited styles may be chosen);
Constraints of Behaviour (situational characteristic constrain leadership behaviour); External
Factors ( Leaders can only affect few of the variables that may impact organizational
performance) and Empirical Evidence.

In the fourth part, The Process of Selecting Leaders, the process and criteria of choosing
leaders are approached through some studies. These studies showed that frequently the process
emphasizes person-based (such as social status) and organizationally-irrelevant criteria.

The fifth part, The Attribution of Leadership, describe the individual trend to develop
attributions that give them a feeling of control. Thus, lodging in a leader causality of
organization, rather than in a set of complex contextual factors, make easier to overcome the
possible problems. The need to believe in leadership influence on performance make leaders
become symbols (providing a scapegoat when things go wrong). Differences between causality
perceived by internal members or outsiders are approached too.

In the last part, Conclusion, the main ideas are summarized: (1) analysis results depends
on the researcher’s intent (which cause ambiguity of the definition and measurement); (2)
Concerning to Leader’s effect, no conclusive answer was reached, evidences of the importance
of the interaction between situational factors and leader’s characteristics start to appear; (3)
Leadership is associated with a set of myths that reinforce a social construction of leaders,
providing belief in the effectiveness of individual control.