I’m currently doing research for a new book. I find it fascinating that despite academics’ love for peer-reviews and clear definitions, the concepts “leader” and “follower” are still routinely used in leadership literature without being defined.

When reading these texts, you must consciously or unconsciously interpret the meaning of these concepts. Does the author define leaders as decision-makers, or maybe a type of decision-maker? Or perhaps they believe that being a leader has nothing to do with having a formal role of power or influence? It’s up to you to figure it out.

It’s the same within followership literature. If the concepts aren’t defined, then how do you know what the author means when speaking about followers? Do they see followers as subordinates or a type of subordinate? Maybe, as in my work, being a follower has nothing to do with the formal role or position you hold.

This is problematic for two main reasons:

It makes it hard to fully understand and evaluate the author’s arguments,

It increases the risk of misinterpretations, leading to the reader drawing flawed conclusions.

So, for the love of science, if you write about leadership and/or followership, please define the concepts in your texts. That way, you’ll help bring clarity to this broad and increasingly muddled subject.

In 1994, Manfred Kets de Vries—a Dutch professor of leadership development—wrote that “as far as leadership studies go, it seems that more and more has been studied about less and less, to end up ironically with a group of researchers studying everything about nothing.”

I believe Kets de Vries is right, and the reason for this is that “leader” can mean almost anything to anyone. So, let’s clarify the conversations by explaining the terms we use.

Look up a few books or articles discussing leadership and see if the authors define “leader” in the text or if it is up to the reader to interpret its meaning. If you like, please share your findings.