Definition of leadership(2)

behind the one chief male of the land. (Note the status of chimpanzees as humans' closest species-relatives: humans inherited 98% of their genes from the ancestors of the chimpanzees.

In comparison, the bonobos, the second-closest species-relatives of man, do not unite behind the chief male of the land. The bonobos show deference to an alpha or top-ranking female that, with the support of her coalition of other females, is as strong as the strongest male in the land. Thus, if leadership amounts to getting the greatest number of followers, then among the bonobos, a female almost always exerts the strongest and most effective leadership.

Some have argued that, since the bonobo pattern inverts the dominant pattern among chimpanzees and men with regard to whether a female can get more followers than a male, humans and chimpanzees both likely inherited gender-bias against women from the ancestors of the chimpanzees; gender-bias features as a genetic condition of men. And the bias against women having leadership as a position of authority crosses all world cultures. As of 2002, Sweden had the highest percentage of women in the legislature: but only 43%. And the United States, Andorra, Israel, Sierra Leone, and Ireland tied for 57th place with less than 15% of the legislature women. Admittedly, those percentages significantly outclass the occurrence of female chimpanzees becoming alpha of the community by getting the most followers, but similar trends exist in manifesting a general gender-bias across cultures against females getting leadership as a position of authority over followers.

Determining what makes effective "leadership"

In comparing various leadership styles in many cultures, academic studies have examined the patterns in which leadership emerges and then fades, sometimes by natural succession according to established rules and sometimes by the imposition of brute force. Some scholars choose to judge the effectiveness of leadership by the size of the following that the "leader" can muster. By this standard, Adolf Hitler became a very effective leader even if through delusional promises and coercive troops.

Other scholars, assuming no doubt relatively fluid and dynamic societal background situations, maintain that an effective leader must unite followers to a shared vision that offers "true" value, integrity, and trust to transform and improve an organization and society at large. James MacGregor Burns calls this leadership that delivers true value, integrity, and trust transformational leadership. He distinguishes such leadership from "mere" transactional leadership that gets power by doing whatever will get more followers. But problems arise in quantifying the transformational quality of leadership -- evaluation of that quality seems more difficult to quantify than merely counting the followers that the straw man of transactional leadership James MacGregor Burns has set as a primary standard for effectiveness. Thus transformational leadership requires an evaluation of quality independent of the market demand that exhibits in the number of followers.

Do certain qualities make a "leader"?