Generativity and balance in leadership

作者：Ghislieri Chiara; Gatti Paola^*

来源：Leadership, 2012, 8(3): 257-275.

DOI：10.1177/1742715012441177

• leadership
• narcissism
• generativity
• succession

The ability to transform followers into new leaders is an important task for leadership, as it guarantees organizational continuity and generativity. At the same time, however, it is a challenge that too often goes unanswered. In particular, research data emphasize that intergenerational transfer is highly critical in Italy: the number of elderly entrepreneurs, executives and top managers, for example, has increased significantly in recent years. This article presents a theoretical reflection on this issue, and has four main goals: to introduce the Italian leadership situation; to describe and understand the 'dark side of leadership' with particular attention to narcissism in leadership; to identify the main elements which can promote 'generative leadership' in organizational contexts (i.e. in this paper, a leadership based on the idea of generativity developed by Erik Erikson in 1968), highlighting the ability to achieve balance in leadership as a core aspect; and to provide suggestions about leadership training and development programmes, with a special focus on mentoring and coaching.

• 出版日期2012-8