ERIC Number: ED034530
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1969
Pages: 19
Abstractor: N/A
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Organizational Leadership: Some Conceptual Models.
Bernthal, Wilmar F.
In this address, the speaker examines several different types of organization (charismatic, traditional, bureaucratic, and task-oriented) and the role of the leader in each. In the modern, task-oriented system, his role can hardly be generalized as decision-making, direction and control, problem-solving, inspiration, communication, or any other simple function. It consists rather of realistically assessing environmental forces or constraints, articulating the organization's mission, vying for and securing resources for the functions of the organization, providing internal coordination, communication, and conflict resolution, and representing the organization to its constituency (taxpayers or shareholders). His leadership style is characterized as neither authoritarian nor democratic, but as flexible and adaptive. He must correctly assess the forces in himself, in the organization, and in the larger environment; he must then respond appropriately to these factors in each situation. He is neither a strong nor a weak administrator, but an integral part of a complex social system, in which his primary mission is to integrate productively both human and non-human resources into an organization working toward a common goal. Charts show the evolution of organization theories and their characteristic faults and strengths. (HH)
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Note: Paper presented at the Mountain-Plains Institute for New Presidents of Community Colleges (Scottsdale, Arizona, May 5, 1969)