leadership

1. the processes involved in leading others, including organizing, directing, coordinating, and motivating their efforts toward achieving certain group or organizational goals. Leadership tends to be reciprocal (leaders influence followers, and followers influence leaders), transactional (leaders and followers exchange their time, energies, and skills to increase their joint rewards), transformational (leaders inspire and motivate followers), and cooperative rather than coercive (followers voluntarily accept the leader’s suggestions). See transactional leadership; transformational leadership.

2. the traits or behaviors characteristic of an effective leader. See leadership theories.

Browse dictionary by letter

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Psychology term of the day

April 19th 2024

preventive coping

a stress-management strategy in which one prepares for possible events in the long term by building up resources to help minimize the severity of their impact. Examples of such events that may or may not occur in the distant future include job loss, forced retirement, crime, illness, or poverty. The perceived ambiguity stimulates a broad range of behaviors intended to accentuate one’s psychological strengths and accumulate wealth, social bonds, and skills “just in case” (e.g., maintaining a savings account, locking the doors when away from home, carrying health insurance). Preventive coping is not born out of an acute stress situation but rather from reasonable concern about the inherent hazards of daily living and is one of four types of coping proposed by German psychologists Ralf Schwarzer (1943– ) and Nina Knoll. See also anticipatory coping; proactive coping; reactive coping.