A Leadership Paradigm Shift to ‘Eclectic Leadership’

Book excerpt: The objective of this book is to develop leadership principles from two directions - the scientific and the practical perspective - that are both application-oriented and universally applicable as well as effective and flow into a holistic leadership framework. Both the hermeneutic and the empirical analysis show that the basic principles of holistic, application-oriented, universally applicable and effective leadership can be described with the duality of transactional management and transformational leadership principles, taking into account core traits and alignment with follower needs. These in turn lead to a collection of essential principles of effective leadership known as the "eclectic leadership framework". The essential finding is that the basic principles are complementary and that a clear focus on people and their needs is the most effective way to lead.