Bass & Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership

This book is not for the timid. Bass & Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership is an academic review of the theory, research, and managerial applications from more than 7,500 references in academic research literature. It's written in an easy to understand style. However, there are 37 chapters and 1182 pages of this easy to read style. Your best bet is to select a particular topic of leadership that appeals to you and read about it first.

This book is organized into eight sections. The leadership literature is covered as follows:
1. Introduction to Concepts and Theories of Leadership
2. Personal Attributes of Leaders
3. Power and Legitimacy
4. The Transactional Exchange
5. Leadership and Management
6. Situational Moderators
7. Diverse Groups
8. Improving Leadership and Leadership Research

As Bass and Stogdill organize and discuss research findings, they include a plethora of in text citations, figures and tables. These references can assist the reader who wants to investigate the original sources for themselves.

Investigating some of the older theories of leadership can be fascinating. For instance, in the first half of the 1900s (1904-1947) one of the primary theories of leadership was trait theory. It was believed that leaders possessed certain characteristics. Numerous studies were conducted during this time period to analyze the correlations between leadership and the traits of the leaders such as:

age,
height,
weight,
physique,
health,
energy,
athletic prowess,
fluency of speech,
talkativeness,
tone of voice,
intelligence,
scholarship,
knowledge,
judgment and decision,
originality,
adaptability,
introversion-extroversion,
humor,
excitability,
popularity,
prestige,
social skills,
and many, many more.

Each chapter of Bass & Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership includes a chapter summary and conclusion. The reader will find it beneficial to read all the chapter summaries and conclusions first. Chapters of further interest can be identified in this manner while allowing for exposure to all the major findings of leadership research over the last century.

Even reading just the first 58 pages would be worth the time of going to the library to check out a copy. This introduction to the concepts and theories of leadership would provide a skeleton upon which to hang the muscle of what you are currently reading about leadership. The better you understand the history of thinking about leadership, the better you can interpret the present and speculate about the future.