Why leadership is a contested concept

Thanks to an International Leadership Association (ILA) blog post by Keith Grint (2022), I was exposed to a paper by Gallie (1956). It is often said that leadership is an "essentially contested concept" (Gallie, 1956, p. 169), but I did not know that this harks back to a speech given by Gallie almost 70 years ago. The nature of an "essentially contested concept" (p. 169) relies on four 'conditions' proposed at a meeting of the Aristotelian Society in 1955, where Gallie proposed his argument. The four conditions are:

"(I) it must be appraisive in the sense that it signifies or accredits some kind of valued achievement" (Gallie, 1956, p. 171)

"(II) This achievement must be of an internally complex character, for all that its worth is attributed to it as a whole" (Gallie, 1956, p. 171)

"(III) Any explanation of its worth must therefore include reference to the respective contributions of its various parts or features; yet prior to experimentation there is nothing absurd or contradictory in any one of a number of possible rival descriptions of its total worth, one such description setting its component parts or features in one order of importance, a second setting them in a second order, and so on. In fine, the accredited achievement is initially variously describable" (Gallie, 1956, p. 171-2)

"(IV) The accredited achievement must be of a kind that admits of considerable modification in the light of changing circumstances; and such modification cannot be prescribed or predicted in advance. For convenience I shall call the concept of any such achievement 'open in character'" (Gallie, 1956, p. 172)

So... what does this mean? My take is that:

(a) Leadership must have value, or worth as a 'thing' in its own right;

(b) Leadership must be a complex construct of many parts which contribute to a whole;

(c) Leadership must be hard to define - slippery - like the old adage of people describing an elephant when only able to explore one small section, but that collectively we know what 'good' looks like

(d) Leadership is a concept that evolves over time.

Wow. It is always nice to know where things come from. 

Sam

References:

Gallie, W. B. (1956). Chapter IX: Essentially Contested Concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 56, 167–98. https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/56.1.167

Grint, K. (2022). The War in Ukraine & Leadership as an Essentially Contested Concept. International Leadership Association. https://ilaglobalnetwork.org/the-war-in-ukraine-leadership-as-an-essentially-contested-concept/