EXECUTIVE EDITORS: Robert J. House Wharton School of Business University of Pennsylvania

摘要: This issue of the Leadership Quarterly is the third of three special issues focusing on individual differences and leadership. Our intention across the three issues is to update research and theory bearing upon this topic. Accordingly, three separate themes are being pursued. The first highlights recent advances in work on leadershp functions and styles as well as the prediction of managerial performance. The purpose is to indicate how individual differences related to cognitive and creative capacities, problem-solving skills, social competencies condition leader success. A second theme emphasizes social situational variables that determine, alter, or require the operation of particular leader qualities. Articles concerning this theme illustrate how variables such as organizational level, problem novelty, situational stress, and subordinate characteristics can determine when certain individual leadership characteristics are particularly critical for effective leadership. The final theme refers to methodological and measurement issues related to leader emergence and identification. One focus here is on the analysis of data from individuals placed in alternate group situations. A second focus is on the methodological considerations and technologies related to managerial selection. The first special issue contained three articles which examined the role of differential cognitive qualities that are linked to effective organizational problem solving. In the first article, Fleishman, Mumford, Zaccaro, Levin, Korotkin, and Hein (1991)