UDC

811.111

Authors

Gurova Ekaterina Yuryevna
Postgraduate Student, Vologda State University (Vologda, Russia)

Abstract

The article presents an extralinguistic analysis of the leadership concept on the basis of philosophy, sociology, psychology, economics and political science. An overview of earlier studies shows inaccuracy of the concept’s definition, incompleteness of its study, and a shift of emphasis towards leadership qualities. In addition, the paper dwells on the etymology of the key lexical unit – leadership – and describes how it was formed and when it appeared in the language. The author analyzes the extension of its key meanings and emergence of new interpretations making the concept more complicated as a whole. Further, the article analyzes equivalents of this lexical unit in different languages, which indicates a wide spread occurrence of the concept and its importance. Since its content is different in different cultures, it can lead to some complications in translation, which indicates problems with understanding the exact meaning. In particular, the author lists Russian synonyms that at first glance seem to be full equivalents of the concept, but a deeper examination reveals that they only cover part of the meaning. The author looks at modern interpretations of leadership in various disciplines as each science has its own terminological system and highlights primarily the aspects it is interested in while sometimes ignoring others. All this information helps to distinguish the basic meaning of the concept of leadership, analyze its emergence and further development as well as to identify its content.

Keywords

leadership, leader, etymology of leadership, leadership phenomenon, nature of leadership, leadership as a process, leadership qualities, leader’s personality

References

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