Setting leadership goals and getting those goals accomplished: insights from a mathematical model

The value and importance of leadership is evident by its prevalence throughout human societies and organizations. In this work, mathematical models are developed to study two key attributes of leadership: setting goals and getting others in the organization to achieve those goals. The models contain controllable parameters whose values reflect the size of the organization, the actions taken by the individuals in the absence of a leader, the goal-setting skill of the leader (that is, the ability of the leader to identify goals that will result in good performance), and the buy-in skill of the leader (that is, the ability of the leader to get others to achieve those goals). The models provide insights as to when goal-setting skill is more important than buy-in skill and when buy-in skill is more important than goal-setting skill. Mathematical analysis is used to derive conditions under which buy-in skill both enhances and detracts from organizational performance.