16. Leadership as a Profession: The Need for an Authentic Jurisdiction

While not yet a true profession, leadership can and should aspire to become a legitimately recognized professional activity to provide validity to the study and practice of leadership and precision to the term “leader.” Using a threefold analytical framework as a heuristic, the analysis shows that the areas where leadership falls short as a profession relate to establishing and controlling the abstract body of knowledge that provides its jurisdiction and helps to highlight that doing so is essential to the professionalization process. Developing an accepted scope of services and a code of ethics will help resolve the jurisdictional “ownership” of leadership and elevate its study and practice from a routine organizational activity to a legitimate profession that makes a unique and meaningful contribution to society.