Social Sciences 2016; 5(6-1): 14-28 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ss doi: 10.11648/j.ss.s.2016050601.13 ISSN: 2326-9863 (Print); ISSN: 2326-988X (Online) Comparing Leadership: Business, Politics and Education Mireia Tintoré 1 , Casilda Güell 2 1 Faculty of Education, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain 2 OBS Business School, Planeta Formación y Universidades, Barcelona, Spain Email address: mtintore@uic.es (M. Tintoré), casilda.guell@onlinebschool.com (C. Güell) * Corresponding author To cite this article: Mireia Tintoré, Casilda Güell. Comparing Leadership: Business, Politics and Education. Special Issue: Re-Imagine Education for Social Improvement. Social Sciences. Vol. 5, No. 6-1, 2016, pp. 14-28. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.s.2016050601.13 Received: July 29, 2016; Accepted: August 16, 2016; Published: September 3, 2016 Abstract: Research on leadership has extended throughout social sciences in recent years and is becoming more and more relevant. In this regard, the online higher education institutions are not an exception. This paper aims to do an analysis of the evolution of the studies on leadership by reviewing the articles on this topic since 1950s, and to propose a multi-disciplinary perspective. Since the subject is so wide, we have chosen three areas within the social sciences: business, politics, and education, which account for about 45% of the articles in the web of science. First, we do a quantitative analysis of the output in politics, business and education. Second, we proceed to study which concepts relate to leadership in each area from a qualitative perspective hoping to extract trends and target opportunities in order to improve training on this topic in universities and business schools. Keywords: Leadership, Business, Politics, Education 1. Introduction Research on leadership has extended throughout social sciences in recent years and is becoming more and more relevant. The importance of leadership at online education institutions emerges as very relevant. Leadership often evaluates behavior through 360º feedback process (Fletcher and Bailey, 2003). This allows evaluating the effective leader using multiple data sources. The use of self-perception also can be included in the assessment of leadership. Fletcher and Bailey (2003) after evaluating 19 heads of school, 23 line managers and 120 people showed that the three groups agreed on the importance attached to management functions, and to the extent that the roles are displayed in the school. Our main aim is to do an analysis of the evolution of the studies on leadership by reviewing the articles 1 on this topic since 1950s and to propose a multi-disciplinary perspective. Since the topic is so wide, we have chosen three areas within 1 For scholars working in the leadership area, it is common knowledge that many cited and influential studies appear in book or chapter form. As the object of our research are the most cited articles in the web of science, we only mention some of these works as a mean to illustrate the history and development of leadership studies. the social sciences: politics, business and education, which account for about 45% of the articles in the web of science. Our study shows the main leadership tendencies at present in these three areas, analyzing the hundred most cited articles on business leadership, educational leadership and political leadership. First, we do a quantitative analysis of the output in politics, business and education. Second, we proceed to study which concepts relate to leadership in each area from a qualitative perspective hoping to extract trends and target opportunities in order to improve training on this topic. In our study we have relied in a previous work (Tintoré and Güell, 2015) but extended it in order to complete and expand our knowledge on leadership today from different perspectives. There are books that review the concept of leadership from a multi-disciplinary perspective such as those of the “parents” of transformational leadership theories: Bernard Bass (for example in his handbooks running to more than a thousand pages: Bass and Stodgill, 1990; Bass and Bass, 2008) and James McGregor Burns in his books (i.e. 1978, 2003), or in his 4-volume Encyclopedia of Leadership, of which he was a co-editor (Goethal et al., 2004). Other examples of scholars who have adopted a multidisciplinary