"Leadership" : zur Funktionalität eines Konzepts

The article is a critical evaluation of the usefulness which leadership enjoys as a term and a concept within political science. Leadership is to be critisized as an approach which tends to be of poor theoretical selectivity and analytical arbitrariness. The reasons for this tendency are the "softness" of the term, the pseudo-theoretical camouflage of an escape from theory, the legitimization of non-reflected yearning, the blindness toward the gender-cleavage, and a deficit in democratic theory. These functions, which are negative for an analytical understanding of politics, can be reduced – by reducing the scope, which should be covered by leadership as a term and as a concept. This could be the way to save leadership as a concept for political analysis.