Exploring leadership styles: a comprehensive review

Abstract

This study analyzes 394 articles on leadership styles published across 17 journals from 2016 to 2022, highlighting the substantial contributions of institutions and individual scholars to exploring varied leadership styles among employees. Utilizing network analysis, the study reveals co-author relationships, illustrating the interconnectedness of scholars in this field of research. Additionally, it examines the research sector, geographical locations, and methodologies employed in these articles highlighting trends and preferences in these areas. Through content analysis, the authors categorize the main and sub-categories within the leadership styles domain providing a structured overview of the most commonly studied styles across various contexts. The findings include detailed insights into the most commonly studied leadership styles across institutions, countries, and journals, along with the distribution of publications per journal and their thematic focus. Key findings suggest that certain leadership styles have consistently attracted attention among researchers. Furthermore, the article tracks the annual publication trends in each journal to showcase evolving research interests in leadership styles and shifts in research focus over time. The study addresses limitations including research gaps and discusses future research direction. The future directions are being discussed in the article suggesting areas for further investigation that could expand existing frameworks and literature.