Abstract:

This article presents the concept of leadership embedded within both centralized and decentralized networks, which can be seen together as the specific multi network system. Different views of personal and interorganizational networks, as well as various conceptions of embeddedness were presented in order to create the theoretical background of considerations. Subsequently, it was proposed to collate the distinction of centralized and decentralized networks with two crucial notions of embeddedness – structural and relational, therefore the frame for leadership manifestations within the complex multi network system was established. Thus, the main goal of this article can be formulated as: to properly recognize and present the multiplicity of leadership manifestations, which are the most appropriate for the specificity of business activities realized by a chosen organization entangled in many networks at the same time – both of centralized and decentralized types. The preliminary concept was verified by the case study of the Polish IT software and services company. The results show that the leadership manifestations are changing in various types of interrelated networks, however the leaders act as connectors of different structures