Leadership that is based on occupying a position in an organization is assigned leadership.

Examples are:

• team leaders,
• plant managers,
• department heads,
• directors, and
• administrators.

They are leaders because of their formal position in an organization. However, the person assigned to a leadership position does not always become the real leader in these settings (Northouse, 2007, p.5).

When others perceive an individual as the most influential member of a group, organization or team, regardless of the individual's title, then we can talk about emerged leadership (Northouse, 2007, p.5).

Whereas assigned leadership refers to an officially-sanctioned, imposed role in a bureaucratic hierarchy, emerged leadership emerges spontaneously outside of the sanctioned chain of command. Whereas formal leadership is the result of planning, the emergence of informal leaders is a spontaneous event and thereby represents an unanticipated innovation in an organization. And, to the extent informal leadership is emergent and innovative, it parallels self- organizing processes in complex systems (Complex Adaptive Systems, 2004).