There are in essence, four core leadership theory groups [1], which are: Trait theories, Behavioural theories, Contingency theories and Power and influence theories. I strongly believe that a leader must be adaptable to the situation and therefore prefer the Contingency theories. I shall therefore use two contingency theories to illustrate my ability to fulfil key responsibilities of my leadership role.
The contingency approach, founded in the 1970’s differs from the behavioral approach. “Examining various situational variables is central to understanding leadership in organizations, according to the contingency theorist” (Stojkovic, Klofas & Kalinich, 2012). Fiedler’s Contingency Model is one of those contingency theories.
The traits theory of leadership relies on the assumption that people are endowed with certain qualities or
Behavioral Theories of Leadership Behavioral theory promotes the value of leadership styles with an emphasis on concern for people and collaboration. It promotes participative decision making and team development by supporting individual needs and aligning individual and group objectives. Behavioral Theories of Leadership, also known as “The style approach to leadership” focuses on the behavior of the leader and what leaders do and how they act. Learn about the two general kinds of behaviors; task behaviors and relationship behaviors and advantages of this approach to leadership. Learn more about this theory of leadership. What are Behaviors? Behavior is the range of actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial
Behavioral Leadership The leader behavior approach is the focus of what people do as a leader or leadership style rather than the characteristics leaders inherit as a leader. It is the assumption that the actions of a person opposed to their innate mental state. Because leaders can learn through teaching and observation; specific behaviors are the focus of a leader. An important study of this theory was conducted by the Ohio State University, and the purpose was to identify common leadership behaviors. The study and research uncovered that there are two linked groups of behavior.
Leadership Styles LDR/531 Organizational Leadership Leadership Styles Leaders have a “the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals” (Robbins & Judge, 2007, p. 402). In the past leaders have been described by certain traits or characteristics. These traits can help an organization identify potential candidates who may be strong leaders. Later behavior approaches of leaders were identified that could be taught. In short, leaders could be made. Situations have an impact on which leader behaviors will be most effect at any given time. Several contingency theories have been formulated over the years to identify how situations influence leadership behavior. Each style has strengths and
Critical Evaluation of Two Theories of Leadership Introduction At the present time, leadership, especially effective leadership plays an increasingly significant role in the organization, which can be regarded as the process of affecting activities of
Throughout this course, I have learned a lot about leadership from the different leadership theories. One of these leadership theories is the behavioral approach. There are a few things I learned about leadership in regards to the behavioral approach. For example, I learned from this theory that there is not one universal style of leadership that fits every situation. In the past, I would think every leader should use the team management style. Instead, depending on the situation, a leader might need to use authority compliance or use country-club style.
Answer) The contingency model of leadership is based upon the relationship between three aspects of leader-follower-situation model. Apart from this contingency model, leaders are assumed to act in a flexible manner.
Path-Goal vs. Situational Leadership Theories Introduction There have been numerous theories surrounding leadership, which attempt to explain which form is most effective in the workplace. A universalistic approach was once used to rationalize leadership and it was believed that successful leaders possessed certain common abilities and traits. However, today due to external factors such as globalization and advanced technologies, there has been an evolution towards a new paradigm of leadership. Subordinates want to feel empowered and engaged at the workplace and often the behaviors and relationships between leaders and their subordinates become important to understand in order to fully understand effective leadership. Contingency theories have been developed in which people began to look at the behavior of leaders in specific situations. Two such contingency theories are: Path-Goal and Hershey and Blanchard’s Situational Theory.
The Trait Approach was the 1st systematic attempt to study leadership. In the 20th century it was known as the “great man” theory. This approach takes a look at the leaders personal attributes such as but not limited to: motivation, energy, intuition, creativity, persuasiveness and foresight. Some of the traits that are essential to this list include: intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability. Thus it focuses mainly on the leader and not on the followers or situations. The strengths of the Trait Approach includes: 1) it is intuitively appealing, 2) it has research to back it’s theory, 3) it highlights the leader, 4) it identifies what the traits of a leader should have and whether the traits we do
Contingency Theory of Leadership The most popular and extensively researched situational theory of leadership was first proposed by Fred Piedler during the 1960s. Fiedler's model claims that group performance depends on the interaction of the leader style and the favorableness of the situation. Fiedlers major contributions consist of(l) iden-tifying the leadership orientation of the leader and developing a way to measure it, and (2) identifying three situational factors influencing leadership and developing a method of measuring them
The next big era of leadership theories was the Rational Management era. When the previous era failed to determine exact traits that could consistently be identified in great leaders, a shift occurred to begin looking at how these leaders behaved, and what made them into great leaders, rather than who they were in a specific sense. This was a major shift from thinking that people were born leaders, to now considering that perhaps leaders could be made, or trained to become leaders. The first of these theories, beginning in the early 1950’s, were the behavior theories. The focus of these theories was to study what these leaders do, and
How useful is the Trait Approach to Leadership 1. Introduction Leadership defined as position (power and responsibility relation) or person (personality traits) or result (outcomes) or process (Grint, 2010). Person-based leadership resonates with the traditional traits approach. Trait theory, as the name gives away, is an approach to identify human personality and
Name: Course: Tutor: Date: Power and Leadership Influence Introduction Leadership has been a topic that has been researched for a long time in many disciplines. Leadership as a personality focuses on the characteristics of an individual that gives them power to act as leaders. There is leadership as an attribution this approach views leadership as phenomenon that causes group of followers to have outcomes.(Wu et al, 2010, 90).Researchers have used the following approaches to study leadership; they are mainly trait, behavior, power influence, situation and integrative approaches. Trait approaches focuses on the characteristics, values, skill and personality of leaders. Behavior approaches is focused on the leaders behaviors, differentiating between the behavior of ineffective and effective leaders. Integrative approach combines all the approaches to have a holistic picture of the process, outcomes and determinants of leadership. The approach that this paper uses is situational approach that is not leader centered but more on the significance of the context as an influence of leadership. Leaders should be able to choose the leadership quality appropriate to a particular situation.