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Theories Of Leadership And Leadership

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Are contingency theories of leadership, or trait theories of leadership, more useful for leaders in organisations? Write an essay demonstrating critical awareness of the issues involved
The role of leadership within modern organisations is a significant one in terms of its ability to motivate employees and drive productivity levels up. As a result of this, a number of theories have been developed that attempt to explain what makes an effective leader and how the qualities of leadership are applied to individual workplace scenarios. However, it is not possible to analyse all of them, so two of the most fundamental approaches have been selected as a focus. This is based on the needs of the assignment, which is to identify the most suitable…show more content…
Yukl highlighted that the trait model reinforces the attributes that are typical of leadership and that leadership comes naturally to certain people who are "endowed with certain traits not possessed by other people,” (p. 13). Clearly, this moves away from the point made above that highlights leadership as a process. Instead, the trait approach holds that the ability to lead is limited to a select number of people that have talents and abilities they are born with (Yukl, 2006). However, as Yukl highlights, it is important to highlight that the trait approach is the founding leadership theory, and all others since have attempted to build on this. It might therefore be argued that it is impossible to base
The other side of the argument – which is process rather than trait driven – suggests that everyone is capable of leading and the qualities that define it can actually be learned. Indeed, a number of theorists suggest that this can be gleaned directly through observing the activities of leaders and how they perform them (Daft, 2005; Northouse, 2010). This leads to the consideration of the contingency theory which holds that there are more 'contingencies ', variables and contexts which apply to effective leadership. The common assumption that leaders are born not made is perhaps, reflective of how simple a solution this is, without
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