Theories Of Leadership Theories

Whereas trait theory believed that leadership traits are something and individual is born with, behavioral theory is based on the concept that

As was mentioned earlier, the trait theory contains highly subjective perspectives. It means that the perception of leadership traits is associated with the assessment of leadership. Barry et al (2003) conducted an

There a numerous leadership theories that help manage a successful business. These theories include techniques that have been developed and constantly improving since 1888. Theorists such as Thomas Carlyle, Kurt Lewin, and James Kouze, have developed characteristics they believe will shape the leaders of tomorrow. These characteristics are structured together to create theories based on personality, relationships, and developmental styles. The following will provided an organized overview of ten theorists and the characteristics they believe to develop successful leaders.

Trait Theories:- Trait theory shows similarities with Great man theories, In trait theories specifically it has been assumed that people are born with certain qualities and characteristics. These make them better leaders from choice. It also shows specific personality or behavioural traits shared by leaders.

There are different leadership theories developed throughout the history. Most popular ones are trait theories, behavioral theories, contingency theories, and leader-member exchange (LMX) theory. The author of the post will briefly discuss two theories, Fiedler contingency theory and Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), and compare and contrast their strengths and weakness.

The trait theory expects leaders to have certain characteristics or traits. Traits are stable & transferable across situations. Traits are clearly identifiable & measurable prediction. Traits such as: intelligence, dominance, self-confident, energetic, task-related knowledge. According to one of her biographies “Margaret

Moreover, the trait approach gives a deeper understanding of the leader element in the leadership process by emphasising exclusively on the leader, (Gore et al, 2011). The trait theory does not offer hypotheses about the role of situational variance or characteristic of the followers. Instead, this approach provide information about leaders, and about which traits cause which behaviours and that certain set of traits are central to the leadership process and play an indispensible part of effective leadership.

Theory of leadership states that are three basic ways to explain how people become leaders (Stogdill, 1989; Bass, 1990). The theories are some personality traits may lead people naturally into leadership roles this is the Trait Theory (Stogdill, 1989). A crisis or important event may cause a person to rise to the occasion, which brings out extraordinary leadership qualities in an ordinary person (Bass, 1990). People want to be guided by those they

Leadership theories are attempts to answer some of the question people have about leadership. These theories range from simple “armchair philosophies” about the personal characteristics and effect relationship between leaders and followers and situations.

Dr. Michael Blelch (2014) states that during his study of the theory of leadership he discovered that the concept was constantly changing, evolving and adapting. There are several types of

If we focus on the idea that people can poses different personality and characteristics can be linked to successful leadership across various situation this would be defined as the trait theory of leadership. Some researcher believe that the ability to lead was something that a person was born with and not something that could be developed or learn. Many people still believe that leaders just have an intuition that makes them good at making decision and developing

The trait leadership theory focuses on the individual leader’s personal characteristics as the basis of its investigations. It is one of the earliest leadership theories upon whose tenets many researches on leadership have been done. Although it is not very coherent, its heuristic nature has contributed to its significance in leadership research. Zaccaro and Klimoski (2002) define traits of reference to leadership as the stable personality characteristics, which result in a consistent leadership performance pattern, given different scenarios and groups. They include individual personalities, temperament, rationale, prowess, as well as cognitive abilities. Initially, the theory explored both physical and psychological characteristics that tell apart leaders from non-leaders.

Trait leadership theory is actually a range of theories which share the belief that all leaders are born with, or at least display, certain key personality

With regard to the leadership trait theory, it was proposed in the attempt to understand and provide some explanations as to why some people make successful leaders while others fail to do so. This theory assumes that some

There are many theories that contribute to the discussion of leadership some of which are: Trait, Behavioural, Contingency, Relational theory and the Style theory. The contingency theory claims that there is no set way to lead an organisation. This is due to the fact that both external and internal factors need to be considered by the leader and need to be handled accordingly. The Relational theory looks into how relations within an organisation develop leaders and at how leaders are required to be accustomed to others within the organisation. The Style theory of leadership proposes that they style of leadership is the key to good leadership. It looks at leaders and their style of leadership for example Steve Jobs would lead in a very autocratic manner whereas Richard Branson is seen to be a democratic leader. The managerial grid is also part of the style based theory; it allows people to embrace a leadership style that is both people friendly and achieve target production. However this theory has been criticised of being too simplistic as different people would prefer to be lead in different ways. Having said this there are two main theories that have become the result of this debate: behavioural and trait. The trait theory believes that people are born with leadership characteristics such as imagination, determination and enthusiasm. The analysis of mental, physical and social attributes of leaders resulted in the trait theory being developed. Whereas the behavioural