Leadership theories
This week’s blog is about various leadership theories that can be grouped into leader focused and social dynamic theories. The story starts from the grand old daddy of all approaches, trait approach. According to trait approach, leadership can be explained in terms of traits of personality and character. According to Northouse, the traits central to a leader are: intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability. The next theory in line is the skills theory and skills are described as capabilities that can be lost if you do not practice with them.
Skills vary, so do the abilities associated with them. The most famous component of the skill theory is the part by Katz, proposed in 1955. The approach is a 3 skill approach where technical, human and conceptual skills are different parts of the scenario. Technical skill refers to the knowledge about and being proficient in a specific type of work or ability. Human skill or interpersonal skill refers to working with people, and conceptual skills refer to the ability to work with ideas. The skill model of leadership has individual attributes (general cognitive ability, crystallized cognitive ability, motivation, and personality), leadership outcomes (effective problem solving, performance), and competencies (problem solving skills, knowledge and social adjustment). Career experience (mentoring, training, hands on experience and challenging job assignments) affect individual attributes and competencies while environmental influences( factors outside leaders control) affect individual attributes, competencies and leadership outcomes.
The next approach is the style approach which falls under the behavioral category and has 2 different orientations. Task orientation mainly focused on the leader defining the role of followers and making decisions and the follower skill/ability level or time available is low. Task takes precedence and people involvement is low. The other kind of orientation is relationship orientation where task is not as important as getting followers involved. The leader is the facilitator and followers have abilities and knowledge to do task. In this orientation, the leader’s role is in helping people function and not in doing the task. Blake and Mouton’s leadership grid was very interesting and simple to understand. The leadership continuum was also interesting to read and the progression from leader-centered approach to authoritative to political to evaluative to participative, laissez-faire and ultimately ending in group-centered approach was multidimensional in scope.
Situational leadership that was next in line seemed more like a model rather than an approach or a theory as it was based on 3-action interplay. As proposed by Hershey and Blanchard, the amount of direction and socio-emotional support a leader provides, and the developmental level of the followers for each specific task determines situational leadership. So, it is very relevant in situations where the leader is working with a small group of followers but is highly unmanageable in large organizations or communities. Path goal theory, contingency theory and leader-member exchange theory were all the different links leading to transactional leadership in the social dynamic category of theories. Transactional leadership focuses on the exchange between leader and follower involving things of agenda, rewards etc.and involves negative reinforcement, negative feedback and corrective criticism. The next theory in line is transformational theory.
Characteristics of Transformational Leadership:
Idealized influence or charisma is
• envisioning
• confidence
• high standards for emulation
• Inspirational motivation
• provides followers with challenges
• meaning for engaging in shared goals and undertakings.
Intellectual stimulation
• helps followers question assumptions
• generate more creative solutions to problems
Individualized consideration
• treats each follower as an individual
• provides coaching, mentoring and growth opportunities
The most important piece of the whole puzzle was “Transformational leadership increases the effectiveness of transactional leadership. It does not have to replace transactional leadership” (Waldman, Bass, & Yammarino, 1990).
Also, the distinction between transactional, transformational and Pseudotransformational leadership was important. “Pseudo transformational leaders are self-consumed, exploitive, and power-oriented, with warped
moral values” (Bass, 1998).
The readings in Grint were interesting and as usual Grint provided a more concrete and critical view of leadership than Northouse did.