Leadership has evolved over the years and went through various systems and theories put in practice with more or less success. The idea of leadership started with the first human communities when people realized that they needed someone to coordinate the common affairs and offer guidance in difficult situations.
Over the millennia, leadership moved from the exclusive authority of a godlike pharaoh in Ancient Egypt, to the Athenian democracy, the Roman military leadership and onward through the Middle Ages until the industrial revolution. This is the moment when businesses in the modern understanding started forming and, as a consequence, the concept of business leadership appeared.
Leadership Theories — a Synthesized Expression of Many Leaders’ Experience
The first leadership theories were not very different from the “lord of the manor” attitude: the leader gives order, everyone obeys and the leader is never wrong. The Great Crash of 1929 and other subsequent events showed that this form of leadership is not viable.
Thus, leaders and theoreticians started developing other ways in which one person can oversee the work of others, relate to them and inspire both respect and confidence. At the moment, there are four different leadership theories and each of them is applied, in larger or smaller proportion, by leaders of various organizations, operating in all industries. They are:
1. The Trait Theory: What Characterizes a Good Leader?
The trait leadership theory starts from the premise that a leader needs a specific number of native traits of character. The earliest version of this theory even stated that the leadership spirit is innate — you are born with it or not. Over time, this extreme concept was refined and focused on the desirable types of personality, skills and talents which a leader should possess.
A new leader should inspire confidence, have integrity, empathy and be a decision maker.
The trait theory is applicable especially at the moment of recruiting a new leader. Beside the resume, a new leader should inspire confidence, have integrity, empathy and be a decision maker. These are some of the guidelines a recruiting panel takes into consideration when they have to select between several qualified candidates.
2. The Behavioral Theory: How Does a Good Leader Act?
This theory focuses on the actual way in which a person exercises leadership. From this point of view, there are three recognized behavioral models:
- The autocratic leader — does not involve others in the decision making process, and expects their decisions to be carried out without any kind of feedback or comment;
- The democratic leader — always involves the team in making decisions, presents new ideas to them and welcomes their feedback;
- The laissez-faire leader — does not interfere in the decision making process, allowing their teams to decide on how to proceed in most of the situations.
There is no good or bad leadership behavior in the above list. Each of the three may be appropriate at specific moments. For instance, an autocratic and capable leader can solve a crisis situation, while a laissez-faire leader can empower and motivate a team of highly skilled and talented employees.
3. The Contingency Theory: How Do Various Situations Influence Leadership?
Related to the theory above, this one states that the leadership style is influenced by the specific conditions in the organization, on the market, or in the economy as a whole. Two popular contingency models are:
- The Path-Goal Theory: leaders select and display the specific behaviors best suited to the team and the business environment in order to guide the team towards achieving their goals;
- Fiedler’s Contingency Theory: there is no best leadership style; a leader adapts to the situation in order to be effective, by the correlation between the leadership style and the situational favorableness.
The contingency theory is helpful in changing economic and organizational situations, for example, after a merger/take-over, during an economic crisis and anytime there is low predictability and stability in the business environment and adaptability is the key to survival as a leader.
According to the Contingency Theory, the leadership style is influenced by the specific conditions in the organization, on the market, or in the economy as a whole
The Path-Goal theory places the leader ahead of the employees, allocating tasks according to their strong and weak points, removing difficulties that may delay projects and setting rewards for good performance. It works best when the leader has an ideal set of expert knowledge and people skills in order to act like a solo conductor of a complex orchestra.
4. The Power and Influence Theory: What Gives a Leader Their Power?
This theory looks at the way leaders use their authority in getting things done in their organization in order to define their leadership style. There are two views on this matter.
First, there is French and Raven’s Five Forms of Power. This theory states that there are three forms of leadership power in an organization:
- Legitimate
- Reward
- Coercive
The next two elements of the theory are based on the source of this power: expert (professional skills, and experience) and referent (appeal, charisma). According to the theory, leaders should strive to exercise expert power, which comes from the assurance that the leader is a true expert in the field and conveys legitimacy to their leadership.
A leader should create a system of challenges and rewards which encourages the team to reach their goals and exceed them in order to receive more and more rewards.
The second view is the theory of the transactional leadership. This theory states that people do things only in exchange of a reward, without any further motivation. From this point of view, a leader should create a system of challenges and rewards which encourages the team to reach their goals and exceed them in order to receive more and more rewards.
This article was originally published on pldx.org.
