Past and present of Leadership Theory
The study of leadership has identified different categories in the 20th century. Leadership is typically defined by the traits, qualities, and behaviors of a leader. Leadership was considered to be an inborn trait; in the past when researchers talked about leadership they referred to certain internal quality possessed by an individual to be a leader. The first trait theories dealt with the attributes of the leaders. (Bernard, 1926) After the trait theories comes the behavioral theories in which leaders were studied in context to organization. The behavior’s leaders used to increase the competency of the organization. (Haplin and Winer, 1957; Hemphill and Coons, 1957 cited in Horner, 1997)
The two most famous studies, the Ohio State and Michigan leadership studies took the behavioral approach. Based on the behavioral approach two factors were identified by the study: consideration and initiation of structure. The impact of this work was that leadership was not necessarily an inborn trait, but instead effective leadership methods could be taught to employees. (Saal and Knight, 1988 cited in Horner, 1997) The study helped in separating the different behaviors between leaders and followers so behaviors can be taught to leaders.
Blake and Mouton (1964) based on the Ohio State and Michigan studies developed two-factor grid model. The factors were called “concern for people” and “concern for output”. According to this model the behavior of leaders falls under task and people. Blake and Mouton (1964) theory helped to distinguish the behavior of the leaders and categorized them according to their behavior.
Behavioral theories followed after trait theories and now the most recent one is the contingency theories which researchers identify as there is no one best style of leadership. Leadership style changes according to the situation. To answer the question about the no one best way to lead dealt with the interaction between the leader’s traits, the leader’s behaviors, and the situation in which the leader exists. (Saal and Knight, 1988 cited in Horner, 1997)
There have been many contingencies theory, but it is unrealistic to assume that any one theory is more or less valid or useful than another. (Honer, 1997)
Defining Leadership
According to Mosley, Pietri and megginson (1996) leadership is defined as, the process of influencing the individual and group activities towards goal-setting and goal achievement. Whereas Bryman (1986) gives a slightly different definition of leadership, he defines leadership, “is the creation of vision about desired future state which seeks to enmesh all members of an organization in its net.” But whatever one may define, it won’t be wrong to say that leader are those who manages, motivates and control the activities of the organisation and plays a big role in creating the culture of the organisation and the changes taking place or changes made by him in organisation. Leaders are considered to be dominant one. Whenever we talk about leaders we refer to men (Great Man Theory). “Great man theory argues that the fate of societies and organisations is in the hands of powerful, idiosyncratic (male) individuals”. (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2004) But now not all trait and attributes can be referred to as of male. The feminine style of approach is used and encouraged in most situation of the organisation. So the leadership cannot be just confined to gender based anymore. Same way it will be hard to say there is any one best style of leadership. Leaders are the focal point of every organisation. They are trend setters in the organisation and their influence on the follower and the culture of the organisation is immense, but it’s subject to successful leaders only. So for organisation to be successful and for leaders to keep their staff motivated it’s important for leaders to adopt leadership style that best suits the employees, culture and situation. Can there be any one best style of leadership?
Style of Leadership
The different style of Leadership was identified by Kurt Lewin’s (1939) in his research. He with other group of researchers identified three style of leadership
- Autocratic Leadership
- Democratic Leadership
- Lassiez-Faire Leadership
Autocratic leadership style is more of an authoritarian style of management. It involves bossing around telling what to do and how to do it. This style should only been used when it’s needed as this style of approach is considered to be unprofessional. This style works best when the leaders have all the information and knows how to solve the problem and is short on time.
Democratic leadership style is more of a participative style which involves discussion and opinions of the employees in decision making a two way flow of information unlike autocratic style. This style of leadership make employee’s part of the team, this style is best used when some information is known by the leader and other information is known by employees, so sharing and discussing of information will help improve the decision making as well as keep the staff motivated at the same time. Employee job satisfaction depends upon the leadership style of managers. Nevertheless, participative management is not always a good management style. Managers should select the best leadership style according to the organizational culture and employees’ organizational maturity. (Mosadeghrad, 2006)
Lassiez-Faire leadership style is more of delegating task to subordinates to do work. It involves motivating employees on basis of empowering them with decision making power. This style is best used when employees have more knowledge about the certain task in comparison to the boss. A leader cannot do everything he needs to learn how to delegated task to his subordinates. But the how much the degree of hold should be there in this style of leadership is questionable.
Factors that affect Leadership Style
A good leader uses all styles of leadership, depending on what factors are involved between the followers, the leader, communication and the situation.
All leadership style is different in each situation. The leadership style doesn’t work the same for all situations.
Leadership style differs because of followers. As leaders role is to motivate worker and create an environment best suited for employees. So it depends on the motivational level of individual followers and leaders need to lead in different ways in order to get more out of the workers. Leadership and motivation goes side by side. A motivational theory Herzberg (1964) is linked with the leadership style adopted by leaders. Herzberg in his theory distinguished between factors in the work place that guide to employee satisfaction and employee dissatisfaction. Those factors that result in satisfaction is called motivators and the factors which help keep employees from being dissatisfied were called the hygiene factors. This theory ties to leadership, because leaders will be very keen to reduce the factors of dissatisfaction and increase the factors of satisfaction and create an environment best suited to employee satisfaction and performance. (Honer, 1997) Other motivation theories also be relevant to leadership has they will help what leader can do sway the behavior of others’. (e.g. Maslow, 1954; McGregor, 1960; Vroom, 1964; Porter and Lawler, 1968)
As more research and development has been made in leadership theories over years has resulted in a study of leadership with organizational culture (Schein, 1985). In this view if leaders are to be successful they should be adapt to culture and change in culture. Leadership is to do with change management. For today’s leader to be successful they need to be able to manage culture of the organization for which they will need more skills to perform well. The reason of culture change has resulted due to more flexibility in the organization and more autonomy and empowerment given to employees. (Schein, 1985) “Leaders are also involved in managing the culture by establishing an explicit strategic direction, communicating that direction, and defining the organizational vision and values”. (Honer, 1997) There is so far no theory in literature which tells about different leadership style in different cultural factors. But culture does play a role and effect the leadership style so for leader to be successful they need to adapt to culture change.
Situational Leadership – Contingency Theory
Real life Example of no one best style of Leadership
As a CEO of apparel company Warnaco, Linda Wachner was an abrasive but successful manager in the 1990s but was fired in 2001 after the company filed bankruptcy. Contingency theory would have argued that while Wachner’s production-oriented style worked at Warnaco in the 1990s, conditions changed, making this style ineffective at the end of the decade. (Robbins, 2003) This shows that there is no one best style of leadership, a leader has to change style to be successful and should be responsive to change.
“It isn’t always easy to change leadership hats or to alter the way you assess a business problem”. (Schaeffer’s, 2002) Under pressure, leaders adopt the same style as they use to solve the earlier problem as a last resource but fail as for each situation and scenario there seem to be need for a different leadership style. This was advocated in Schaeffer’s (2002) to get a clear understanding of how leadership approach is adopted, Leonard Schaeffer’s leadership styles can be taken into account how in his 30 years of career he changed his leadership style at three crucial points. Schaeffer’s is chairman and CEO of WellPoint Health Networks. He adopted different techniques depending on the business challenges at hand. He has turned into a reformer from an autocratic leader. In the middle phase of his career he also adopted participative style of management. There are pitfalls in switching leadership styles, but this flexibility is necessary for realizing corporate and personal success.
There is no recipe for either leading or managing change. Every organization and leader is distinctive. The change in leadership style is form of art rather than science and whereas managing change is a form of science rather than art. Leader’s style and personality is not a topic in leading change but it is a leader’s way of life of how to produce and mobilize the resources of an organization to make possible it to be its best. (Bruhn, 2004) Whereas, managing change is to bring solidity in an organization and to handle unwanted and unforeseen circumstances in order of change. “Leaders set the limits of success in their organizations by how they manage change”. (Bruhn, 2004)
Lindgreen et al (2009) in their study discusses the connection between leadership style and marketing practice and propose a strong linkage between them. The study evaluated that a transformational style of leadership is positively correlated with interaction and network marketing. Transactional leadership is positively linked with network marketing. Passive/avoidant leadership has no effect on any of the marketing practices. This research adds weight to the argument that leadership styles need to be intentionally adapted with relation to marketing practices. (Lindgreen et .al, 2009)