Personal Leadership Approaches - Coursework Example

Leadership Approaches Introduction Mahatma Gandhi, Hitler, and Napoleon are considered to be world’s most influential and famous people by many. There are particular people that others will always follow, for no matter what reason. When one looks at organizing teams there’s always somebody whos got what is termed as ‘leadership qualities’, people who are willing to tell other people what to do and also have the respect of other people. This paper sheds light on Leadership and understanding the three major approaches to it. Leadership seems to be one of those qualities, which one may be able to see, but not describe it. It may be one essential element of an organization that keeps it together and going. It is a process of getting a task done through people. There have been numerous amounts of theories and assumptions that have varied. Although words about leadership have been written by Egyptian and Greek philosophers about five thousand years ago, but the studies about different approaches to leadership did not commence until after World War 1. Since then, there has been a multitude of perspectives and theories produced. In the recent years, there have been three broad approaches or generations of theories to leadership. These include, Personality Approach Behavioral Approach Contingency or Situational Approach The "Personality approach" emphasizes at the individual attributes of leaders, such as self confidence, risk taking, creativity, and persuasiveness. The "Behavior approach" looks at the actual activity performed by any leader that involves assessing regular tasks and behavioral characteristics of leaders. Lastly, the "Situational approach" focuses on leadership in terms of its relationships with factors such as subordinates, and peers. This approach is also referred to as “Contingency theory” because the situation determines the role of the leader. Personality Approach First time a scientific research was carried out was in the early part of the twentieth century. These scientists’ works with an assumption that leaders were people who had various attributes and personality traits that include physical characteristics, personality, social background, and ability that distinguished them from the rest. Therefore, this consistent philosophical view came to be known as the "Great Man Theory of Leadership." The theory states that some people are ‘born to be leaders’ and not made. Such people possess a special quality that differentiates them as unique from common individual(s). One may say that the great leaders of the world like Julius Caesar or Napoleon would’ve achieved the same leadership role at anyplace or anytime in history. In the Nineteen twenty’s, some of the leadership researchers started taking this hypothetical theory literally. They began to search for specific traits that differentiated leaders and followers instead of looking at the traits that were common and then focusing on the ones that were not. The research lead many scientists to believe that in times of crises or emergency, a new leader may be the one who possess the characteristics of an influential leader thus conducted studies based on this theory during the nineteen thirty’s to nineteen fifty’s. In most cases, these studies looked for significant relations between measures of effective leadership and individual traits. Physical, mental, and social traits were issue. Nevertheless, the results of these studies turned out to be discouraging, as there was little or no correlation of traits with the ability to actually become a leader. Although, it may be concluded that personality traits may not foresee leadership and that leadership may be different in various situations. Nevertheless, in the end, it’s always a matter of perception and one should not reject the theory based on a group’s perception. Behavioral Approach As the validity of the results of the Personality, approach to leadership was doubtful, the researchers moved from leader traits to their outlook, in the beginning of nineteen fifty’s. The hypothesis of the behavioral paradigm was that the behavior of the leaders had a great impact on productivity and job satisfaction of the sub-ordinates. As a result, two very famous studies came into existence by the Ohio State University and Michigan state university in the nineteen forty’s and fifty’s. The Ohio State University developed a questionnaire that measured aspects that leader’s usually behaved in. Two of the common and prominent ones were “Task Oriented” in which the leader was concerned only about the work to be done. Second being “People Centered” which, in the later years gave birth to McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y. Simultaneously, the Michigan State University came up with the Managerial Grid that determined the technique to effective leadership. Their results were similar to the Ohio state university’s result. To bridge the gap between the two distinct styles, they divided them into four parts. These included the concern for task, directive leadership, concern for people and participative leadership. Although the managerial grip turned out to be a big success and is widely being used to date, the results of this approach show that no “style” of leadership is the finest. The limitations of this approach claims that the environment and the situation the leader behaves in the particular way have been ignored. This made the researchers to move in a different direction in which the environment and the situation may be and important factor. Situational or Contingency Approach It was in the late nineteen sixty’s and nineteen seventy’s that the Situational or Contingency theory came into being. The basic idea of this theory was that a leader’s characteristics or the traits will be effective to different degree, depending on the circumstances. A number of contingency theories were studied that included Fiedlers contingency theory, Path-goal theory, the Vroom-Yetton-Jago decision-making model of leadership, and the Situational leadership theory. Fiedler’s theory was the first and very comprehensively studied theory published in nineteen sixty seven, that related behavior that is, “People centered” or “Task oriented” of the leader to the context or the situation. His theory explains that performance of a group or an organization is a result of interaction of the qualities of the leader and “favorability” of the situation or in other words, the characteristics of the surroundings that the leader works in. One of the most important elements of Fiedler’s theory was the Leadership Style. He believed that a leader’s style depends upon his or her characteristics therefore, it cannot be changed. He looked at three situations that could affect the leadership style, which included the relations between the employee and the leader, the task structure meaning how well a task was planned or unstructured. Finally, the authority that the leader has over his sub-ordinates. The results showed that Task oriented managers did better in situations that had a strong relationship with the employees, structured tasks, and either weak or strong position power. On the other hand, poor relations with employees and unstructured task showed the same results. Studies also show that Relationship oriented leader’s deal with all the situations in a better way. Thus, a different situation may need a different leader. According to Vroom and Yetton’s theory, the effectiveness of a leader depends on various aspects of the situation. This includes the quality of the decision, the information known to the leader and the employee’s nature. Path-goal theory published in nineteen seventy one, it proposes that qualities of the sub ordinates and the quality of the working environment conclude which leadership style or behavior is most effective. The theory recognizes that the main characteristics of the sub ordinates is the control, work experience, ability, and the need for association. Whereas, the environmental characteristics given by the theory are nature of the task, the system of authority, and the relationship of the work group. The theory includes four different leader behaviors, which include directive leadership, supportive leadership, participative leadership, and achievement-oriented leadership. According to the theory, leader behavior should make the sub ordinates work freely and give them job security so that it may lead to improved performance which then gives them valued rewards. The results of the Path-goal theory suggest that the behavior of the leader will depend upon the subordinate and environmental factors. Conclusion Leadership is persistent to be one of the most significant topics in the social sciences. Although, a lot has been learned about leadership since the nineteen twenty, much area’s are still being discovered by researcher’s as we move on to the twentieth century. After studying three major approaches to leadership, one may realize that none of them can be dismissed neither can any one of them be entirely true. It is true that the findings of the Personality Approach gave birth to the approaches that followed it. It is because of the extensive philosophical view of those times that recognized the need to study the effectiveness of leadership. The Behavioral theory is highly influenced by the “Great Man Theory”. As technology is increasingly being used in the cooperate world and elsewhere, communication is not an issue for leadership, many of the firms are still following the Situational or the Contingency approach. They believe that every individual has their own capability and capacity to perform a task, and not every individual is bound to b a leader. Where there is a leader, there must b a follower and most of the qualities of being a leader comes naturally or perhaps one can be trained to be so. Therefore, the approaches mentioned above that we have studied overlaps with each other in numerous ways. The Basic idea comes from personal characteristics; these qualities reflect in ones actions and thus become the person’s style or behavior. This behavior then determines the attitude of the person with others. The better the attitude of the leader, more effective he or she shall be. Although some of these leaders may not perform well in various situation’s which then, invites the four leadership styles. Therefore, in today’s fast moving world, it is easier for organizations to approach leader’s that have the skills that they require for getting their job done through the other sub ordinates. This can be done by using the tests and questionnaires that have been made before by researchers. For example, a school may need a ‘task oriented’ leader to supervise teachers. Hence, these approaches may help one to understand the different theories, their limitations and advantages on how to get an effective leader. Bibliography 1. Baldoni, J. (2003). Great Communication Secrets of Great Leaders. McGraw-Hill; 1 edition. 2. Glanz, J. (2002). Finding Your Leadership Style: A Guide for Educators. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. 3. HBR. (2008). Choosing the Right Leadership Style: No Single Approach Fits All Situations. Harvard Business Review , 18-35. 4. Maxwell, J. C. (2007). The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You. Thomas Nelson; 10 Rev Upd edition. 5. Northouse, P. G. (2006). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Sage Publications, Inc; Fourth Edition edition . Read More