Leadership Theories and Their Usefulness - Essay Example

Introduction Leadership can be considered as one of the most important and complex process of any organisation across the globe. Effective leadership process is an essential tool to shape an organisational culture and workforce behaviour. It is an undeniable attribute for the success of any business. Leadership can be defined as a set of attributes that allow any individual to influence behaviour, thoughts and attitudes of others. Leadership process emphasizes on the ability to utilize the valuable resources of a group to accomplish a common goal. Leaders in any organisation, groups or community are responsible to set visions as well as create directions to achieve new goals. Leaders must create an image that would be appreciated and followed by others. Over a period of time, researchers have offered a wide range of leadership theories to evaluate the roles, responsibilities and characteristics of an effective and efficient leadership process. Earlier theories of leadership have mainly considered the leadership attributes as an innate trait or quality of any individual. The Trait and Great man theory of leadership has introduced a set of skills and competencies that are considered as the born qualities and attributes of leaders. The requirement and essence of leadership qualities have been changed according to the transformation of business culture, employment relationship and organisational behaviour. Due to the changing demand of workplaces it has been analysed that good and effective leadership can be learned and developed through experiences, self-study, training and proper education. Researchers have suggested that the leadership style need to be altered as per the change of organisational situation and work culture. It has also been evaluated that leadership is not only about leading people, it is also about creating a strong relationship within different teams and communities of the organisation. The further discussion will evaluate three major leadership theories such as Contingency, transactional and transformational theories. These theories are focused on developing leadership skills and styles as per different situations and culture of any organisation. The discussion will also elaborate various the effects of these theories on the development of my leadership skills to handle different organisational challenges. Contingency Theory The illustration of behavioural theory generally guide management the processes of developing particular leadership behaviour. This theory provides very little guidance regarding different attributes of effective leadership as per changes in organisational situations. According to current research reports, managers under different circumstances required various leadership styles to bring success on the organisational activities. Hence, the contingency leadership theory has been evaluated to indicate that different leadership styles need to be used as contingent upon various factors such as internal situations, environmental variables, organisational tasks and different values of people. It can be said that contingency theory is an extension of behavioural leadership theory which is based on the view that there is no best way to lead any organisation, make a decision and organize any cooperation. A number of researchers have contributed different views by supporting or contradicting the core perspective of contingency leadership theory. The contingency model of Fred Edward Fiedler has demonstrated a supportive view towards the core theory of contingency leadership. The author has detailed that requirement of different leadership style is totally dependent on the variation of work situations. For instance, in a mechanistic or repetitive work environment directive leadership style may generate best performance within the workforce while dynamic work environment demands more participative and flexible style of leadership to achieve the desired goal. According to the researchers the contingency theory of leadership mainly relates three major situational factors such as the relationship between leaders and members, task structure and positional power. The leader-member relation measures the acceptance of different leadership style within the hierarchies of any organisation. The positive leader-member relation indicates trust, confidence and motivation within the subordinates of organisation. Task structure measures the clarity of organisational projects and their methods to achieve the organisational goal. An effective leadership demonstrate clear guidelines for project execution and proper task monitoring method. The task oriented manager tends to lead in a better manner where the task is unstructured but the leader-member relationship is well-balanced. This style of leadership capacity also demands strong positional power within the different hierarchy of the organization. The positional power evaluates the authority of any leader to influence the performance and productivity of the subordinate. This process includes their performance appraisal and reward and recognition procedure. The leadership model of Hersey-Blanchard has also supported the contingency theory of leadership. They have evaluated that the developmental level of workforce or subordinates play an important role in the determination procedure of appropriate leadership style in different organisational situation. The researchers have also explained that the amount of task related direction and socio-emotional support provided by any leader in a particular situation is directly related to the maturity level of the subordinates. Hence, the authors have suggested three distinctive factors, such as task behaviour, relationship behaviour and maturity, which evaluate the requirement of different leadership styles in various organisational situations. Task behaviour involves the one way communication of leaders to impart the knowledge regarding the duties and responsibilities of a group or individual. On the other hand, relationship behaviour promotes two way communications which includes the extent of leadership engagement to provide socio-emotional support to the subordinate. The maturity of the subordinates defines their ability and willingness to take responsibility which subsequently determines the proper leadership style. The researchers have suggested various leadership styles as per the different situation. This leadership styles include directing, coaching, supporting and delegating. Directing style influences leaders to provide specific directions and clear instructions. Coaching assist the leaders to initiate two-way communication to motivate the employees as well as build confidence within them. Supporting style influence the leaders to include the subordinate in the decision making process which eliminate the requirement of directive leadership. Delegating leadership style can only be appropriate in the situation where the subordinates will display high readiness towards any kind of task and responsibilities. The discussion of contingency leadership by Tannenbaum & Schmidt strongly criticizes the previous theories. According to these researchers the previous explanations are depending on two extreme leadership styles which are either task-oriented or relationship oriented. They have contradicted this view by stating that leadership behaviour varies along a continuum between two extremes of organisational situation. To support this viewpoint they have also suggested various leadership styles such as autocratic, persuasive, consultative and democratic. The autocratic leaders generally take the decisions and announce them by considering that subordinates will follow them without any contradiction. Persuasive leaders also follow the path of autocratic leaders while they put extra effort in building enthusiasm within the workforce to achieve the goal. Alternatively, the consultative leaders prefer to discuss with the team members before taking any decision. The democratic leader generally follows the solution provided by the subordinate teams. The proper evaluation of the different aspects of contingency leadership theory has provided a great assistance in understanding the suitability of different leadership style in different situation of the organisation. As a part of the organisational middle management, the proper understanding of contingency of leadership allow me to analyse different organisational situation before selecting any leadership style and decision making procedure. This leadership process has assisted me to streamline the teamwork of my subordinates by analysing the maturity level of each team members. It has also allowed me to balance all the task-related and relationship-related leadership skills within different organisational situation. The analysis of contingency theory has allowed me to understand the different and effectiveness of various leadership styles in different stages of team development procedure. The continuum model of contingency leadership has offered me different leadership responses which are essential within various steps of the team development procedure. These responses varies from directive approach, that assist me to effectively communicate roles and responsibilities of different members of the team, to team delegation, which influence me to seek opinions and suggestions from the team members regarding the proper execution of any particular task. During the formation of the team it is important to clearly communicate the objectives and responsibilities of each team members. Therefore, in this stage I need to adopt the directing leadership style. During this situation I also required to analyse the adoption capacity of each member to ensure the proper distribution of tasks. The proper understanding of the maturity team members has also enabled me to develop supportive behaviour which therefore allowed me to incorporate two-way communication to evaluate the queries of different team members and suggest solution to them. This process of leadership has allowed me to effectively handle the conflict of values within the team members due to the changes in the organisational situation. After forming the team, properly communicating the task objectives and solving the value conflict, I need to develop the participating style of leadership. This style has influenced me to generate effective inter-team communication method to gather suggestions and solutions from the team members regarding different task challenges. The participating or supporting leadership style has allowed me to strengthen the team bond as well as evaluate easier and smarter way to solve different problems. This process has also assisted me to motivate the team members to efficiently and effectively solve challenging tasks. Transactional Leadership Theory The leadership theories and model discussed till now are more inclined towards representing leaders as a frontal figure. On the other hand, the transactional theory of leadership has created a differentiation by recognising the importance the relationship of leaders with the followers. This theory has also evaluated the importance of interdependency in the leadership role. The transactional approach of leadership mainly highlights the relationship between leaders and the followers. This theory mainly focuses on the mutual benefits of both the parties which influences the managers to provide rewards and recognition to the subordinate in exchange of their work commitment and loyalty. A number of researchers have evaluated different aspects of leader and follower relationship under the light of transactional theory. Greenfield (2002) has defined the transactional leadership as servant leadership procedure. The author has emphasized that the major duty of leaders is to serve their followers. Therefore, according to the author leadership is more inclined towards the desire to serve the team rather than leading the team members. The author has also defined various characteristic of servant leaders. This kind of transactional leadership style influences the management of any organisation to serve the workforce first and then lead them as a process of expanding service towards individuals as well as the organisation. This leadership style encourages trust, listening, collaboration, foresight and ethical implication of power. This kind of leadership style is very common within the workforce of churches and religious institutions. Researcher Katzenbach and Smith (1994) have offered another view of transactional leadership theory. The authors have evaluated different critical behaviour of transactional leadership. According to them transactional leadership influence leaders to ask questions rather than answering to the queries of workforce. This process will allow the leaders to efficiently analyse the problems of the team members. Therefore, it will assist them to provide adequate solutions. The authors have mentioned that this process allow the leaders to provide the project leading opportunity to the followers. This procedure enable them to strengthen the project related skills and capabilities of the workforce. This leadership process also influences the management to contribute in the actual team efforts regardless their position. This process certainly generates the confidence within the team members. The authors have also evaluate that the major role of transactional leadership is to seek the common understanding of the team rather than asking for their consensus. Researcher Belbin (2012) has evaluated the importance of transactional leadership theory by illustrating various aspects of solo leaders and team leaders. Analysis of both the aspects has assisted the researchers to understand the attributes of transactional leadership in terms of their strength as well as contribution to the organisation and team. According to the author, team leader generally prefer to delegate roles to other team members as per their skills and capabilities rather than handling the entire major tasks alone. This transactional leadership process allows the management to build up team confidence and develop effective and efficient team performance. The transactional leadership procedure encourages the management to value the differences of team members. This assists them to eliminate various conflicts of values within the workforce. The researcher has also illustrated that the transactional leadership procedure allow the managers to develop personal strength of the team members through rotating crucial and challenging jobs within different team members. This attributes assist the leaders to generate motivation as well as job satisfaction within the workforce. The researchers have also evaluates that the transactional leadership procedure influences positive team work within any organisation. This process allows the team member to communicate their ideas with the senior or middle level management for better understanding of complicated tasks and their solutions. Transformational Leadership Theory 1100 Conclusion 200 Read More