Three Leadership Theories and Their Usefulness - Research Paper Example

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 (Kotter, 1990). 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 (Northouse, 2012).

The Trait and Great man theory of leadership have introduced a set of skills and competencies that are considered as the born qualities and attributes of leaders (Schyns and Meindl, 2005). 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 (Higgs, 2003). 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 on various effects of these theories on the development of my leadership skills to handle different organisational challenges. The illustration of behavioural theory generally guides management with processes of developing particular leadership behaviour.