Effectiveness of leadership theories in contemporary organizations

Leadership Theories

The objective of this work is to answer the question of: "Do leadership theories help organization to develop effective leadership?" This work will analyze and compare leadership programs used in contemporary organizations to support the argument in this work. Specifically, this work will focus on two comparable organizations and define way to measure effective leadership and finally will determine which leadership theories are present and whether they develop effective leadership.

The work of Yukl (1998) entitled: "Leadership in Organizations" relates that there are six categories of leadership theory including:

Trait;

Behavior;

Power and Influence;

Situational;

Charismatic; and 6) Transformational. (Clawson, 1989)

Each of these are reviewed in the following sections of this work.

TRAIT THEORY

The 'Trait' approach to leadership is one of the earliest used approaches and places an emphasis on the traits of leaders. This approach has as its underlying assumption that "certain people possess innate characteristics that make them better leaders than others." (Yukl, 1998) the 'Great Man Theory' of Leadership holds that leaders are born and not made or in other words that some people have these internal traits and others do not.

II. BEHAVIORAL THEORY

This leadership approach gained popularity in the 1950s "as researchers grew frustrated with the traits approach." (Clawson,

Included in this theory is Mintzberg's Ten Managerial Roles, which include those of:

1) Figurehead role

2) Leader role;

3) Liaison Role;

4) Monitor Role

5) Disseminator Role

6) Spokesman Role

7) Entrepreneur Role;

8) Disturbance Handler Role

9) Resource Allocator Role; and 10) Negotiator Role. (Clawson, 1989)

Also included in this theory is Kotter's Leadership Factor (1988) which states that leadership "is defined as the process of moving a group (or groups) in some direction through mostly noncoercive means." (Clawson, 1989) Also falling within the range of this theory of leadership is 'Stewart's Three-Part Theory of Management', which holds that three forces exist which affect the managerial roles of individual managers to various degrees and help in shaping the nature of those jobs:

1) Demands - Duties and responsibilities imposed by others in positions of power and which the manager must uphold.

2) Constraints - Elements in the organizational and external environment that limit the manager's options.

3) Choices - the things a manager must do at his or her own discretion. (Clawson, 1989)

III. POWER and INFLUENCE THEORY

The power and influence theory of leadership include that of David McClelland or 'Two Faces of Power', which include:

1) Dominating power - seeks to subjugate others by keeping them weak and dependent on the leader; and 2) Empowering power - seeks to enable the weak. (Clawson, 1989)

Also included in this theory is the 'Social Exchange Theory' which holds that 'social exchange' "exists between a leader and other members of the group: the leader champions a course of action and the group affords the leader a greater or lesser degree of status and influence based on the perceived success or failure of the plan." (Clawson,

When the plan set out by the leader experiences failure "...social exchange theory predicts that the leader will experience a loss of status and influence. The loss will be greater if the failure appears to be due to poor judgment, rather than from factors beyond the leader's control; if the leader is thought to have pursued selfish motives; if the plan was especially divergent from group norms; or if the leader had a particularly high degree of status beforehand." (Clawson, 1989)

IV. SITUATIONAL THEORY

The situational approach to leadership has an emphasis on contextual factors: 'the nature of the work performed by the leader's unit, the individual characteristics of the followers, or the nature of the external environment." (Clawson, 1989) Included in this theory are those as follows: (1) Hershey and Blanchard's Situational Theory of Leadership - the argument posited in this theory of leadership is that the "maturity of the subordinate determines what mix of people vs. task orientation is appropriate for that subordinate. Immature subordinate require a more directive task-oriented leader, while mature subordinates who are willing to take responsibility will respond better to a more relationship- people-oriented leader. The four Blanchard leadership styles include:

1) directive;

2) managing;

3) coaching; and 4) delegating. (Clawson, 1989)

2) House's Path Goal Theory of Leadership - the motivational function of the leader consists of increasing personal payoffs to subordinates for work-goal attainment and making the path to these payoffs easier to travel by clarifying it, reducing roadblocks and pitfalls, and increasing the opportunities for personal satisfaction en route. (Clawson,1989)

VI. TRANSFORMATIONAL THEORY

This approach to leadership theory is viewed as a "process in which leaders and followers both inspire one another to elevated moral conduct. The 'Warren Bennis' Theory of Leadership holds that leadership occurs "in a content defined by three elements: (1) Commitment of the culture to excellence and improvement; (2) complexity of the culture/society; and (3) Credibility. Transforming leadership is distinguished from transactional leadership as follows:

Transforming leadership Transactional leadership

Intellectual Legislative

Heroic Group

Executive Bureaucratic

Ideological Reforming

Revolutionary

Source: Clawson (1989)

Transformational behaviors include:

1) idealized influence;

2) individualized consideration;

3) intellectual stimulation; and 4) inspirational motivation. (Clawson, 1989)

VII. DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONS - DIFFERENT LEADERSHIP THEORIES

The work of Liu, Lepak, Takeuchi and Sims (2003) entitled: "Matching Leadership Styles with Employment Modes" states that researchers "have spent considerable efforts to identify means of using human resource management practices to effectively utilize human capital." Different organizations have different leadership styles that are dominant within the organization and what style of leadership is evident in an organization will likely be dependent upon the organization's goals and mission. For example the non-profit organization has as its focus the provision of services to individuals or groups which may be more effectively accomplished by a leadership style that calls to action subordinates upon the basis of ideological and inspirational motivation whereas the larger organization that is more economically driven can best utilize other forms of leadership which fall within the Power and Influence Theory of leadership. The leadership theory utilized by any organization is one that is likely to be customized to the goals and missions of the organization.