Theory Z also called the "Japanese Management" style is a leadership theory of human motivation focused on organizational behavior, communication, and development. It assumes that employees want to enter into long term partnerships with their employers and peers. Offering stable jobs with an associated focus on the well-being of employees results in increased employee loyalty to the company.
The style approach emphasizes that one style of leadership behaviour cannot be effective in all situations. Earlier theories treated leadership exclusively as a personality trait and behavior approach has widened the scope by including the behaviors of leaders and what they do in various situations. Explore how you can benefit from the concepts to understand your own behaviors and what are some of the leadership tools based on the style approach to leadership.
Transformational Theories of Leadership
Transformational leadership theories focus on the leadership approach where the leader encourages, inspires employees to innovate and create positive and valuable organizational change. A transformational leader works towards “transforming” the culture to one that cultivates trust, mutual admiration, loyalty, and respect with the end goal of developing followers into leaders. Transformational leaders are known to be visionary, inspiring, daring, risk-takers, and thoughtful.
Certain generally accepted truths or principles of communication are important to consider when communicating with others. These principles hold true for all people in every culture. By understanding these principles, you will experience greater communication effectiveness. An effective communication system is one that achieved its objectives. Communication is effective where there are no barriers to communication.
Team leadership theory is a recent leadership theory that does not discriminate between the leader and the other team members. The approach considers contributions from each team member to be critical for organizational success. This approach focused on the overall team effectiveness and team problems are diagnosed and action is taken to remediate weakness. This approach provides for taking corrective action when the leader deems necessary.
All the teams are dynamic in nature and they take time to come together, they form, develop, and grow in stages, over a period of time. Teams go through five progressive stages: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning. In this article, we want to introduce you to these stages of team development and certain strategies that you can use to help the team grow and develop in each of these stages.
Contingency Theories of Leadership
Contingency theories of leadership focus on both the leader's persona as well as the situation/environment in which that leader operates. These theories consider the context of leadership which means whether or not the leadership style suits a particular situation and states that a leader can be effective in one circumstance and a failure in another one. A leader will be most effective when he applies the right leadership style to a given situation and environment around him. Contingent leaders are flexible and adaptable.
Contingency Theories in Action
Contingency theory suggests matching the best leader to a specific situation based on situational factors and the leadership style. The practical application of theory can be done in various ways. The workplace example is to determine the best candidate for a given set of requirements using the LPC score. Applying the model to determine a leader's ability to adapt in the scenario of a new project etc..
The Path-Goal theory defines the characteristics of followers and organizational context and the corresponding leadership style best suited to these factors. A leader should adapt to a behavior that is most relevant for a given employee and work environment mix to achieve a goal. The application of theory drives increased employees' motivation, empowerment, and satisfaction resulting in increased productivity.
Leadership Participation Inventory (LPI)
Kouzes and Posner introduced the Leadership Participation Inventory model of Transformational leadership. This model is also known as Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Challenge Model. They identified five practices of exemplary leadership - Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enabling Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart.
The Psychodynamic Approach to leadership focuses on leaders building an understanding of their personality characteristics to know why they act or react in certain ways. Psychodynamics theory aims to explain the dynamics of human behavior in which lies the essence of leadership, by analyzing various motives that govern a person's behavior. This information can be used to develop leaders and followers by understanding their responses based on their personalities.
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