The Fiedler Model of leadership is a contingency theory and states that a leader's effectiveness is based on the situation. There is no one best style of leadership and the effectiveness of a leader in an organization depends on matching the leader to the situation. Leaders should determine the natural leadership style and assess the situation to flex the style.
Servant Leadership is a recent revolutionary theory of leadership that focuses on leaders achieving authority rather than power. A servant leader considers the needs of others and tries to serve the followers by becoming a servant first. Servant leadership is leading with a desire to better serve others.
Have you ever resonated that there seem to be as many different ways to lead people as there have been great leaders? When we recall the success of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon Bonaparte to Steve Jobs and Jack Welch, we also notice that they all used different approaches that were suitable to their specific situations and circumstances. Over the last century, researchers and psychologists have developed simple ways to describe the “Styles of leadership” and in this section, we will explore these commonly known leadership styles.
Social learning theory is a theory of learning process that states that most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling. Behavior change can occur in response to leader modeling and learning occurs through the observation of rewards and punishments. The focus of this approach has been teaching leadership across formal and informal settings.
Idiosyncrasy Credit Model of Leadership builds upon the awareness that when the emergent leader meets the team's expectations, idiosyncrasy credits are awarded. These credits depend on how the leader fulfilled follower's expectations and what is the impact of the leader's decisions on the follower. When the balance of credits shifts, another leader will emerge.
Five Factors Model (FFM) also known as Five-Factor Personality Model is based on five broad personality traits which are extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness represented by acronym OCEAN, these traits are often referred to as the “Big Five”.
The Hersey and Blanchard Situational Theory model suggests that a leader must adapt his leadership style based on task and relationship behaviors appropriate to the situation. Leadership style is dependent on the maturity level and abilities of followers. Under this model, successful leadership is both task-relevant and relationship-relevant.
Attribution Theory of Leadership
The attribution theory of leadership deals with the formation of individual opinions about the reasons for particular events or observations. People will always try to understand why people do what they do. The leader will make a judgment about his employees based on his attribution of the causes of the employees' performance. Individuals will also make inferences about the leader and react to poor performance by the leader.
The Systemic Approach to Leadership
The systemic approach to leadership looks at the organization as a whole and focuses on the understanding of the organization as a system. Moving to systems thinking demand managers to view organizations as organic systems. Leaders are also part of this complex system which is constantly undergoing change and evolving. The leaders need to manage the relations and networks within these systems by acting with systemic awareness.
The Vroom-Yetton model is designed to optimize for the current situation the leadership style for best decision-making. Its a decision model formulated with contribution from Arthur Jago on how to make group decisions. The leader must gather information from the team prior to making the decision and involves more people in the decision process.
Transactional Theory of Leadership
Transactional leadership theory is based on the concept of rewards and punishments. The transactional management approach assumes that the desires of the leader and follower are different and leaders give followers something in exchange for getting something they want. Transactional leaders expect followers to be compliant and focuses on structure, instruction, monitoring, organization, or performance to get tasks completed on time.
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