PART IV: Leadership Theories

To be meaningful, leaders must be perceived as leaders by other group members and able to exert positive influence towards achieving group goals. Sometimes a leader is formally elected or designated; however, leaders can also be informally identified by the group and emerge into that role (Wheelan & Johnston, 1996). Effective leaders need to be able to make decisions and mobilize the group members towards accomplishing their goals through strong communication skills (Engleberg & Wynn 2017). While leading, they must model a collaborative climate in which member ideas are included, member contributions are acknowledged, and group success is celebrated (Barge & Hirokawa, 1989).

There is, however, more than one way to lead, and the best leaders can adjust their leadership style to a given situation. As ideas and research about organizations, communication, and leadership have evolved, numerous theorists have presented ideas about how leadership works. These can be broadly broken down into at least four categories of leadership: trait theory, style theory, situational theories, and functional theories.

As organizations developed from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, so too did notions of leadership and power, especially by the mid-1900s. Many of these early models were found to be lacking in one or more areas to successfully explain the true dynamics of a successful workplace, and so they were superseded by new and different theories. To understand contemporary views on leadership, it’s helpful to have some sense of the history and evolution of leadership theories.

Trait Theory

As early factories and businesses were generally owned and managed by rich, white, educated, males, the trait approach, which assumed that some people were born to be leaders, was a natural fit. These were leaders who assumed that if they told employees to perform a task, it would be done, without question, resistance, or feedback. The obvious downsides to this model were that it was not supported by research, ignored the role of the worker, and failed to explain why things didn’t always go as planned (Mumby & Kuhn, 2020).

As the idea of being a “born leader” developed, the assumption became that someone either had leadership skills or they did not; these skills could not be learned or developed. Traits of successful leaders were seen to include: integrity, assertiveness, extroversion, good decision-making, likability, self-confidence, humility, emotional stability, high frustration tolerance, adaptability, and a curiosity for new ideas (Mumby & Kuhn, 2020).

The assumptions of the trait approach were first challenged by scientific management as outlined in Frederick Taylor’s The Principles of Scientific Management (1909). Working on the assumption that employees were solely motivated by pay, Taylor outlined a more scientific approach to work focused on efficiency by implementing time and motion studies. Taylor also started to address the ways workers and managers could cooperate to perform work (Mumby & Kuhn, 2020).

Style Theory

In 1939, Kurt Lewin, Ronald Lippit and Ralph K. White published “Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created social climates” in The Journal of Social Psychology. In this article, the researchers introduced the style approach, which suggested three types of leadership behaviours: authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire (Lewin et al., 1939). The most important advancement of the style approach was that these leadership styles could be taught. Leaders who were flexible in their leadership style, varying it depending on the situation, were more successful in accomplishing the desired results.

The most notable development in Style theory came in 1964 with the publication of Robert Blake and Jane Mouton’s Managerial Grid Model. This grid calibrates a leader’s abilities based on their concern for production or for people. Based on the leader’s balance between the two axes, Blake and Mouton were able to identify five management styles: impoverished style, produce-or-perish style, middle-of-the-road style, country club style, and most desirable, team style, which balances the needs of production with the needs of employees. 

While the style approach resolved some of the issues presented by earlier leadership models, it still had its limitations. The focus remained on formal leaders, and it still didn’t consider the role of workers. Field research showed inconsistent results, making it difficult to substantiate this approach with hard data. Over time, it also became clear that more than three leadership styles exist (authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire), and also that leadership style is, to some degree, culturally dependent (Mumby & Kuhn, 2020).

Situational Theory

In the 1960s, Professor Fred Fiedler developed his Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness, marking the start of Situational theory. Using a questionnaire called the Least-Preferred Co-Worker (LPC) Scale, a leader’s natural, fixed leadership style is matched to the type of situation best served by their skills. The LPC scale asks questions about someone who was challenging in a previous work situation. A lower score indicates stronger ability for completing tasks, while a higher score indicates more focus on relationship building. Fiedler’s theory suggests that leaders are either better at completing assigned tasks efficiently, or building their relationship with their team, which may be desirable for building long-lasting teams with less conflict who can tackle more complex tasks (Fiedler 1967).

Fiedler’s model considers leader-member relations, the structure of the task, and the leader’s position of power in the situation. The focus is on formal leaders and their leadership personality. It assumes that if a leader’s style is poorly matched to a situation, their leadership would fail; however, if they were a good match to the situation, their leadership would be successful. If a leader failed to deliver the desired results, the best solution was to replace them with a leader exhibiting a different leadership style more suitable to the situation. Not surprisingly, the results in the field were inconsistent and unreliable (Fiedler 1967).

Fiedler’s approach failed to consider several important factors, like the assumption that leadership is objective and measurable, a leader’s flexibility over time and with experience, and the role of followers and their relationship with their leader. The reliability of the LPC scale has also been challenged, with one study citing it only has about 50% reliability (Mitchell, Biglan, Oncken & Fiedler, 2017). While Fiedler’s model was an important developmental milestone, it has since been superseded by more complex models that seem to apply better to contemporary business.

Building on Fiedler’s work, in 1969 Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard developed their own Situational Leadership Theory that considers an individual’s readiness for a given situation. Using a four-point assessment of an individual employee’s abilities and experience (readiness level), they can be appropriately managed.

Hersey-Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory

Functional Theories

Since the 1980s, newer Functional leadership theories have focused less on who the leader is, and more on what the leader does to enable the group to achieve their goals. Functional Theories of leadership include: Charismatic leadership,  Action-centred leadership, and most notably, Transformational leadership.

Charismatic leaders are identified by their strong communication skills, confidence, humility, self-awareness, maturity, empathy, optimism, and passion (Perry, 2017). In business, Charismatic leaders include figures like Bill Gates, Sir Richard Bransom, or Jack Ma. These exceptional leaders use their personal charm to motivate their followers; however, a recent study of Spanish bank employees indicated that such charisma only functions on employees when the leader has high task interdependence with their employees, which is rarely the case (LeBlanc, González-Romá & Wang, 2021).

Action-centred leadership grew from John Adair’s (1973) concept of three overlapping circles a leader can influence: 1) accomplish the task, 2) continually build and maintain the team’s synergy, and 3) develop individual team members. Adair suggests eight functions a successful leader must fulfill:

1. Defining the task into clear SMART goals 
2. Planning with the team to creatively brainstorm and test best options for success
3. Briefing regularly with the team to support positive teamwork and motivation
4. Controlling to gain optimal results with minimal resources through self-control and good control systems to effectively delegate and monitor
5. Evaluating consequences, team performance, and training individuals
6. Motivating Adair’s principles for motivating others are: be motivated yourself; select highly motivated people; set realistic and challenging targets; recognize that progress motivates; provide rewards and recognition.
7. Organizing one’s self, one’s team, and the organization itself for optimal results
8. Setting a good example for individuals and the team

Transformational leadership is perhaps the theory most respected in business today. Although transformational leaders are often charismatic, they strive to support the growth of individuals on their team and their organizations through their unique vision. Bernard Bass ( 1985) identified transformational leaders as being creative, interactive, empowering and passionate leaders who inspire others. The popularity of transformational leadership was cemented by Peters and Waterman’s (1982) book In Search of Excellent: Lessons from American’s Best-Run Companies. Focusing on major players like Apple, Disney, and IBM, their research examined how transformational leadership propelled these organizations and their employees towards such great success.