Review of Literature
All through past, the managerial scenery has been vastly competitive. Effective leadership associated with the competent strategy can assist as a commanding tool to accomplish great triumph in a fast patrolled business environment. With well thought skills and tactful channels of leadership new heights of success can be achieved.
Many researchers have studied the subject of leadership from 1800s. Thomas Carlyle is one of the pioneers in the trait theory of leadership. He proposed the “great man” theory. It stated that “the history of the world was the biography of great men” (Carlyle, 1849). All the way through 1900s the leadership was studied from the point of view of only traits. Approach to the research of leadership has usually been and should always be through the study of traits (Cowley, 1931). But, until 1950s the theory of traits began to lose its effectiveness. Then, the research was focused on certain set of behavior of a leader towards its followers. This gave birth to behavioral theory. To lead, self-confidence and high self-esteem are useful, perhaps even essential (Horton, Thomas. New York: The CEO Paradox, 1992). Also, leadership deals with a tough personality with a matured and positive ego (Spillane; Richard; & Diamond, 2004). Another achievement of the behavioral theory is the managerial grid model. The model was developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton in 1964 and suggests five different leadership styles, based on the leaders' concern for people and their concern for goal achievement (Blake & Mouton, 1964).
The elementary reinforcement of the situational leadership theory is that there can be no "top" style of leadership. Effective leadership is always task-oriented. This is achieved onl...
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Works Cited
Blake, R.; Mouton, J.(1964). The Managerial Grid: The Key to Leadership Excellence. Houston: Gulf Publishing Co.
Carlyle, T. (1849). On heroes, hero-worship, and the heroic in history. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
Cowley, W. H. (1931). The traits of face-to-face leaders. The Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology, 26(3), 304-313.
Hersey, P. and Blanchard, K. H. (1977). Management of Organizational Behavior 3rd Edition– Utilizing Human Resources. New Jersey/Prentice Hall.
Horton, Thomas. New York: The CEO Paradox (1992).
Joe Nocera, "The Board Wore Chicken Suits", New York Times, 27 May 2006
Lublin, Joann S.; Zimmerman, Ann; Terhune, Chad (January 4, 2007). "Behind Nardelli's Abrupt Exit". The Wall Street Journal.
Spillane, James P.; et al., Richard; Diamond, John (2004). "Towards a theory of leadership practice". Journal of Curriculum Studies 36 (1)
In “Leaders and Followers”, Gardner (1987) poses a number of questions about interactions between leaders and followers. These include the degree of structure versus informality, con...
Mullins, L. J. (2005). Management and organizational behavior (7th ed.). Harlow, England: Prentice Hall/Financial Times.
Leadership is the glue that binds any business together, identifying and understanding your type of leadership style can ultimately aid you in becoming a better leader in your professional career. A successful business cannot function without leadership therefore this is a crucial aspect of internal employee development for businesses striving to stay relevant in a crowded marketplace. In addition to recognizing your leadership style every leader needs to look to them and identify what type of personality they have. By becoming an informed business leader you will gain trust and respect of your team to guide them into the future and maximizing potential growth. Throughout this paper I will identify my leadership style and also personality type and how it has affected my personal career growth. Identifying these conclusions is extremely important in crafting company culture.
Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory (SLT) asserts that a leader’s effectiveness is dependent upon the readiness, or ability and willingness, of the leader’s followers to complete a task. This leadership style is an amalgamation of task-oriented and relationship-oriented characteristics that are employed depending upon the situation and the followers involved. According to the SLT, as followers increase in readiness the leader’s style is to adapt accordingly (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009).
Kreitner, R., & Kinicki, A., (2004). Organizational Behavior (6th ed.). New York: McGraw- Hill/Irwin. pp. 406- 441.
Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2007). The Leadership Challenge (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA 94103-1741: Jossey-Bass.
Personality as well as intelligence tells people a lot about an individual. Certain characteristics of one’s personality such as impression and reputation in a social environment may or may not be a good way to gain acknowledgement. In becoming a leader, work ethics must be strong, precise, and others must be able to feel one’s presence. The three abilities that successful leaders have are; the ability to get along with others and build teams, the ability to make sound and timely decisions and the ability to get things done. The mass amounts of leaders only possess one or two of these abilities and a smaller percentage having all three. According to the Five Factor Model (FFM), it is important for leaders to possess dependability, adjustments and surgency. (Hughes, Ginnett and Curphy, page 235)
Ivancevich, J., Konopaske, R. & Matteson, M. (2011). Organizational Behavior and Management. NewYork, NY: McGraw Hill.
Since there is no special or one precise type of leader, numerous leadership styles and theories have surfaced. This is because a different situations require different type of leadership styles. In many occasions, leadership theories help to predict the best leadership style to employ in a particular situation. This essay seeks explain why situational leadership theory is useful and relevant in developing an effective leadership culture. It is this writers hope that it can be used as a how to guide to enable managers to be more successful.
What does leadership mean in the context of educational leadership? Many definitions of leadership in education co-exist, attesting to the complexity and multi-faceted phenomena of the concept (Elwell & Elikofer, 2013). Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood organizational and psychological areas of study. Despite volumes of research and numerous theories, no one theory of leadership emerged as the sole predictor of the success of educational leaders. The current body of knowledge about leadership consists of narrow definitions of leader effectiveness that are disconnected from their context (Latham, 2014). Educational leadership influences and affects every dimension of the educational process from the
Research indicates that leadership styles have a huge impact on how the world is being shaped every day. To demonstrate a clear correlation between leaders and decisions making process, Lilienfeld, Waldman, Watts, Landfield, Rubenzer, & Faschingbauer, (2012), Van, Cilliers, & van Deventer (2008), and Odom, Boyd, & Williams, (2012) developed a sample category of leadership identities based on three different concepts. Beaver et al. (2014) illustrated a high level of leadership, interpersonal traits based on a study done on 42 U.S. president’s psychopathy traits. Van Eeden, et al. (2008) focused on management leaderships and Odom, et al. (2012) presented scholar leaderships. Each article presented respectively a key theme that will be developed in this paper. The first theme is leadership styles. The second theme is leadership psychopathic traits and the third theme is the personality traits of a leader. The three themes combine appeared to unify in one concept of leadership identity, which needs to be developed by effective leaders
The trait leadership theories assume that people inherit certain abilities and traits that make them better suited for leadership than others (Stroup, 2004). The trait theories originated from an earlier impression called the “great man” theories pop...
Northouse, P. G. (2012). Introduction to Leadership: Concepts and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Ruth L. Williams and Joseph P. Cothrel. “Building Tomorrow’s Leaders Today.” Strategy & Leadership (19 September 1997): 16+.
George, J.M. & Jones, G. R.(2005). Understanding and managing organizational behavior (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing.