Leadership Theories
Good leaders are those who possess strong traits that give them the capability to influence, motivate and encourage others to do a particular task. Some of these traits are drive, honesty, integrity, confidence, business knowledge, charisma and emotional maturity. According to Baack (2012), these traits differentiate them from the followers. Though many research studies have been conducted over the last three decades and core traits have been identified, there is still some controversy over whether possessing these traits will necessarily make a good leader. "’Nardelli brought discipline. But the change in gears was shocking to a lot of people who were accustomed to Bernie's laid-back style,’ the official said. ‘This caused a lot of people to leave the company over the years,’" he added…,” (Parija B. Kavilanz, 2007). My perception of Nardelli, is that he misunderstood the core of Home Depot’s values and that he underestimated the difficulty in connecting his vision to the hearts and minds of the company’s culture,
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This theory of leadership centralizes its focus on the actions and performance of leaders instead of mental states and social qualities. It is believed that individuals are capable of becoming leaders through learning/training and observation. The behavior of Robert Nardelli was shocking to the investors because he was claiming different things frequently. The behavior of Nardelli changed drastically, everybody knew the person when he was in GE and after his transition to Home Depot he become frustrated and was not willing to give an active participation to the organization. He suddenly decided to leave the company and left everybody in shock, not only this he also showed a shocking behavior of asking a compensation of $210 million as his retirement package and as CEO compensation. (Parija B. Kavilanz,
Home Depot Management and Leadership. Management is defined as the act or manner of managing, handling, direction, or control (dictionary.com). Leadership is defined as an act or instance of leading; guidance; direction (dictionary.com). They do not mean the same thing; however, it is thought that a manager should have leadership skills to be able to manage an organization. Not all managers have great leadership skills, and just because a manager does not have these skills does not mean he or she is a bad manager.
My impression of leadership is the ability to motivate, inspire, set a visualization, connect, and lead by example. To become a successful leader you have to be able to convince your followers that you are trustworthy of being followed. During this semester, we have learned many, if not all of the major leadership theories and how they play a role in our everyday lives. But personally, a few of these leadership models caught me and intrigued me the whole semester so much that this paper is going to predominately be referenced about them. For example, the proposed framework that organizes leadership theories based on each theory 's focus and approach. Focus is referred to as whether or not leadership is viewed as a set of traits or actions.
There are lot of theories and opinions about what makes a good leader. People who want to become a good leader not only have to have the will to take on the job, but they need to have certain traits and qualities that are characteristic of a good leader. The trait theory of leadership supports this claim that some people are endowed with certain characteristics that make them more capable of being a good leader than others. Many leaders and researchers have come up with certain traits that make people great leaders, whether it is being a leader in a business, organization or a leader of a sports team.
A leadership theory is a clarification of some features of leadership; theories have practical importance as they are being used for better understanding, anticipating, and controlling successful leadership. Hence, the main principle of any theory is to inform practice(Lussier and Achua 2009). Leadership theories could be classified into eight main categories: Great man, trait, behavioral, contingency, Situational, Participative, Relationship , management (Cherry 2010).
Hoy, W. K., & Tarter, C. J. (2010). A Theory of Leadership: A Situational Approach. Retrieved January 28, 2014, from http://www.waynekhoy.com/pdfs/theory_of_leadership.pdf
In this theory leadership style changes as needed to ensure that the goal is achieved (Huber, 2014). Each situation may need to be addressed differently, which requires flexibility by all involved, especially leadership. Managers need to evaluate every individual to understand what they are capable of and how they fit the needs of the institution and or situation (Nash, 2015). As a nurse I think this is a very important trait for a leader to have because of how quickly things change and how we must work within our environment. For example, in healthcare we sometimes have to allow others to take control of a situation on to ensure the best possible outcome for each patient. In addition, the manager needs to ensure that each person works within the scope of their practice, functions at the highest level allowed and completes their tasks. To be a successful leader in healthcare and achieve desired outcomes requires a high level of flexibility by leadership. I would also say that the contingency theory would also fit into my leadership style. The basis premise of this theory is that each situation is different and leadership needs to take that into account when managing a situation (Huber, 2014). At times a leader needs to look at the bigger picture and incorporate that in their decision making process. When looking at a specific situation taking input from all parties involved can lead to a more effective solution. We can learn a lot form those around us and need to take that in account to be an effective
For example, under this theory the leader would employ High Directive/High Support leadership behaviors to the Disillusioned Learner. Ideally, the leader helps the followers as they progress through the stages to achieve the Self-Reliant Achiever/Delegating level. While I do not necessarily fully subscribe to the theory, it does seem to have merit and I do believe that it is important for an effective leader to have the capability and flexibility to adapt his or her style to the needs of the followers in order to encourage everyone’s success. I also believe that an effective leader plays a significant role in promoting and molding individuals’ readiness as it relates to motivation and commitment. As such, I developed my leadership assessment with these points in mind. The assessment focuses on 14 attributes that I believe are important not only for a leader to be successful within the parameters of the SLT, but...
The leadership is a result of a combination of traits, with special emphasis on the personal qualities of the leader, which he should possess certain personality traits that would be special facilitators in leadership performance. This theory shows that leaders are born as such, there is no likelihood of 'making' them later with personal development techniques.
As a growing debate, the question at hand is whether great leaders are born with specific leadership traits, or if one can be taught certain traits over time. According to (Wikipedia.com) the approach of listing leadership qualities, often termed "trait theory of leadership", assumes certain traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership. I believe that leadership traits such as honest, competent, initiative, inspiring, hardworking, intelligent, and the ability to lead the masses, are some of the leadership traits one should possess. Within this paper, I will examine the overall concept of leadership traits, while observing the traits that were, or can be associated with successful leaders.
Traits of a good leader are trustworthiness, respectfulness, honesty, and be stern. When you have leaders that take their role seriously, you can form a backbone to an organization that cannot be broken. You have born leaders and you have trained leaders. Martin Luther King was a natural born leader for the Civil Rights movement. King saw there was something that needed to be changed and he took the steps to change the world.
There are different leadership theories developed throughout the history. Most popular ones are trait theories, behavioral theories, contingency theories, and leader-member exchange (LMX) theory. The author of the post will briefly discuss two theories, Fiedler contingency theory and Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), and compare and contrast their strengths and weakness.
Trait theories are theories that consider personal qualities and characteristics that differentiate leaders from nonleaders." Early results aimed at confirming this theory were inconclusive. Many research studies were conducted and each identified key traits supposed to differentiate leaders from nonleaders. The problem is that they didn't get the same results, thus failing to discover common traits, which should have shown in each research study. When applying the Big Five Personality framework (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience) to the study and research of leadership traits, results were more encouraging. They showed that the most important trait for leaders was extraversion. Still, this founding sh...
Some situations may work in one of the business may actually fail to work in others situations. Each situation demands the best leadership styles to be employed in the firm. There are various business styles which need to be applied in different business situations. The situation in a business is normally having a greater effect on a leader actions which he or she takes as opposed to the personal traits possessed. This is due to the fact that, while personalities may have an inspiring firmness over a period of time, they have slight reliability across business situations. This makes some scholars to argue that process theory of leadership is better than the trait theory of leadership. In most cases, power in the business is misused and this leads to negative impacts to the business and those
According to Wart (2013), this theory states that leaders can succeed in instituting changes in structure, procedure, ethos, technology, or production (557-558). From this, we can gather that some people are better at being leaders during a transitional part of a company. When a company is going through changes either through infrastructure, how they operate or adapting to technological changes, there has to be someone in charge in order to keep order and structure during these times. This might be a chaotic time period for the company and without a strong leader at the helm, it can go bad really quickly. An example of this could be when the internet was starting to take off in the United States. During this change in technology companies had to quickly adapt and change how they operated. No longer would they just be local or get the word of mouth about their products through the news or word of mouth. Now they had new venues to spread the word and sell their products. Several studies have been done over the past few years on leaders under this theory and the results show that they share some characteristics that are not often found under other theories. Some of these theories include according to Wart(2013), energy, determination, vision, and risk taking (558). This is interesting because our world is constantly changing and people need to adapt or risk being irrelevant. Also without having the energy or drive a company can falter and lose customers. It is why leaders should always strive and continue to try new things, reach new heights, and never being satisfied with their current
Another aspect of leadership includes leadership traits such as being influential and inspirational. There also different contexts of leadership, e.g, leading oneself, leading other individuals, leading groups, leading organizations. Some traits that are often associated with being an effective leader include a measure of intelligence, high energy, self confidence, dominance, and a need for achievement. An effective, charismatic leader must lead by example. That leader must be able to know what is going on, the job or task that is being accomplished, and be able to lead the group into performing the task at hand successfully.