1. RUNNINGHEAD: LEADERSHIP THEORIES AND INTERDISCIPLINARY LEADERSHIP Wieland, 1
Integrating Leadership Theories with Interdisciplinary Leadership and how it applies to an
Organization
INTS 3350
Brent Wieland

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There is a vast amount of leadership theories out there. Each and every leadership theory out
there has the potential to lead groups in incredible directions and help solve the most complex
problems facing humanity. The leadership theories are what define our leaders of today and they
help us identify a leader and what makes them function. Out of all the leadership theories out
there, I decided to use the contingency model of leadership, situational leadership model, and the
social learning theory applied to leadership. The contingency model of leadership “postulates
that performance of interacting groups is dependent on the interaction of leadership style and
situational favorableness” (Ashour 1973). Basically, this leadership theory is based on a leader’s
style of leadership that reflects the environment around them. An example of the contingency
model of leadership could be when a leader is in an environment that has many demanding
elements associated with it. The leader in this situation will use certain elements from their own
leadership style and apply them to the specific situation that is most appropriate. This helps a
leader take charge of a demanding situation with the use of their style of leadership and appoints
certain individuals of the group to deal with certain aspects of an issue. The second leadership
theory that I will use is the situational theory of leadership. The situational theory of leadership
model was developed by Ken Blanchard and Paul Hersey. This theory is based on direction,
socio-emotional support, and readiness. The direction point is based on task behavior in which a
leader directs to their subordinates and it is when the leader uses one way communication, which
is individually telling each team member what their specific task is and how to accomplish the
task. The direction in which the leader might take the team might not necessarily be the
direction the team wants to be going but in a direction that it needs to go in. Socio-emotional
support is when “a leader engages in two-way communication by providing socio-economic
support, “psychological strokes”, and facilitating behaviors” (Watkins). Basically, a leader

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provides mental stimuli to provoke action among their team. The leader who demonstrates this
leadership theory influences their members to become greatly inspired to take in the complex
issue as if it was their own. The team members will then work very hard to come up with viable
solutions to the complex issue. This leadership style helps the group take psychological
ownership of the complex issue which in turn will yield great solutions to the issue. The third
leadership theory is social learning theory; this theory “emphasizes antecedent learning as well
as learning by consequences.” (Decker 1986) The leader who employs this theory of leadership
first teaches their team members a certain task and then allows them to perform it in front of
them. Furthermore, when a member does this method of teaching, they are ensuring that the team
member is able to sufficiently perform a task effectively, and they can spot any possible pitfalls
that the team member might be prone to. An important aspect of this theory is being a model for
your employees to follow and in doing this, the team members will acquire six basic learning
states which include “ new attitude(s), manual (psychomotor) skills, verbal skills, cognitive
skills, and [a] memory for factual material” (Decker 1986). When the individual who is an
affluent social learning leader, they will be able to effectively help their subordinates acquire the
six basic learning traits. This leadership theory can be applied to a specific scenario, such as,
when a group of people want to learn how to become better at managing their finances or how to
become a better critical thinker. The leaders who are affluent in the social learning theory will be
able to put a group together that consists of the individuals who are seeking the same desires.
Furthermore, the leader can identify the underlying issue that is common among each member of
the group such as mismanagement of finances. Then, the social learning theory leader can teach
the team members on how to solve the issue of mismanagement of finances and teach them what
has helped the leader them self in becoming successful at appropriately managing personal

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finances. The social learning leader can also teach the members how to think critically on this
issue by teaching them to think before they impulsively spend money on something. The leader
can identify what is causing them to lose finances and come up with ways to help them to think
critically before they make financial decisions in the future.
The leadership theory that I will synthesis with the concept of interdisciplinary research
will be the social learning theory. Interdisciplinary leadership is essentially taking elements from
different disciplines and applying them to your experiences and actions, making them part of
your personality. The social learning theory encompasses the idea of learning by example and
employing several methods to train an individual or lead a team in the right direction.
Interdisciplinary research and social learning leadership both intersect in a way of how human
behavior works. We hone in on certain things that intrigue us enough that we want to be like that
or think like that, so we take certain elements from a discipline or even from a role model and
imbed those elements into our own personalities, making them our own and essentially adopting
them. The social learning theory creates leaders by learning from example, by watching how
others act or perform something. Interdisciplinary leadership is taking parts and elements out of a
discipline and using them to sharpen our critical and problem solving abilities. I believe the
driving force that is behind these two leadership traits is taking concepts from other things that
intrigue us and relate that to ourselves in some sort of a way to create a unique personality that is
unlike any other. An aspect of the social learning theory of leadership is the transfer of training
principles “that enhance the use of the new learning on the job are included throughout the
training”(Decker 1986 ). The transfer of training is when the leader is teaching their new
members how to do certain tasks by transferring everything that the leader knows to their
members. The team members will then adopt what the leader is teaching them and then they will

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put their own learned traits and skills onto the leader’s traits. This will help the team members
create solutions to a complex problem that the leader may not be able to come up with them. In
an environment that requires an interdisciplinary approach, the leader will basically do the same
thing, but instead of trading subordinates, they will be transferring their own training to solve the
problem. The interdisciplinarian leader will use the certain elements from each discipline that
they ever learned and apply all those traits towards a complex issue. Retention is another
connecting element that intersects between social leadership and interdisciplinarian leadership.
We as human beings learn to do things by research, watching how others do things or we adopt
others perceptions on something to mold our own perceptions or ideas on something. With the
social learning theory of leadership, people do exactly that of adopting others perceptions and
ideas for their own and or watch what others do. Once an individual takes on elements of others’
ideas, then they apply them towards leading a group in the community or in the workplace.
Someone who is a social learning leader is a learner by perceiving things from others.
Throughout all our lives, everyone has been influenced by every person that they have ever come
in contact with over the span of their life. Furthermore, along that path we all have come across
someone who has had a profound influence on us. Once that has happened we take that idea and
apply it to other ideas and perceptions that we have learned and adopted as our own and then we
intermingle them to form our own unique personalities. A leader in a team can use that
conglomeration of ideas and influence their team to think outside of the normal straight line
thinking process and go onto different avenues to solve a problem. The same concept applies to
interdisciplinarian teamwork, in a way that everyone in that team is made up of all different and
varying degrees of knowledge gathered throughout their life time, but in the case of
interdisciplinarian teams, they apply their mixes of disciplines to collectively solve a complex

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problem. The integration of these two leadership theories can definitely impact the workplace in
a very positive way. The mix of these two traits will bring a different perspective on team
leadership and problem solving abilities that the organization might not have seen before. The
way that the integration of these two leadership theories will help companies solve complex
problems that otherwise may not be solved effectively with the application of a single leadership
theory. Taking elements from theories such as the transfer of training, the social learning theory
and the interdisciplinarian theory are taking elements from different disciplines. In combining
these two theories, the teams within the organization will have the tools that are more than
necessary to solve issues that arise.
An organization that I might lead in the future is one that specializes in providing
services to veterans of families that need help finding jobs or essential items. There are a number
of organizations out there that specialize in doing this but I want to start my own organization
that encompasses a wide variety of support and services. The organization will take elements
from others but each element will have the same underlying foundation that makes it successful
with organizations. However, a team of employees will build upon these foundations and add
other elements on them that they think will go above and beyond. The mission of this
organization is to help military members and their families live after military life. This is a
massive transition that I know personally very well. I know what families go through so I want
the organization to help military families find homes, cars, counseling services and special
medical services. The vision that I have for this organization is to provide exceptional services
that helps military families fit into civilian life while providing the best services and items that
will help them in the long run and become acclimated to civilian life. How I would utilize
interdisciplinary teams in this organization is by putting together 10 people who specialize in

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different areas. The areas of expertise could include counseling, housing, and personal finances.
The utilization of interdisciplinarian leadership teams will greatly benefit and impact the
operation and mission of this organization by having members that come from such diverse
backgrounds and education. With creating an organization that specializes in an area such as this,
there is a multitude of complex issues to deal with such as how to get finances to help families
get a reasonable house that needs special modifications for a disabled veteran, and special
accommodations for a vehicle that is similar to the housing issue. This is where the impact of the
implementation of the interdisciplinarian teams will come into play. They can think of creative
and possibly innovative ways to solve those issues. The interdisciplinarian team will have a big
impact on business, because they are coming up with viable solutions that may work in the real
world and this will attract donors to the organization, which will help the organization flourish in
the long run. The interdisciplinary characteristics that I believe to be in possession of are, the
ability to find the root cause of a problem and offer innovative solutions that are able to solve a
problem in an effective manner, and The ability to combine different disciplines with my own
learned experiences. These interdisciplinarian characteristics will help me lead this organization
because this line of work requires you to have different perspectives and every person that this
organization will touch comes from all different kinds of backgrounds and each share similar
experiences and some have totally different experiences. The characteristics that I have will
allow me to lead this organization in a direction that will prove to be a successful one.

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References:
Ashour, A. S. (1973). The Contingency model of Leadership Effectiveness : An Evaluation.
Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 339-355.
Decker, P. J. (1986). Social Learning Theory and leadership. Journal of Management
Development, 46-57.
Harris, T. E., & Sherblom, J. (2005). Listening and Feedback: The Other Half of Communication
& Group Evolution: Teams. In Small group and team communication (5th ed., pp.
116,117, 136,137). Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.
Watkins, D. (n.d.). Situational Leadership Model.