Running head: LEADERSHIP STYLES: LITERATURE REVIEW 1 Leadership styles: Literature review 8 Leadership Styles: Literature Review Karen Crump Argosy University LITERATURE REVIEW There is vast literature on leadership and more specifically on different styles of leadership. The literature spans many decades and there are hundreds if not thousands of researchers that have aired their opinion in this imperative subject. This study is an extension of the vast literature that has been conducted on leadership styles drawing largely from some of the articles that we have studied in this course. The course largely focused on three leadership styles that include the transformative style of leadership, the personality and charismatic leadership style and the situational leadership style. The literature review will begin with an analysis on these leadership styles and the purpose of every article. The literature review will them highlight some of the themes that emerge in all the articles. James Downton was the pioneer of transformational leadership after he coined the term in 1973. One of the earliest and most renowned researchers in James Burns who provided the first definition on transformational leadership. He cited transformational leadership as a leadership that aims at changing the already existent thoughts, goals and techniques in order to change results for the better. Lee et al. (2013) also voiced his opinion on transformational leadership by asserting that it is a leadership style that focuses on supporting the needs of the people and more so those that are following the leaders. There are various renowned business leaders who were known for employing transformative leadership as postulated by Mercedes et al. (2013). He cited William Edward Deming as one of the notable leaders who employed transformational leadership style in the control of the quality of statistics. Another notable leader that he cited was Ross Perot who started his own company the Electric Data Systems after working for IBM as a salesperson. His transformational leadership mainly focused on improving customer services with waiting for approval and without monitoring. His transformative leadership also focused on bringing an order during chaotic times and therefore making it easy for work to be done. Avolio and Yammarino (2013) also introduces us to a number of renowned leaders that also used transformational leadership such as Peter Drucker who provided a balance between long term plans and short term plans in his transformational leadership style. In additional his transformative leadership also focused on mixing both entrepreneurship and innovation. They further cited John D. Rockefeller as another notable leader who used transformational leadership. Rockefeller who was once the richest man in the world through his company, the Standard Oil ...

1. Running head: LEADERSHIP STYLES: LITERATURE
REVIEW 1
Leadership styles: Literature review
8
Leadership Styles: Literature Review
Karen Crump
Argosy University
LITERATURE REVIEW
There is vast literature on leadership and more specifically on
different styles of leadership. The literature spans many decades
and there are hundreds if not thousands of researchers that have
aired their opinion in this imperative subject. This study is an
extension of the vast literature that has been conducted on
leadership styles drawing largely from some of the articles that
we have studied in this course. The course largely focused on
three leadership styles that include the transformative style of
leadership, the personality and charismatic leadership style and
the situational leadership style. The literature review will begin
with an analysis on these leadership styles and the purpose of
every article. The literature review will them highlight some of
the themes that emerge in all the articles.
James Downton was the pioneer of transformational leadership
after he coined the term in 1973. One of the earliest and most
renowned researchers in James Burns who provided the first
definition on transformational leadership. He cited
transformational leadership as a leadership that aims at
changing the already existent thoughts, goals and techniques in
order to change results for the better. Lee et al. (2013) also
voiced his opinion on transformational leadership by asserting
that it is a leadership style that focuses on supporting the needs
of the people and more so those that are following the leaders.

2. There are various renowned business leaders who were known
for employing transformative leadership as postulated by
Mercedes et al. (2013). He cited William Edward Deming as one
of the notable leaders who employed transformational
leadership style in the control of the quality of statistics.
Another notable leader that he cited was Ross Perot who started
his own company the Electric Data Systems after working for
IBM as a salesperson. His transformational leadership mainly
focused on improving customer services with waiting for
approval and without monitoring. His transformative leadership
also focused on bringing an order during chaotic times and
therefore making it easy for work to be done. Avolio and
Yammarino (2013) also introduces us to a number of renowned
leaders that also used transformational leadership such as Peter
Drucker who provided a balance between long term plans and
short term plans in his transformational leadership style.
In additional his transformative leadership also focused on
mixing both entrepreneurship and innovation. They further cited
John D. Rockefeller as another notable leader who used
transformational leadership. Rockefeller who was once the
richest man in the world through his company, the Standard Oil
transformed the growth of his company by guaranteeing the
standard of kerosene that was being produced by the company.
His transformative leadership styles also focused on critical and
disciplined strategies and tactics.
The personality and charismatic leadership style primarily
focuses on the persuasiveness and charm of the leader. The
charismatic style of leadership is mainly driven by the
commitment and the convictions of the leaders towards their
cause. According to Avolio and Yammarino, (2013), the
charismatic style of leadership is mainly traced to Max Weber
in 1958 in his book, “The three types of legitimate rule”. They
cited various notable leaders that that employed this kind of
leadership style. One of the most notable and most popular of
them all is Martin Luther King Jr. Throughout his political and
civil rights movement journey, Martin Luther King Jr. used a

3. charismatic style of leadership. This was particularly proven
through his numerous speeches that mainly focused on peaceful
protest during the civil rights movement. One event that reveal
his charismatic leadership is during his famous; ‘I have a
dream’ speech that moved the over 200,000 people in the crowd
and millions of people around the world in 1963 and
consequently to the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
Another notable figure is Pope John Paul 11. He used
charismatic leadership in redefining the role of the Catholic
Church to the modern world and further travelled to many
countries around the world to advocate for human rights.
Another notable figure is Mother Teresa who was well known
for her work with the poor. It is no doubt that she was an
inspiration to the world and combined with her devotion and
dedicated persona, there is no doubt that she was a charismatic
leader. In politics, there have also been a number of charismatic
leaders such as Ronald Reagan and Sir Winston Churchill as
espoused by Zehndorfer (2013). He also cited some business
leaders who have also employed charismatic leadership such as
Jack Welch and Lee Iacocca.
Blanchard (2008) is one researcher with a vast experience on
leadership and he introduced situational leadership as a
leadership style that is adaptive and accommodates different
needs and situations. There are various styles that are involved
in this kind of leadership as asserted by Daniel Goleman. He
cited pacesetting leaders, coaching leaders, affirmative leaders,
democratic leaders, coercive leaders and authoritative leaders.
The history of situational leadership is mainly seen through the
lenses of Blanchard (2008) who traced the development of this
style of leadership to 1969 in a publication titled; “Management
of organization behavior”. He cited various companies that
successfully used this kind of leadership style such as the
British Telecom, Adobe, Royal New Zealand Navy, the San
Diego Padres, Michigan and WD-40. In addition, he further
cited popular leaders in his publication that employed this kind
of leadership such as Dwight Eisenhower who is a former

4. president of the United States, John Wooden who is a former
coach of the men basketball team and Pat Summit a former
coach of the Tennessee volunteers’ lady’s team and also
Margaret Thatcher.
Purpose of the chosen article
The first article assesses whether transformational leadership
style influences the attitude of employees and more so in
regards to the safety practices. The second article assesses how
transformative leadership can foster changes within an
organization. The third article assesses how school
administrators can employ diverse leadership skills. The fourth
article assesses the situational variables that unravel how
leadership impacts individuals and originations. The fifth article
assesses personality and charismatic leadership and how it can
moderate and control stress. The sixth article introduces us to
leadership and organizational management in general. The
seventh article unravels how leadership behavior can influence
the commitment of the employees.
The key themes that emerge across the first article as espoused
by Lee et al. (2013) is the importance of transformative style of
leadership in changing the attitude of employees and more
particularly in promoting safety practice in food. Lee et al.
(2013) particularly unravels how companies can use
transformative leadership style to ensure that the employees
have goof practices when handling food. It centers more on a
food handling facility but this does not negate the fact that it is
also applicable in other fields.
Mercedes et al. (2013) in the second article titled
‘Transformational leadership as an antecedent of change-
oriented organizational citizenship behavior’ the primary theme
is transformation leadership and how it can be used to change
the behavior of the employees within an organization. The third
article titled “Diversity leadership skills of school
administrators a scale development study” by Polat, Arslan and
Olcum (2017) primary theme is on the different leadership skills

5. that can be used by school administrators. The fourth article
“Exploratory leadership: understanding situational variables on
the impact of leadership” by Holly Gruhlke (n.d) and the
primary theme us how to employ a balanced approach to
leadership.
The fifth article “Personality and charismatic leadership in
context: the moderating role of situational stress” by Berson and
Oreg (2015) primary theme is on personality and charismatic
leadership. The sixth article on “Leadership and organizational
management journal” by Tyre (n.d) primary theme is leadership
statement. The seventh article titled “Building bank brands:
How leadership behavior influences employee commitment” by
Wallace, Chernatony and Buil (2013) primary theme is on how
leadership behaviors influence the commitment of the
employees.
A synthesize of the material and summary of the patterns of
similarities and differences regarding how each of the authors
has presented on each leadership approach reveals the
following. There are similarities between Lee et al. (2013)
article and Mercedes et al. (2013) in the fact that they both
sensitize on the importance of transformational leadership in
changing the behavior and attitude of the employees. Polat,
Arslan and Olcum (2017) article on diversity leadership skills
align or exhibits similarities with Tyre (2015) journey on
leadership and organization management since they both focus
on leadership experiences and more particularly on various
leadership skills that should be employed in order to become an
effective leader.
In addition, both also articles also have similarities with
Gruhlke (n.d) article on exploratory leadership since it also
highlights how leaders can have a balanced approach in order to
become an effective leader. Oreg and Berson (2015) article on
personality and charismatic leadership however differs with the
other article since it focuses solely on charismatic leadership
style and how it can be used to avert and circumvent a stressful
situation during leadership. Wallace, Chernatony and Buil

6. (2013) article on how leadership behavior can influence the
commitment of the employees has both similarities and
differences with the other articles. The similarity is that they
highlight some of the skills and behaviors that should be
employed by leaders which align with the studies by Polat,
Arslan and Olcum (2017) and Tyre (n.d). The difference
however is that it focuses on a banking sector contrary to other
articles that focus on a general setting.
In conclusion, based on my analysis of the literature, the
leadership approach which I feel would be the most effective
for managing an ethical behavior within the organization is
situational leadership style. This is because of the fact that it
makes it easy to adapt to different situations within an
organization and also the different needs of the employees.
Employees have different behaviors and needs within an
organization and therefore using a fixed leadership style would
be advantageous to some employees and disadvantageous to
others. Moreover, the fact that renowned companies such as the
San Diego Padres, Adobe, Michigan and British Telecom have
successfully used situational leadership style implies that it
would also be a viable option in the organization.
References
Avolio, B. J., & Yammarino, F. J. (2013). Transformational and
Charismatic Leadership: The Road Ahead. New York, NY:
Emerald Group Publishing.
Blanchard. (2008). Situational Leadership: Info Set. New York,
NY: Jossey-Bass.
Gruhlke. H. (n.d) Exploratory Leadership: Understanding
Situational Variables On The Impact of Leadership. 34-44.
Lee et al. (2013). Does transformational leadership style
influence employees’ attitudes toward food safety practices?
International Journal of Hospitality Management 33, 282–293.

7. Mercedes et al. (2013). Transformational leadership as an
antecedent of change-oriented organizational citizenship
behavior. Journal of Business Research 66, 2147–2152
Oreg, S. & Berson, Y. (2015). Personality and charismatic
leadership in context: the moderating role of Situational stress.
Personnel Psychology 68, 49–77.
Polat, S, Arslan, Y. & Olcum. D. (2017). Diversity leadership
skills of school administrators: A scale development study.
Issues in Educational Research, 27(3) 512-526.
Tyre, T. (2015). Leadership statement. Leadership &
Organizational Management Journal 1, 1-6.
Wallace, E., Chernatony, L., & Buil, I. (2013). Building bank
brands: How leadership behavior influences employee
commitment. Journal of Business Research 66, 165–171.
Zehndorfer, E. (2013). Leadership: A Critical Introduction. New
York, NY: Routledge.
Assignment 2: Leadership and Teams
In your Module 4 literature review, you contrasted various
leadership approaches and then chose the approach that would
be most effective for your organization.
· Using the research from your literature review, examine how
your chosen approach could impact your organization's leaders'
ability to exert influence on others and thereby impacting team
effectiveness.
· Explain how the leaders' leadership approach could impact
team member relationships and their cohesion.
· Lastly, using a leadership approach, devise a plan that will
improve team effectiveness in your organization over the next 3

8. to 6 months. Be sure to include the key stakeholders who are
directly impacted by the implementation of the plan.
Your final product will be a Word document, approximately 4–5
pages long, utilizing approximately 2–3 scholarly sources.
Make sure you write in a clear, concise, and organized manner;
demonstrate ethical scholarship in accurate representation and
attribution of sources; and display accurate spelling, grammar,
and punctuation.