Early theories of leadership focused on traits, behaviors, and situations. Trait theories proposed that great leaders possess certain innate qualities and traits, but this approach was criticized for failing to identify a definitive list of traits. Behavioral theories examined task-oriented and relationship-oriented leadership styles, but found no universal best style. Situational theories like Hersey-Blanchard and Fiedler's contingency theory proposed that leadership style should match aspects of the situation like employee readiness or task structure, position power, and leader-member relations. More recent models emphasize leadership capabilities and skills over traits, behaviors, or situations.

1. Early Theories of Leadership

2. Surveying the terrain:
The field of leadership
• The terrain of leadership depends greatly upon
what we use the map for
• Different theories provide different perspectives:
– Problem: almost none of the theories has been
validated in published research:
• Is it the conceptualisation of leadership? Or
• Do we lack the capability to measure leadership?
– The only theory which has some validation (i.e. it
seems to describe what it says it is describing) is
Fiedler’s but it suffers from 1 fundamental problem: it
has questionable face validity, theoretically casting
doubt on the entire theory

3. Micro-level: Trait
• Intuitively appealing
• Earliest form: “Great Man Theory” developed
into trait theory
• Great Man: high energy, assertiveness,
emotional control (Sebera 2005)
• Traits:
– 18000 traits
– Initially focussed on innate traits but expanded to
include elements of situation
– Castaway: was Tom Hanks’ character a leader?
– 2 aspects: what people see and the underlying
structures and processes

4. • Leadership traits identified in various studies

5. How Does the Trait
Approach Work?
• Focus of Trait Approach
• Strengths
• Criticisms
• Application

6. Focus of Trait Approach
• Focuses
exclusively on
leader
– What traits leaders
exhibit
– Who has these traits
• Organisations use
personality assessments to
find “Right” people
– Assumption - will increase
organisational effectiveness
– Specify characteristics/traits
for specific positions
• Personality assessment
measures for “fit”
Leader
Personality
Assessments

7. Strengths
• Intuitively
appealing
– Perception that
leaders are different
in that they possess
special traits
– People “need” to
view leaders as
gifted
• Credibility due to
a century of
research support
• Highlights leadership
component in the
leadership process
– Deeper level
understanding of how
leader/personality
related to leadership
process
• Provides benchmarks
for what to look for in
a leader

8. Criticisms
• Fails to delimit a
definitive list of
leadership traits
– Endless lists have
emerged
• Doesn’t take into
account
situational
effects
– Leaders in one situation
may not be leaders in
another situation
• List of most important
leadership traits is
highly subjective
– Much subjective experience &
observations serve as basis
for identified leadership traits
• Research fails to look at
traits in relationship to
leadership outcomes
• Not useful for training
& development

9. Application
• Provides direction as to which traits
are good to have if one aspires to a
leadership position
• Through various tests and
questionnaires, individuals can
determine whether they have the
select leadership traits and can
pinpoint their strengths and
weaknesses
• Can be used by managers to assess
where they stand within their
organisation and what is needed to
strengthen their position
Leadership Traits
• Intelligence
• Self-Confidence
• Determination
• Integrity
• Sociability

10. Problems
• Focuses on the leader only
• Does possessing a profile lead to a
behaviour?
• Abrogates and assigns responsibility
– Deterministic? “leadership as a god-given
right”? “Not my problem…”
• Do followers have a role in making a
leader?

11. My perspective
• Generally, dislike the traditional emphasis
on leadership traits
• However certain traits may be more useful
in today’s setting:
– Humility: allows greater listening and
acceptance of other’s viewpoints and
contributions
– Imaginative: trying new things
– Influence: getting others to develop
leadership capabilities (rather than accepting
a decision)

12. • Traits can be important at the tactical level:
– When dealing with resistance or stubbornness, am I
patient and inquisitive or do I get annoyed easily?
– When under pressure do I exude coolness or am I
excitable?
– What people can see: implications for dealing with
adaptive challenges and for sensemaking and inquiry
• Modern research is on complex groupings of
traits, not individual traits

13. Emotional Leadership : Charismatic
& Transformational
• Charisma:
– A strong relationship exists between the
leader and the follower i.e. matching the
attributes of the leader and the followers’
needs, values, beliefs and perceptions.
(Conger and Kanungo, 1987)
– Charismatic is a label given by others, usually
followers
•followers make attributions of heroic or
extraordinary leadership abilities when they
observe certain behaviours.

14. • Leaders don’t label themselves as charismatic,
tho’ they may identify others as charismatic and
model themselves accordingly. The latter
situation is more closely linked to traits
• CLs have implications for job satisfaction and job
performance.
• Can charismatic behaviour be effectively
learned?

15. Characteristics of CLs:
• House (1976):
– high confidence, dominance, and strong conviction
– high n(Pow) and use of referent power as a power base
• Bennis (1984):
– compelling vision or sense of purpose
– ability to communicate this vision or purpose in terms
followers can identify with
– consistency and focus of vision
• Conger and Kanungo (1988)
– idealised goals
– commitment to that goal
– are perceived as unconventional
– are assertive and self-confident
– change agents
• knowledge and use of own strengths

16. CLs
• Is associated with many persons as well
as many nefarious and terrible individuals
– Double-edged sword: Hitler, Jim Jones
• Associated with narcissism, personalised
power

17. Transformational:
– More than just relationship oriented
– Useful for dynamic environments
– Magnifies transactional benefits
– 4 I’s: Idealised influence, inspirational motivation,
intellectual stimulation, individualised consideration
(LMX?)
– Concern for getting followers to engage in and
support organisation’s objectives
– The focus is less on the followers and more on the
org’s objectives
– Asserts that there is a moral transformation of
followers (JM Burns)
– Follower learning is emphasised

18. Micro-level: Behavioural Theories
• Focus on formal leader’s behaviour and links to
performance
– Describes components of leadership style
– Meta leader styles: task/production orientation and
people/relationship orientation
– Link to performance outcomes not validated
• Dyadic, hierarchical focus
• Ohio/Michigan Universities
– Task orientation aka initiating structure, production orientation
– Relationship orientation: consideration, employee orientation
• Managerial Grid: Blake and Mouton’s
– Managerial/Leadership Grid
– 5+2 styles: See fig + paternalism (9,1 & 1,9) & Opportunism
(back up style)

19. Reduce turnover,
increase satisfaction
Problem-
solving

20. • Depends what is meant by leadership
effectiveness:
– Productivity, satisfaction, problem-solving
– 1 possible line of thought: If staff are satisfied, they
are more likely to stay (advantages?) and will do
things that will allow them to stay i.e. work harder, be
better employees etc
– Another: Given the competitive environment, the
more efficient and effective we are, the stronger our
market position. If we are strong, we can pay better
& invest in better equipment.
• No clear link to performance/outcomes
• No universal style that works across situations
which was the objective of the researchers

21. Micro-Level: Situational
• Hersey Blanchard
• Change leadership style to suit employee i.e.
you cycle thru’ different styles according to the
status of the employee
– High Task: telling followers what, how and when to
do tasks;
– High Supportive:2-way communication, listening,
coaching, facilitating
• 2 major manifestations based on employee
characteristic

22. • 4 Leadership styles:
telling, selling,
participating,
delegating (direct,
coach, support,
delegate)
• 4 employee
readiness/developm
ent
• Depending on
employee
readiness/developm
ent, you change
leadership style

23. • Prescriptive
• Leader is flexible
• How do the employee dimensions combine to
form the readiness/development level? How is
each conceptualised and measured?
• Why is one style suitable for that particular
development level? I.e. why do they fit?
• Demographics: increased education want less
structure yet older workers want more structure.
So what about highly educated, older workers?
Which takes precedence age or education?Why?
• Please complete LASI (there’s more but read the
article for the extras) (now called situational
leadership)

25. Fiedler
• Opposite of HB:
– Change situation to suit leader
– More complex, requires more measuring
• Leadership style is static
• 3 considerations:
– Leader-member relations
– Structured – unstructured task
– Position power
• Based on these 3, choose applicable leadership
style which is measured by Least Preferred Co-
worker Scale (LPC)

26. Structured or
unstructured

27. • Lots of research to back up
• Whatever the construct is, it is valid and reliable
• Recognises situation and allows predictions to be
made about the leadership style
• LPC: question of face validity
• Why is a certain style better in moderate
situations?
• Difficult to use: situations especially today are
dynamic – keep changing leader, situation?
• Please complete LPC

28. Some final thoughts
• Situational, contingency and Fielder’s are more
managerial techniques than approaches to
leadership
– The supervisor-subordinate relationship
• Focus on a tiny aspect of leadership: elephant
and the blind (wo)men.
• Having said that, a lot depends on how the
individual formal leader, in using these
approaches, modifies them to suit the demands
of the situation: day to day or structural or
strategic: hence I am inclined to a skills
approach.
• Growing pressure to adopt more organic
practices: Distributed leadership

29. Skills Model Description
Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Owen Jacobs, &
Fleishman (2000)
• Research studies (1990s)
goal: to identify the
leadership factors that
create exemplary job
performance in an
organisation
• Emphasises the
capabilities that make
effective leadership
possible rather than what
leaders do
Perspective
Skills-Based Model
of Leadership
• Capability model -
Examines relationship
between a leader’s
knowledge, skills, &
performance
• Suggests many people
have the potential for
leadership

30. Skills Model of Learning
General Cognitive
Abilities
Crystallized
Cognitive Abilities
Motivation
Personality
Problem-Solving
Skills
Social
Judgment
Skills
Knowledge
Effective
Problem Solving
Performance
Career Experience
Environmental Influences
Individual
Attributes
Competencies
Leadership
Outcomes

31. Strengths
• First approach to conceptualise and create a
structure of the process of leadership around
skills
• Describing leadership in terms of skills makes it
available to everyone
• Provides an overarching view of leadership
that incorporates a variety of components (i.e.,
problem-solving skills, social judgment skills)
• Provides a structure consistent with
leadership education programs

32. Criticisms
• Breadth of the skills approach appears to
extend beyond the boundaries of
leadership
• Skills model is weak in predictive value
– i.e. correlation exists but cannot attribute
causation or model outcomes with certainty
• Skills model is partially trait-driven

33. Application
• The Skills Approach provides a way to delineate the
skills of a leader
• It is applicable to leaders at all levels within the
organisation
• The skills inventory can provide insights into the
individual’s leadership competencies
• Test scores allow leaders to learn about areas in
which they may wish to seek further training

34. Final Word
All of these theories place leadership with
certain individuals. New theories do not.

35. Task
Using only 4 knives and 3 cups build a
platform strong enough to support
another cup.