Leadership Theories and Skills

BMA6115 Leadership
and Management

Table of Contents
Question 1-What is involved in being a successful leader?..................................................3
Answer-.................................................................................................................................3
Question 2-Can good leadership be developed, and if so, how?............................................6
Answer-.................................................................................................................................6
Question 3-What distinguishes leadership from management?.............................................7
Answer-.................................................................................................................................7
Question 4-What have you learnt about leadership from your own experiences, on this course
and elsewhere? .......................................................................................................................9
Answer-.................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

Question 1-What is involved in being a successful leader?
Answer-
There are some theory of leadership which explain about the leadership, that
what is this, who can have this and how it can be improve to be a better leader,
each and every theory have their own point of view given belolw.
In Individual terms
Great Man Theory of Leadership- According to this theory leadership is the inborn
quality. This theory states that the grate leader are the individual how born with this quality and
note made. In their point of view some of the leader skills can just inherit and can not be learn.
This theory is totally based on the historical leaders how consider as the inborn leader with
leadership skills and traits (Bisel and et. al., 2017). Leadership is the quality which can be
inherited from generation to generation.
Katz’s Three-Skill Approach- According to Katz’s model leader should have some
important skills in order to become the successful leader. Those skills are conceptual, human
and technical skills. These skills are crucial for leader optimize their performance, where the
technical skill is about field related situation, human skill is for the effective communication and
team management (Figueroa, 2019). Conceptual skill is important for the visualization of goals
and its accomplishment. So all these quality should be posses by the leader to manage their role
such as the organisation problems solution, subordinates motivation and their guidance.
Lewin’s leadership styles- This theory was develop by the psychologist Kurt Lewin,
In context to the Lewin's theory there are some leadership approaches for team and organisation
management. Autocratic, democratic, Laissez-faire explain below. According to this model or
theory of the leadership there are majorly three type of the leadership style which should be
implemented by the leader on the basis of their role and organisation.
Autocratic leadership style- In this type of leadership, leader posses the complete
control over the team and their decisions, here team members can not play major role in the

discussion (Bush, 2018) . Leader take decision on the basis of their thoughts and judgements
and rarely give right to their followers for advice.
Democratic leadership style- With the application of this leadership style leader make
their final decision with the complete contribution of their subordinates suggestions. So their
should be a involvement of team members in decision-making process (Byrne, Crossan and
Seijts, 2018). This style is helpful in the encouragement of employees and subordinates for their
creativity, skills and high performance. This process give the positive result with high
performance, productivity and job-satisfaction. It can not be applicable in the quick decision-
making as it take huge time.
Laissez-faire- In this type of leadership style leader do not get involve in the team
performance and decision-making. Here they give the full of the freedom to their employees for
their task management and deadline selection. With complete advice and resources support, this
process is can be beneficial for job-satisfaction with productivity. But this can be negative in
some time due to the incomplete knowledge, skills and lack of self motivation in employees .
Contextual
Path Goal Theory- This model of the leadership is developed by the Robert House and
according to this leader behaviour and style is related to the subordinates because It effects the
employees motivation, performance and satisfaction. So on the basis of this theory leader should
use the right leadership framework, in which characteristics of the followers should be consider
and analyse such as skills, experience for the selection of correct work role for them along with
the correct leadership style. Then the characteristics of work and task situation should be
evaluated to manage the team with effective support along with the reward and motivation
programmes (Dickson and Tholl, 2020). There is four type of the leadership style according to
path goal theory.