Leadership Theories and Research

This assignment delves into various leadership theories, including Path-Goal theory and Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory. It examines how these theories are applied in practice and the influence they exert on factors like organizational culture, job satisfaction, and firm performance. Students are expected to analyze academic literature and research papers related to leadership theories, drawing connections between theoretical concepts and real-world applications.

literature review
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Table of Contents
Literature review..............................................................................................................................3
Introduction............................................................................................................................3
Different leadership theories..................................................................................................3
Conclusion..............................................................................................................................7
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Literature review
Introduction
Leadership is known as the action taken by a leader for leading a group of people or an
organisation, or the ability to do this. On the other side manager is the person who is responsible
for controlling or administering a firm or a staff. A leader adopts different types of leadership
style in order to guide and leads employees. From the beginning of 20th century theories of
leadership took place. There are different types of theories such as great man theory, excellence
theory etc. were proposed and discussed primarily by management science. In the present
literature review different range of leadership styles and theories will be identified and crucially
evaluated.
Different leadership theories
According to the view of Northouse, (2018) McGregor formulated two theories that are X and
Y which recommend 2 aspects of human behavior at work. It can be stated as the view of
different employees one which can be negative that is known as X theory and another one is
positive which is Y theory. As per this theory, the perception of managers on the nature of the
individual is based on different assumptions. D’Innocenzo, Mathieu and Kukenberger, (2016)
summarised theory X that the traditional view of management in a number of characteristics of
assumption in which autocratic leadership style is selected. It is critically analysed that
employees who are covered in Theory X need a close supervision and proper direction due to
this reason autocratic leadership style is preferred by management. Further, this theory is start
from the assumption that by nature people are lazy and they try to avoid work as much as
possible. Further, they do not like to take any type of responsibilities related to work and want to
be supervised by leader or manager. In this context, autocratic leadership style is considered as
one of the most appropriate leadership styles in Theory X. Hence, the system of punishments and
reward work best under this theory. The Muslim, Dato’Yahya and Majid, (2016) argued that
Theory Y starts from the assumption that people have different needs and wants. Further people
like to work and they also get motivated through the purse objectives. Under this, employees do
not need to provide reward and punishment as because they are self-motivated and like to take
responsibility for works (Hartnell, Kinicki. and Doyle Corner, 2016). They used creativity and
like to take a creative problem-solving approach. In respect to this, democratic leadership style
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can be used which allows employees to take responsibility for work and work in their own way.
Leader, in theory, Y, mostly encourage and reward its employees instead of controlling them.
Workers are provided an opportunity to develop themselves and put their efforts in completing
the task. At the time of contrasting both democratic and autocratic leadership behaviour it can be
stated that autocratic are strict and disciplined which provide an effective result.
By analysing McGregor theory X and Y model can be observed that this theory is not
based on a single truth. Manager and leader in Theory X and Theory Y mostly see their
perception of people confirmed. Since democratic leadership style used in theory Y shows make
sure that employees feel comfortable and commit themselves toward the work (Hirt, 2016).
While manager of Theory X employees are needed to control so that they can complete their task
on time. It is critically evaluated that the work gets done right as because leader forces its
employees and provide proper direction in theory X. However, there is some limitation of theory
X that employees do not respect leader and they feel threatened. On the other side in theory Y
people work hard because they know to provide care to them. Along with this, they enjoy work.
However, sometimes employees take care of advantage of the leader caring.
Khanna, (2017) state that for making sure leadership success there are different motivation
theories which have some reasonable grasp. Hertzberg theory is known by two name that is two-
factor theory and motivation theory.
According to this Ogunnaike, Ekweme, and Okedurum, (2017), there are different
organisation factors that affect satisfaction and dissatisfaction of employees. There are some
characteristics of job which are consistently related to the job. In contrast motivators are factors
that are intrinsic to the job for such as recognition, career advancement and level of
responsibilities lead to motivate employees. Therefore, it is fitted with the democratic or lassie
fair leadership style because. Many times, leaders and manager of the firm applied some of the
principles of Hertzberg tow factor theory in order to motivate and accomplish the task on time.
Manager and employees within the firm can easily differentiate their employee’s needs
(Goswami, Beehr and Goffnett, 2014). As leader provide a reward to employees so that they do
not get demotivated from their work. Hence, this theory is used in an organisation as a predictor
of future managers or project leaders but it limits the results to only three categories. In the
Hertzberg, theory need is established and it defines the personality which needs to reflect itself in
a different situation that could be used as a predictor.
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According to the view of the Andersen, (2015), there are different types of classical
leadership theories such as trait theories, behavior theories etc. The trait theory is developed with
the purpose of determining the core characteristics of leaders which contribute toward the firm
goal. This theory is put forward with respect to find out the traits, qualities or leader that for
making a correct set of people can set and hired for the leadership position. There are a different
number of leadership trait which is identified in different studies such as cooperation,
determination and self-confidence (Lord, Day and Eagly, 2017). An individual has many
negative and positive traits which can influence others. Furthermore, all leader possesses some
universal qualities that help in influencing others. It has been argued that there are some chances
of the prominent leader which is being gifted by some common trait. The contradictory nature of
the trait theories is behavioural theories. It leads to an emphasis on the behavioural aspect of firm
leaders and its outcome is that behavioural theories were constructed which is normally based on
studying a different leadership style. However, it can be proved from the McGregor X and Y
theory. According to the view of Breevaart, Bakker and Derks, (2016) behaviour theory focus on
the behaviour of treating the employees within the firm. Therefore, the main focus is on
concerning with people and products and employee’s participation. Under this theory there are
three different types of leadership style is considered that are democratic, autocratic and laissez-
faire. Contrast with the trait theory behavioral theory is effective in order to control employees
and accomplishing business goals. However, as compared with the contingency theory behaviour
theory is less concern on the needs of the situation and the expectation of employees. One of the
typical example of the autocratic leadership style Hilton hotel that which is one of the top hotels
in the UK as because of its sales. In this it mainly more concern about the production instead of
staffs. In the hotel, employees strictly need to follow its leader while working with the target to
deliver quality services to employees. In contrast to autocratic leadership style, democratic style
is more friendly, for example, Marriott hotel is known as the service industry, here leader focus
on communicating and discussing with staff member instead of directing them toward the work,
in order to meet the demand then they would work with enthusiasm and satisfaction which help
company in earning profit. The Carroll, (2017) observed that bought the trait and behavioral
theory is facing defect which leads to ignoring situational factors. Therefore, contingency
leadership theory in its study taken into consideration some of the situational factors. It is also
the interaction of personal leader’s trait, behavior and work environment for explaining the
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phenomenon of leadership. However, it considers three different types of theories that are path-
goal theory, situational leadership style and Fiedler’s contingency theory. Some example of
contingency leadership theory is that in this leader analysis situational elements based on
different condition and adopt different leadership styles for motivating its employees. The
effective leader directly influences its employees and provide direction to accomplish goals.
Some times in hotel different types of situation occurs and on that leader need to changes it style
of managing people according to the situation. Certo, (2015) argued that situational leadership
style refers to the way when the leader and manager of the firm adjust his style for fitting the
development level of the followers and try to influence them. This leadership style continuously
changes for meeting the needs of others on the firm as per based on the situation.
Chemers, (2014) explained that this transactional leadership style is goal oriented because
under this leadership style leader focusses on rewards and punishments for accomplishing the
goal. Chiu, Owens and Tesluk, (2016) points out that transactional leader basically used a lower
level of Maslow Hierarchy which consists of shelter, food and the need for affiliation. In this
leader make clear what team member required to be done. Further after completing the task
reward is provided for the best work. On the other side, transformational leadership is quite
different from the transactional leadership style which focuses on the higher level of Maslow
hierarchy of needs which are esteem, self-fulfill and self-actualization. According to the view of
Otley, (2016), there are four components to the transformational leader. Examples of
transformational leaders is that leader know about its employees and their capabilities and it fully
demands and set the higher expectation. In Qbic hotel employees are provided a chance to show
their capability and provided
Scientific theory is one of essential approach of management that is found in basically in
hospitality industry. According to this theory leaders should provide training and development
facility so that they can lead their team members in an effective member. In contrary to this
classical theory is more effective as because leader do not need to provide training facility and
they can easily guide followers toward the task.
In hospitality industries, McGregor X and Y theory can be effectively used in order to
motivate and guide employees and carry out business activities in an effective manner. Further
Hilton hotel has great vision related to the thing what is wanted to accomplish and due to this
reason, he always kept moving (Dinh, Lord and Hu, 2014). The leader of Hilton hotel mostly
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focus on making effective relationships with employees and involve them in the decision-making
process. This makes employees feel valued and they complete the task on time. All the roles and
responsibility is allocated to employees so that they can work in effective manner. Proper
communication is important between leader and followers so that employees so that quality
services can be delivered to customers.
Conclusion
From the above report it is concluded that there are different types of leadership theories
which can be applied with the hospitality industry in order to gain success. Leader play
significant role within the firm as they direct team toward the goal. Different firms adopted
different leadership style. Sometime leadership style also gets change as per the situation.
Further it is concluded that trait theory focus on researching leaders characteristics which help in
influencing employees to toward the goal. However transformational theory is more
comprehensive and flexible as compared to other theories. As per the changeful situation leader
need to change its way of directing while adopting appropriate theory.
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Reference
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Breevaart, K., Bakker, A.B., Demerouti, E. and Derks, D., 2016. Who takes the lead? A multi‐
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