A Comprehensive Analysis of the Behavioral Theory of Leadership

This essay delves into the genesis and evolution of the behavioral theory of leadership, starting with the author's personal experiences that highlighted the need for leadership guidelines. It traces the development of the theory through stages, including defining leadership syntax focused on balanci...Read More

Running head: ORIGIN OF THEORY 1
Origin of Theory
Institution affiliation
Student’s Name

ORIGIN OF THEORY 2
Stage One-Theorizing
Leadership has and will always be a part of our lives. For a very long time we have had
leaders but they did not lead us in the best ways. I decided to be a leader in order to be able to
represent my people and have their needs met. I knew that I had to take action to have the needs
of the less fortunate heard. This is one of the jobs that did not have a directive on how I was
supposed to handle different cases. It hit me hard since I had to figure it all out by myself and
realized that their needed to be a guideline. Through this the behavioral theory of leadership
began to be formulated. It was meant to be a guide for the leaders who would come after me that
didn’t have a clue on how to begin leading (Voss, Chris, 2010).
Stage Two-Syntax
Leadership refers to the process of directing the behavior of others towards
accomplishment of objectives. Being a leader involves the art of influencing people so that they
can strive willingly to achieve a group goal. With this it is clear that should focus on having the
job well done and at the same time keep the followers happy. I aimed on a theory where we
nurture good skills and at the same time ensure togetherness among all the people that are
working together. For a leader to achieve success it is required for them to be active in all the
activities being done around the organization. This greatly helped in finally figuring out the three
categories of leadership behavior which are task performance, group maintenance and
participative decision making (Morgareidge, Hui, Jun, 2014).
Stage Three-Theory testing.
A leadership study was aimed at identifying the most appropriate and conclusive results
about the most effective traits of a leader. We developed a list of statements that would help

ORIGIN OF THEORY 3
measure the dimensions of behavioral leadership. The list had some questions that were passed
around as questionnaires amongst many people including college students, college
administrators, private companies e.g. bookshops. The aim of this study was to identify the most
common leadership behavior. After the study we were able to discover that their two groups that
were strongly correlated (people oriented behavioral leaders and task oriented leaders).
I believe that leaders are made and not born and leadership is based on learnable and
definable behavior. The behaviors of a leader are the main influence on his or her leadership
skills (Laschinger, Borgogni, Consiglio, Read, 2015). People do have response stimulus hence we
cannot just conclude that a leader is born. The best leaders are the ones who have the adaptability
to show their behavioral styles and choose the right styles suitable for each situations (Lord,
2012).
Stage Four-Evaluation
Behavioral theory emphasizes on the behavior of treating employees and subordinates. It
mostly focusses on the concern of the people and production as well as how the leaders and
employers treat their subordinates (Adrienne, Morris, & Blachman, 2015). Behavioral theory
marks the leadership transformation from the single study of leaders to a wide range of
leadership research. In the influence if culture and the expectations of employees it seems to fall
short.
Leadership usually contributes significantly to supervisor support. Work place support,
particularly from the supervisor. There are studies relating leadership practice provide
satisfaction to patients. Leadership was associated with patient satisfaction. Some studies proved
that the behavior shown by a nurse plays a big impact on the satisfaction of the patient.

ORIGIN OF THEORY 4
In another case the behavior of a nurse plays a role in the mortality rate. Good behaviors
and traits are mostly associated with low patient mortality rate. It has been suggested that
mangers with larger spans of control may be associated with provision of direct support of the
nurses (Ouslander, Lamb, Tappen, Herndon, Diaz, Roos, Bonner, 2011).
Some studies carried out showed that there is a strong relationship between leadership
and medication errors. The behavioral and transformational leadership manager also supported
this with reducing the medication errors. Patients were tested and it indicated that due to the two
leadership styles reduced tremendously.
This theory is mainly based upon the concern for people and concern for results. The
concern for people generally refers to the level where the leader considers their team members
about their interests and needs and developments as they complete their jobs. The concern for
tasks and results refers to where the leaders will put emphasis on the goals and objectives as well
as how efficiently they will complete their work. In the case for concern of results they do not
put any consideration on the interests and interest of the employees.
This theory being mostly based on the fact that leadership traits are learnt did not apply in
all situations. In some instances, they may be faced with situations that they had never come
across before which they may not be able to handle. Leadership is beyond learning and
observation. The theory should incorporate more that can be done in leadership.

ORIGIN OF THEORY 5
References
Adrienne, R., Morris, J., & Blachman. (2015). an authoritative review of the major frameworks
assessing
leadership theory and practice. the journal of continuing education, 286.
Laschinger, H. K. S., Borgogni, L., Consiglio, C., & Read, E. (2015). The effects of authentic
leadership, six areas of worklife, and occupational coping self-efficacy on new graduate nurses’
burnout and mental health: A cross-sectional study. International journal of nursing
studies, 52(6), 1080-1089.
Lord, F. M. (2012). Applications of item response theory to practical testing problems. Routledge.
Morgareidge, D., Hui, C. A. I., & Jun, J. I. A. (2014). Performance-driven design with the support of
digital tools: Applying discrete event simulation and space syntax on the design of the
emergency department. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 3(3), 250-264.
Ouslander, J. G., Lamb, G., Tappen, R., Herndon, L., Diaz, S., Roos, B. A., & Bonner, A. (2011).
Interventions to reduce hospitalizations from nursing homes: evaluation of the INTERACT II
collaborative quality improvement project. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 59(4),
745-753.
Voss, Chris. "Case research in operations management." In Researching operations management, pp.
176-209. Routledge, 2010.