Leadership and Excellence: Exploring Theories and Styles

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report explores various leadership theories and styles.

LEADERSHIP AND EXCELLENCE

Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
DISCUSSION............................................................................................................................4
TYPES OF LEADERSHIP....................................................................................................4
CHARLES HANDY’S MODEL OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE.............................6
THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP.............................................................................................7
TRAIT THEORY...............................................................................................................7
BEHAVIORAL THEORY.................................................................................................7
SITUATIONAL THEORY................................................................................................8
CONTINGENCY THEORY............................................................................................10
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................12
REFERENCE LIST.................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
According to Grint et al. (2016) stated that, leadership is the art of motivating and influencing
the behavior of others to act towards achieving the common objective. In the organizations,
leadership means directing workers and colleagues with a strategy that helps them to
understand the organizational culture. Leadership requires the traits for effectively utilizing
the available resources. Daniel (2018) says that there are some people who believe that a
leader is born with the characteristics of influencing and inspiring others. They have certain
inherit leadership qualities that made him suitable for leadership. But the leaders are not born
they are made. A leader works hard to gain experience, training, and practices over time. A
good leader always searches for opportunities to learn new skills (Campbell and Mohl 2015).
Koontz and O’Donnell define the term leadership as, "Leadership is the capacity of a
manager to inspire employees to work with zeal and confidence."
Northouse (2017) describes the characteristics of an effective leader:
1. A leader should have the capacity to set a clear vision and to convert the vision into
reality by motivating and inspiring the team members.
2. A leader should be confident enough that other members follow his orders. A
confident leader shows confidence at the time of challenge and also motivates the
team member by reminding them the challenges are there just to overcome.
3. The leader must be able to communicate the goals and strategies to be followed to
achieve the defined goal.
4. Changes are an inevitable part of any business, the leader should have the courage to
stand alone and take the tough decisions to overcome the change.
5. A leader should have a constant desire to learn something new. For a leader,
leadership and learning should be essential to each other.
Sutherland (2018) describes that leader has a two-fold responsibility. A leader has the
responsibility to fulfil the demands and expectation set by the top management and on the
other hand, he is supposed to motivate, help, guide and supervise the employees in satisfying
their needs and wants. The high performance of the employees can be obtained through
effective leadership and this is the main reason for organization success.

DISCUSSION
TYPES OF LEADERSHIP
There are different ways in which the leader motivates the employees. If the approach is to
reward or appreciate, the leader uses positive motivation. While, if the approach is to punish,
the leader uses negative motivation. Following are the types of leadership:
1. Authoritative or autocratic leadership
The autocratic leader has the authority to take a decision and does not involve any members
in the decision making process. He assigns the task to the employees without consulting
them. Autocratic leadership is based upon the close supervision and punishment and penalties
thus this is a negative way to motivate the employees. Laub (2018) describes the autocratic
leadership focuses on addictive and self-absorbed leaders. This type of leadership is effective
only when the management requires a quick decision. Only the leader has the authority and
takes the responsibility of the whole team (Amanchukwu et al., 2015)
2. Democratic or participative leadership
The leader decentralizes the power to take to decisions. The leader takes the decisions after
consulting with the team members. According to Iqbal et al. (2015), decisions are made
within teams and each member contributes equally in decision making. The leader gives the
opportunity for members to free communicate and exchange the ideas and thoughts at the
time of decision making. This leadership improves the performance, coordination amongst
the individual and increases the morale of employees. (Khan et al., 2015)
3. Laissez-faire or Free-rein leadership
Free-rein leadership ignores the concept of authority and responsibility. According to
Almanaseer and Matarneh (2015), the leader gives full authority to employees to take the
decisions after deciding the roles, responsibilities, and procedure because the leader trusts the
employees that they perform the task by themselves. The leader plays a minor role in the
activities of a team. This type of leadership is suitable when employees are more skilled and
knowledgeable. The leader needs to feel confident that the members of their group possess
the skills and knowledge to complete the goal (UFOMA 2016)
4. Bureaucratic leadership

According to Buettner (2017) in this leadership, a leader formed structured procedures and
expects the employees should follow those procedures in the same way as described. This
leadership brings no innovation to explore new things to solve the problems. This type of
leadership is suitable for the organization that does not require creativity or innovation in
their work. Skilled and self-motivated employees feel frustrated because the organization
does not change according to the change in environment (Terry 2015).
5. Directive leadership
Abecassis-Moedas and Gilson (2018) describes directive leadership that the leaders provide
direction and guidance to the employees that what they are expected to do and how it should
be done. These leaders set the guidelines, goals, rules to complete the task. This type of
leadership is suitable when the members of a team are not specialized for a job and requires
guidance and directions from the leader in a difficult situation. The leader focuses on his own
experiences and communication skills to communicate the information to others (Ford et al.,
2016).
Democratic or participative style of leadership will be suitable to change the organizational
culture and improving the performance of employees. The organization can achieve
excellence through this style. In this type of leadership, the leader takes the suggestions from
the employees and takes the final decision by considering their opinions. But the leader can
expect from the employees that the decision should be accepted by all the employees. The
leader should not discourage the leader’s decision. If the decision is made according to the
suggestions from the employees they respect his decision and will contribute their best in
achieving an individual goal as well as an organizational goal. In case if the employees find
themselves unable to accomplish the task, the leader must provide them the direction in
completing the task. Such type of leadership style will motivate and encourage the employees
in achieving the best result. Also, it increases the employee's morale as they feel that their
contribution is important in organizational success. This leadership will create a culture of
ownership, accountability, and responsibility.
CHARLES HANDY’S MODEL OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Intezari and McKenna (2018) has defined the Charles Handy model to understand the
organizational culture that Charles Handy has divided the culture into four categories:

 Power culture: In power culture, power remains in the hands of top management and
only they have the authority to take the decisions. This type of leadership is suitable
for those organizations that require quick decisions. The employees strictly follow the
orders of the top management.
 Task culture: Teams are formed to achieve the goals or are formed to solve critical
problems. A person who has the expertise knowledge gains the authority to take the
decisions rather than those who hold a higher position.
 Person culture: In this culture, the employees have complete independence and this
is suitable when the employees are highly educated and skilled. Employees work to
achieve the individual goal rather than an organizational goal.
 Role culture: This type of culture is highly job oriented. The authority is delegated to
those who have the experienced, knowledgeable and expert in the particular field. In
this culture, employees decide what they can do and what type of challenge they can
accept (Stanley and Carvalho 2016)
The organizational culture of the department can be changed if the leader changes the power
culture to task culture. It will be easier for the expertise leader to influence the behaviour of
the employees. The leader gets more respect if he shares some expert knowledge with the
employees.
THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP
The most important aspect of theories is the evolution of thoughts and the development of the
thinking process. The various aspect of leadership is explained in different theories.
TRAIT THEORY
Nawaz and Khan (2016) explain that the trait theory includes personal traits and
characteristics of a leader that make him different from the team members. It is assumed that
a successful leader should possess certain traits as compared to unsuccessful leaders and a
leader has some inherited traits that make him a good leader. Following are the traits essential
for a successful leader:
 Physical traits such as good health, appearance, energetic.
 Intelligence and creativity such as adaptability, problem-solving skills, risk-taking,
self-confidence
 Social traits such as interpersonal skills, a capability to inspire, social interaction.
 Moral traits such as will power, tolerance.

All these qualities are not inborn qualities but they are learned from the training and
experience. (Nawaz and Khan, 2016)
Trait theory indicates that the trait of a leader remains constant whatever the situation may be.
The employees of the company can maintain a good relationship with the leader so that the
leader supervises the employee in their work. Also, an effective leader has the quality to
change his traits according to the situation; there will be a chance that the leader changes his
autocratic leadership after having a communication with the employees.
BEHAVIOURAL THEORY
In the behavioural theory, Lehmann-Willenbrock et al. (2015) puts emphasis on the
behaviour of the leaders. The limitation of trait theory is that it only focuses on the traits and
features of leader and ignores the behaviour of the leader. This theory studies the behaviour
of a leader that affects the performance of the employees and their job satisfaction. This
theory is based on the actions performed by the leader to achieve the targets. The two most
common theories come under the behavioural theory:
Michigan Leadership Studies
Hussain and Hassan (2016) say that this theory studies the behaviour of a leader in two
dimensions. These are:
Production cantered: leader sets the challenging tasks, focuses on completing the task and
treats the employees as a machine.
Employee cantered: leadership treats the employee as human, involves them into the
decision-making process and motivate them to improve their performance. (Ghasabeh et al.,
2015)
Ohio State Leadership Studies
According to Anderson and Sun (2017), this study shows the effect of the behaviour of
leaders on the performance of employees. This study identified two independent leadership
dimensions:
Initiating structure: The leader having the initiating structure defines his own roles and also
specifies the task performed by the employees. The leader establishes the working
relationship and roles.

Consideration: The leader is concerned about the employees and attempts to establish the
relationship by mutual trust and respect for others.
The low morale of employees in the department will definitely contribute less to the
accomplishment of an organizational goal. A leader can improve the performance firstly by
including them in the decision-making process and secondly by helping them in their roles.
The leadership should be employee centred. The leader can achieve a goal by motivating
them in a positive way.
SITUATIONAL THEORY
The situational theory assumes that no single theory is best in the changing environment;
leadership style depends on the situation that arises according to the situation. According to
Lynch (2015), a leader can be effective if he is capable to change his leadership style
according to the situation. An important aspect of this theory is the interaction between the
employees and the leader. An effective leader is one that recognizes the needs of his
employees and makes the strategies that satisfy their needs (Dugan 2017). There are different
types of situational theory:
Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory
According to Meirovich and Gu (2015), Hersey and Blanchard combine two elements i.e.
leadership style and follower’s maturity. They define four leadership styles:
 Telling: In this, the leader takes the decision and tells the employees what to do and
how to do.
 Selling: In selling the leader communicate and persuade the employees to work.
Leaders also sell ideas to gain coordination from others.
 Participating: The leader allows the members to perform their actions. The
employees participate in the decision-making process and finally take their own
decisions.
 Delegating: The leader gives the authority to the employees for taking their decision
but provides minimum guidance in their work.
Goleman’s model of situational leadership
Chen and Laksana (2017) describe another situational theory of Daniel Goleman describes
six categories of leadership:

 Coaching leader: The leader focuses on developing the skills of employees. This is
suitable when the employee is responsible for guidance.
 Pacesetting leader: The leader sets challenging goals and ask employees to achieve
them. This is suitable when the employees have the skills and knowledge to complete
the targets.
 Democratic leader: The leaders involve the employees in the decision-making
process by seeking their ideas and opinions. This is suitable when the leaders need the
guidance and employees have the expert knowledge.
 Affiliative leader: The leader boosts the morale of the employees by showing
confidence in them. This is suitable when the stress level of employees increases.
 Authoritative leader: The leader provides guidance and support in solving a
problem. This is suitable when the employees are inexperienced and needs clear
direction.
 Coercive leader: The leader has the authority to tell the employees what to do. This is
suitable to rebuild the disaster situation.
In situational leadership, if the leader follows the autocratic style of leadership, the
employee's performance will be low. Every human tendency has the nature to resist the
change; the same is the case with the employees. They will not accept the change and will not
perform as per the order of leaders. The leader can only get high performance if the leader
involves the employees in the decision-making process.
CONTINGENCY THEORY
This theory says that a leader cannot be effective by the style he chooses in the situation. But
a leader can be effective by the leader’s control over the situation. There should be a strong
employee leader relationship so that the employee achieves the goals with the defined
procedure. The leader should have the authority to reward or to punish the employees (Burton
et al., 2016).
In this theory, according to Zigarmi and Roberts (2017), leader will be flexible for
maintaining a good relationship with the employees. This theory also says that a leader can
influence the employees only when they obey and respect him. The leader should be
expertise and have goodwill in front of employees.
Fiedler’s contingency theory

Howell (2018) says that Fiedler's contingency theory is based on the effectiveness of a leader
depends not only on the leadership style but the control over the situation. Fiedler’s
contingency model depends on three factors:
Leadership style: Leadership style depends on two dimensions i.e. task oriented and human-
oriented. The task-oriented leader gets satisfaction when the task is completed. While the
human-oriented leader focuses on to maintain the relationship with the employees. In order to
understand the nature of leader, Fielder developed “Least Preferred Co-worker Scale
(LPCS)” in which the workers are asked to rate the leader on a scale rating 1 for lowest and 8
for highest, to identify the worker to whom they want to work.
Situational variables: There are different situational variable that affects the effectiveness of
leadership style:
Leader’s position power: The authority of power obtains from the position held by the leader.
A person holding a higher position has the power to influence the behaviour of others.
Task structure: The extent to which the task structure, goals and procedure is defined. Well
defined goals and procedure will have more chances to be controlled by the leader.
The relation between leader and member: The leadership effectiveness depends on trust
between the leader and members. It is the willingness of the members to follow the leader’s
orders and rules.
The leader of the department can solve the employee’s problem by combining all these three
variables. This theory helps the leader in understanding the problem that what are causes that
hinder the success of an organization. This theory also helps the employees to put their ideas
on the selected leadership and what changes they are expecting from the leader. This theory
increases the morale of employees and also decreases the stress level of employees.

CONCLUSION
A leader is a person who influences the behaviour of other people by his words, actions, or
decisions to achieve the desired goals. Leadership is the ability of a person to influence and
supervise other members of an organization. Some leaders are born with leadership qualities
but a good leader is made from the experiences and learning. A successful leader should
possess the following qualities such as confident, ambitious, motivator, inspiration, good
communicator, decision-making skills etc. Each leadership style is different and important for
different organization depending on their culture. It depends on the leader to choose the
leadership style that best suits to the organizational culture. For example, an autocratic
leadership, leaders have the authority to take the decisions, decide roles and responsibilities
and the followers are expected to follow those rules. In democratic leadership, the followers
are also involved in the decision-making process, express their views, opinions and the leader
takes the decision after considering followers ideas. In free-rein leadership, the leader
delegates the authority to followers for taking decisions. There are different leadership styles
which a leader can choose according to the situation.
Leadership theories explain the qualities of a leader that made him a good leader. Such
theories focus on the features and physical traits of a leader, behaviour of the leader that can
improve the leadership qualities, the behaviour of leader in a different situation and their
attitude towards the difficult situation. In other words, most theories view the leadership in
three perspectives: leadership as a relationship, leadership as a blend of physical
characteristics and traits, leadership as certain behaviours. These leadership theories help the
leader in enhancing leadership skills.

REFERENCES
 Abecassis-Moedas, C. and Gilson, L.L., 2018. Drivers and levels of creative
leadership: An examination of choreographers as directive and integrative leaders.
Innovation, 20(2), pp.122-138.
 Almanaseer, M. and Matarneh, B., 2015. The Impact of Leadership Patterns on
the Development of Intellectual Capital in the Educational Sector in the Kingdom
of Bahrain. Research Journal of Finance and Accounting, 6(2), pp.156-162.
 Amanchukwu, R.N., Stanley, G.J. and Ololube, N.P., 2015. A review of
leadership theories, principles and styles and their relevance to educational
management. Management, 5(1), pp.6-14.
 Anderson, M.H. and Sun, P.Y., 2017. Reviewing leadership styles: Overlaps and
the need for a new ‘full‐range’theory. International Journal of Management
Reviews, 19(1), pp.76-96.
 Buettner, J.A., 2017. The mitigating effects of bureaucratic environments on IT
implementation projects (Doctoral dissertation).
 Burton, R.M., Obel, B. and Håkonsson, D.D., 2016. 1 Contingency Theory,
Dynamic Fit, and Contracts. Advancing Organizational Theory in a Complex
World: Advancing Research in a Complex World, p.1.
 Campbell, R. and Mohl, L., 2015. Leadership and Quality Improvement.
In Pediatric and Congenital Cardiac Care (pp. 229-237). Springer, London.
 Chen, B. and Laksana, S., 2017. The Development of Principal Curriculum
Leadership Capabilities Model for Secondary Schools in Shanghai,
China. Scholar: Human Sciences, 8(2).
 Daniel, G., 2018. What Makes a Leader?. In Contemporary Issues in Leadership
(pp. 21-35). Routledge.
 Dugan, J.P., 2017. Leadership theory: Cultivating critical perspectives. John
Wiley & Sons.
 Ford, K., Menchine, M., Burner, E., Arora, S., Inaba, K., Demetriades, D. and
Yersin, B., 2016. Leadership and teamwork in trauma and resuscitation. Western
Journal of Emergency Medicine, 17(5), p.549.
 Ghasabeh, M.S., Soosay, C. and Reaiche, C., 2015. The emerging role of
transformational leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas, 49(6), pp.459-467.