Leadership Theories

Dr. Niharika Gaan

LEADERSHIP
A Social influence process in which the leader
seeks the voluntary participation of
subordinates in an effort to reach
organizational objectives.

The ability to influence a group towards the

achievement of goals.
 Leaders Vs Managers
Personality
Dimensions Manager Leader

Attitude towards Has an impersonal, Has personal and

goal passive, functional active attitude;
attitude; believes goal believes goal
arise out of arise out of
necessity desire and
imagination

Conceptions Views work as Looks for fresh

of work An enabling Approaches to old
Process that combines Problems; seeks
people, ideas, and high risk positions
things; seeks moderate
risks
 Contd….
Personality
Manager Leader
Dimensions
Relationship with Avoids solitary Is comfortable in
others Work activities, Work activity
Preferring to Solitary; encourages
Work with Close, intense
Others, avoids close, Working
intense relationships; is not
relationships Conflict averse

Sense of Is once born; Is twice born;

Self makes a straight Engages in a struggle
Forward life For a sense of order
adjustments; in life;
Accepts life as it is Questions life
Charismatic Leadership

A certain quality of individual

performance by virtue of which a person
is set apart from ordinary person and
considered to have supernatural and
super human power and qualities.
Key Characteristics

 Vision and Articulation

 Personal Risk
 Sensitivity
 Unconventional Leaders
Pierre Trudeau
 Canadian Prime Minister
 He was youthful, free-spirited and
unconventional in his shirt sleeves and
sandals; he was an awesome speaker in both
English and French and displayed a healthy
disdain for conventional politics and media.
 Viewed as a champion of civil liberties,
Transactional Leaders
 Contingent Reward – exchange of rewards
for effort
 Management by Exception(active) – watches
and searches for deviations from the rule,
takes corrective action.
 Management by Exception (passive) –
intervenes only if standards are not met.
 Laissez-faire – abdicates responsibilities,
avoids making decisions.
Transformational Leaders
 Charisma – provides vision and sense of
mission
 Inspiration – communicates high expectations,
uses symbols to focus efforts, expresses
important purposes in simple ways.
 Intellectual Stimulation – promotes intelligence,
rationality and creative problem solving.
 Individualized consideration – gives personal
attention, treats each employee individually,
coaches and advises.
Great leaders don not always score high on
charisma and leverages their influence by using
the power and the authority but they influence
the followers through their idea, their
conviction, the example they set, and
their extraordinary ability to mobilise people
and make things happen.
Lee Kuan Yew

 he shaped and drove Singapore's

development, catapulting the city-state from a
Third World backwater, to the front ranks of
the First World
 his role as a strategist -labour-intensive
import substitution, to labour-intensive,
export-oriented manufacturing, sought the
citizens' inputs, thus helping to strengthen the
people's sense of identity with the vision set
out by the leaders.
 aversion to strong ideologies-Whether
Singapore Airlines gets nationalised or
privatised, but, how the airline performs was
his concern.
 his accent on meritocracy in government.
 unconventional and practical approach stood
out sharply with respect to policies in human
resources- primary and secondary education
would, to the extent possible, be
universalised.
Leadership Theories
Trait Theory - Leaders are born not made. A
leader trait is a personality characteristic that
differentiates a leader from followers.
 Ambition and Energy
 Drive to Lead
 Honesty and Integrity
 Self Confidence
 Intelligence
 Job Relevant knowledge
 High Self motivators.
Behaviour Theories
Ohio-State Studies : There are two
independent dimensions of Leader behaviour.
Initiating Structure – Organizing and defining
what group members should be doing.
Consideration – creating mutual respect and
trust with followers.
University of Michigan Studies
 Employee oriented: emphasize on
interpersonal relationship and individual
differences among members.

 Production oriented: Tend to emphasize on

technical or task aspects of the job.
Behaviour Theories
Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid (5
quadrants)
1.Country Club Management – thoughtful
attention to needs of people leading to a
comfortable, friendly organization.
2. Impoverished Management – leader fails to
provide necessary structure. Shows little
consideration for employee needs and wants
Behaviour Theories
Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid (5 quadrants)
3. Organization man management – adequate
organization performance is possible through
balancing the necessity to get the work done.
Employee morale is maintained at satisfactory
level.
4. Authority-obedience – primary importance is
placed on structuring employee tasks while
leader demonstrates little consideration for
employees.
Behaviour Theories
Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid (5
quadrants)
5. Team – Management – the leader provides a
lot of guidance on how work is to be done.
Also demonstrates high consideration for
people.
Contingency approaches to Leadership
Fielder’s Contingency Model- emphasizes the
situational aspects of specific leadership styles.
Analysis of the situation facing the leader would
determine the most appropriate style of
leadership.
Situational favourability consists of :
1. Leader –member relations
2. Degree of task structure
3. The leaders position power
Least preferred co-worker (LPC)

The leadership style the leader, thus,

fixed and measured by what he calls the
least preferred co-worker (LPC) scale,
an instrument for measuring an individual’s
leadership orientation
Recommendations of Fielders
Contingency Model
1. In either highly favourable or highly
unfavourable situations, a task-oriented ,
tough natured leader is most effective.
2. In moderately favourable/ unfourable
situations, people oriented, lenient leader is
most effective.
Jack Stahl, a former chief executive
at Coca-Cola and Revlon

The most common leadership deficiency,

according to Stahl, is an inability or
unwillingness to focus on the details needed to
implement any strategic approach. The best
leaders, he believes, are “situational” — they
are able to step into any circumstance and
recognize whether they need to engage at the
strategy level or dive into the nitty-gritty.
 India’s 3 Best non-owner Corporate Leaders

RS Sharma, Chairman & MD, ONGC

comprehensive insurance policy, crisis management skills
YC Deveshwar, Chairman, ITC
stretch ITC brand name famous for tobacco to other
food products.
rural initiatives such as e- Choupal
adjudged as “Businessperson of the year 2006” award
by the “UK Trade and Investment Organization”.

Sanjeev Aga, Chairman & MD, Idea

the pillar in wireless industry, logical, analytical, ethical and
straightforward.
 Corporate Leaders

Transformational leadership to me means

leadership in its highest form, such that it
transcends the trappings of hierarchies,
authority, power, as well as, formal and informal
systems of reward and recognition and in the
political sphere –
Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla
 Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational
Theory

The maturity level of subordinates should

determine the leadership style.
Maturity of followers refers to the task specific
combination of employee competence and
motivation to perform.
Situational Leadership Recommendations

1. Low Ability, Low 1. Telling

Willingness High Direction, Low Support

2. 2. Low Ability, High 1. Selling/ Coaching

Willingness High Direction, High Support

3. 3. High Ability, Low 1. Participating/ Supporting

Willingness
Low Direction, High Support

4. 4. High Ability, High

1. Delegating
Willingness
Low Direction, Low Support
Leader – Member Exchange Theory

A leader develops a unique one-to-one

relationship with each each of the persons
reporting to them, favouring some over the
others.
This creates an in-group and an out-group.
Members in the in-group show higher
commitment, job satisfaction and job
performance than out-group.This relationship
becomes stronger when tasks are complex.
This influences career outcomes such as
promotability, salary level and bonus.
Path-Goal Theory
Leader behaviour is acceptable when it
provides a ‘path’ to achieve followers
‘goals’. A leader should :
1. Reduce roadblocks that interfere with goal
accomplishment
2. Provide the guidance and support needed
by employees
3. Tie meaningful rewards to goal
accomplishment.
Leadership Styles
1. Directive – tells subordinates what is
expected of them and specifies how tasks
can be achieved most effectively.
2. Supportive- concerned with subordinates
needs.
3. Participative – consults and uses suggestions
of followers.
4. Achievement-oriented leader – gives
challenging tasks to subordinates and
expects them to show their best performance.
Leadership Styles
However, there are two contingency variables
that affect the behaviour – outcome
relationship.
 Environmental factors – culture in the
organization, formal authority system.
 Personal characteristics of the subordinates
– locus of control, experience etc.