http://psychology.about.com/od/leadership/p/leadtheories.

htm
http://psychology.about.com/od/leadership/a/transformational.htm

Things we know for sure:

Leadership is a process leader-follower
Leaders can be made
All leaders are smart but if too smart compared to his followers, it hampers
communication
There must be trust between the people
Must be able to explain himself if asked why they are being told to do something.
Empathy
A single leader does not know best.

Other stuff:
Leadership was once a trait, now its a process.*
Is the concept of having a leader more important than actually having a leader?
Is a leader always needed or only in the times of need?
Specialty/Specialization of a leader leads to inefficiencies, ie, not the maximum
possible outcome. Goes along the line of Task focused will think its a task problem,
people focused will.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vc-Uvp3vwg

Trait Approach: This was one of the very first systematic approach to study
leadership. Its goal is to find a fixed set of characteristics common in all leaders.
The first half of the 20th century saw the rise of Great Man Theories. It was called
that because they focused on innate qualities and characteristics of great
politicians, religious leaders, and army leaders. It was believed that people were
born with these characteristics and only the great people possessed them.
This theory was later challenged by Dr. Ralph Melvin Stogdill in 1948 when he
stated that A person does not become a leader by virtue of the possession of some
combination of traits in his famous survey about the studies of the first half of the
century.
Later on, in a second review in 1974, Stogdill analyzed 163 studies that were
conducted between 1948 and 1970. While in the first review Stogdill put his
attention on situational factors and not in personal traits, in his second review he
was more balanced to assign importance also to the leaders traits.
Just like Stogdill, other theorists followed with their set of traits, a brief summary of
their findings can be seen in the following table:
Stogdill(1948)

Intelligence, Alertness, Insight, Responsibility, Iniative,

Persistence, Self Confidence, Sociability

Mann (1959)

Intelligence, Masculinity, Dominance, Adjustment,

Extroversion, Conservatism

Stogdill(1974)

Achievement, Persistence, Insight, Initiative, Selfconfidence, Responsibility, Cooperativeness, tolerance,

Influence, Sociability

Lord, DeVader,
and Alliger (1986)

Intelligence, Masculinity, Dominance

Kirkpatrick and

Drive, Motivation, Integrity, Confidence, Cognitive,

Locke(1991)

Ability, Task Knowledge

Zaccaro, Kemp And

Bader(2004)

Cognitive Ability, Extroversion, Conscientiousness,

Emotional Stability, Openness, Agreeableness,
Motivation, Social Intelligence, Self-Monitoring, Emotional
Intelligence, Problem Solving

Criticisms:
The biggest issue with the Trait Approach is that it fails to provide a definitive list of
leadership traits. Despite the large number of studies done, the list remains
equivocal and too broad. The table provided above is only a small part of the
studies conducted, and the actual list seems endless.
Stogdill once mentioned that no consistent set of traits differentiated leaders from
nonleaders across various situations. A leader in one situation might not be leader
in another. In other words, leadership depends greatly on the situation at hand, and
thus it is very difficult, maybe even impossible, to identify a universal set of
leadership traits in isolation from the context in which the leadership occurs.
Another problem is that this approach is not useful for training new leaders. Just by
definition, the traits are innate. These traits are essentially fixed psychological
structures and thereby limits the value of teaching and leadership training.

http://www.mostphotos.com/490230/design-mascot-muscles

Explain these images in sequence near the end of this section of the presentation.
Something like, how leadership has evolved over time. From innate abilities to
intellect to working in conjunction*. Hence the theories of leadership should evolve
accordingly as well.

http://www.mostphotos.com/490120/design-mascot-leaning-reading

http://www.mostphotos.com/490010/design-mascot-internet-cafe

Skills Approach: Contrary to the Trait Approach, this theory focuses on skills and
abilities that can be learned and developed rather than personal characteristics
which are innate and fixed. The underlying notion being that leaders can be made.
However, one thing remains in common with the Trait Approach; the leader is at the
center, as its main purpose.
The development of this approach can be split in to 2 parts. The first being the
theories set forth by Robert Katz about three basic administrative skills and the
second being the work done by Mumford and colleagues.
Katzs Three-Skill Approach:

Technical Skill: Knowledge about and proficiency in a specific type of work

or activity. This includes competencies in a specialized area, analytical ability,
and the ability to use appropriate tools and techniques.

Human Skill: Knowledge about and ability to work with people. These are
abilities that help a leader to work effectively with subordinates, peers and
superiors to accomplish the organizations goals. For Katz, it also meant being
aware of ones own perspective on issues and, at the same time, being aware
of the perspective of others.

Conceptual Skill: Ability to work with ideas and concepts that enables us to
understand and better decide the actions and measures that has to be taken
in a particular field of work.

Katz further theorized that the level of importance of each set of skills was directly
correlated with the level that the person has in the organization. The next figure
displays this relationship.

The higher someone was in the organization, the less technical skills were required
to fill the position, in the same manner more conceptual skills are required. On the
other hand, the lower the position in the organization more technical skills and less
conceptual skills were required. A very interesting observation from the diagram is
that human skills are always required no matter the level or the position in the
organization.

Skills Model:
IN the early 1990s, a project funded by the US Army and Department of Defense set
out to test and develop a comprehensive theory of leadership based on problemsolving skills in organizations. The studies were conducted over a number of years
of more than 1800 Army officers from six grade levels, from second lieutenant to
colonel.
Mumford and colleagues used findings from that research and proposed a new
model of skills a leader should have. This model has 3 components, and they are:
Individual Attributes, Competencies, Leadership Outcomes, Career Experiences and
Environmental Influences.
Individual Attributes:
The leftmost component of the model, has four individual attributes that has to be
taken into account when studying leadership. These components are:

General Cognitive Ability: In simple terms, it refers to a persons

intelligence. It has nothing to do with experience, only inborn talent.
Crystallized Cognitive Ability: Is the intellectual ability that is forged
through learning and experience. It includes a wide range of abilities like

learning new skills and comprehending complex information, being able to

communicate in spoken and written forms etc.

Motivation: This is seen as an essential part in developing the leadership

skills. Three aspects have to be taken into account. Motivation has to be
internal; a person must want to lead for leadership to occur. Leaders have to
express their leadership, they have to exert and be responsible for their
influence over their group. And lastly, the leader has to move towards finding
a social good.

Personality: A leaders public persona is the catalyst for enrolling

followers. A leader needs to have a clear and precise personality.

Competencies:

Problem solving Skills: It refers to a leaders creative ability to solve new,

unusual or ill-defined organizational problems. It comprises of the whole
range of abilities that are needed to solve a problem, that is: defining a
problem, formulating new understandings about the problem, finding creative
solutions, making those solutions a reality. A good leader knows his capacities
and applies them in creative ways to solve problems.
Social Judgment Skills: Along with problem solving skills, a leader needs
social judgment skills too. Social Judgment Skills refer to the ability of leaders
to understand people and social systems. The ability to work with people,
solving problems, fostering collaboration and marshaling support to
implement change in organizations.
Knowledge: The last competence identified in the model refers to the
accumulation of information and the mental structures used to organize that
information (Northouse,2000). These mental structures are referred to as
schemas. The more you know, the more schemas you have. Building
complex knowledge is basically building up complex structures based on
simpler ones. Thus, the more you know the more complex schemas you can
understand and build.

Leadership Outcomes:

Effective Problem Solving: Good problem solving involves creating

solutions that are logical, effective, and unique, and that go beyond given
information. (Zaccaro et al.,2000)
Performance: This reflects how well the leader has done her job.
Measurement is dont using external criterias. Good leaders will have good
annual performance reviews, get merit raises and will be recognized by
superiors and subordinates as competent leaders. In the end, performance is
the degree to which a leader has successfully performed his assigned duties.

Career Experiences
This component of the model connects the individual attributes with the
competencies. The model suggests that the experiences acquired in the course of
leaders careers influence their knowledge and skills to solve complex problems. For
example, certain on-the-job assignments could enhance a leaders motivation or
intellectual ability.
Environmental Influences:
The last of the components in the model represents everything that lies outside the
characteristics, competencies and experiences of the leader. You can refer to
environmental influence as factors the leader cannot control himself. For example,
aging factory, lacking needed technology etc.

Criticisms:
The Skills Model is weak in predictive value. It says that social judgement skills and
problem solving skills affect performance but does not state how. In other words, in
does not explain how skills lead to effective leadership performance.
Furthermore, despite the fact that it claims not to be similar to the Trait Approach,
the Individual Attribute component is very similar to it. This alone shifts the model
away from being strictly a skills approach to leadership.
Finally, the entire model was constructed using a large sample of military personnel
and observation of their performance in the armed service. Therefore this model
might not be appropriately applied to other contexts of leadership.

Situational Approach:
This approach focuses on leadership in situations, the deeper meaning being that
different situations demand different kinds of leadership. Thereby an effective
leader must adapt his style to the demands of different situations.
The theory states that leadership is composed of directive and supportive
dimension, and each has to be applied according to the situation and maturity level
of subordinates.
After assessing the situation, there are 4 broad levels of the leadership style.
Insert pg90 graph here

Directing: This style reflects high task/low relationship behavior (S1). The
leader provides clear instructions and specific direction. Telling style is best
matched with a low follower readiness level.

Coaching: This style reflects high task/high relationship behavior (S2). The
leader encourages two-way communication and helps build confidence and
motivation on the part of the employee, although the leader still has
responsibility and controls decision making. Selling style is best matched with
a moderate follower readiness level.
Supporting: This style reflects high relationship/low task behavior (S3). With
this style, the leader and followers share decision making and no longer need
or expect the relationship to be directive. Participating style is best matched
with a moderate follower readiness level.
Delegating. This style reflects low relationship/low task behavior (S4).
Delegating style is appropriate for leaders whose followers are ready to
accomplish a particular task and are both competent and motivated to take
full responsibility. This style is best matched with a high follower readiness
level.

Criticisms:
Biggest drawback of Situational Leadership is that the approach does not fully
address the issue of one-to-one versus group leadership scenarios. Blanchard
and his colleagues suggested that the leader should match his style to that of
the entire group, but how would that affect subordinates whose maturity
levels are entirely different from that of the groups?
Another drawback is that questionnaires are used to assess the situation, and
employees are forced to respond to various hypothetical situations in terms
of specific parameters, hence the assessment is entirely biased towards
situational leadership and does not show whether another leadership
approach wouldve been more appropriate.

Style Approach: The Trait Approach looked at the characteristics of the leader. The
Skills Model looked at the knowledge and ability of the leader. The Style Approach
looks at the behavior of the leader.
Leadership style is the combination of traits, skills, and behaviors leaders use as they interact with
followers. (Lussier, 2004)

A consistent pattern of behavior is what characterizes a leader .

In shifting the study of leadership to leader style or behaviors, the style approach expanded the
study of leadership to include the actions of the leader toward subordinates in various contexts.
(Northouse, 2004).

Researchers studying the style approach concluded that leadership is composed of

two general kinds of behaviors:

Task Behaviors: facilitates goal achievement. These leaders help group

members to achieve their objectives.

Relationship Behaviors: aids group members feel comfortable with

themselves, with each other, and with the situation in which they find
themselves.

The sole purpose of this approach is to explain how leaders combine these two
kinds of behaviors to influence subordinates in their efforts to reach a goal.
Many studies have been done to investigate this approach. Most notable ones are
done by Ohio State University studies, University of Michigan studies and Blake and
Moutons Managerial Grid.

Ohio State University studies

This study focused on how individuals acted when they were leading a group. This
was done by having the subordinates fill out questionnaires about how their leaders
engaged in certain types of behaviors.
The original questionnaire consisted of 150 questions and was called the Leader
Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ). Later on a shorter version of it was
made and was called the LBQD-XII, which eventually became the most widely used
instrument in leadership research.
The responses of the subordinates centered around 2 behaviors, initiating structure
and consideration. This revelation represented the core of the style approach and is
central to what leaders do: Leaders provide structure for subordinates and they
nurture them.

University of Michigan studies

Their studies focused on the impact of leaders behaviors on the performance of
small groups. They identified 2 types of leadership behavior:

Employee Orientation: is the behavior of leaders who approach subordinates

with a strong human relations emphasis. They take an interest in workers as
human beings, value their individuality and give special attention to their
personal needs.

Production Orientation: consists of leadership behaviors that stress the

technical and production aspects of a job. Workers are viewed as means of
getting work accomplished.

Blake and Moutons Managerial (Leadership) Grid:

This is one of the best known model for managerial behavior. This model was
designed to explain how leaders help organizations to reach their purposes through
two factors: concern for production and concern for people.

Insert figure 4.1 from pg74

The grid has 5 major leadership styles:

(1,1) Impoverished Management: This represents the style of a leader who is
unconcerned with both the task and interpersonal relationships. This leader goes
through the process of being a leader but acts uninvolved and withdrawn
(9 ,1) Authority Compliance: This style places almost all emphasis on the task at
hand and very little on the people, only to the extent that people are merely tools
for getting the job done. This type of leader is frequently seen as controlling
demanding, hard driving, and overpowering.

(1,9) Country Club Management: This is the exact opposite of (9,1). Almost all
emphasis goes to taking care of the people and very little to the task. These leaders
try to create a positive climate by being agreeable, eager to help, comforting and
uncontroversial.
(5,5) Middle-of-the-Road Management: This is the type of leaders who are
compromisers, who have an intermediate concern for the task and intermediate
concern for the people who do the task.
(9,9) Team Management: This places a strong emphasis on both tasks and
interpersonal relationships. It promotes a high degree participation and teamwork in
the organization and satisfies a basic need in employees to be involved and
committed to their work.

Criticisms:
The biggest problem with this approach is that it asks for a (9,9) leader all the time.
However this cannot be appropriate for all situations. Sometimes an all-task focused
is needed with little regard for interpersonal relationships.
Furthermore, the research has not adequately shown how leaders styles are
associated with performance outcomes. Along with the the approach has failed to
find a universal style of leadership that could be effective in roughly all situations.

Situational Approach: Leadership is comprised of both directive and supportive

dimensions, and each has to be applied appropriately in a given situation. Leaders
must match their approach according to the motivation and ability of his followers.
Treat subordinates differently depending on the task at hand and confidence level of
followers. Generally directing, coaching, supporting and delegating.
Insert chart from PG 90.
Cons: Uses questionnaires with predetermined answers to assess work situation.
Answer choices all correspond to the 4 factors mentioned above. Hence
respondents are forced to describe leadership in terms of those factors only. Insert
snapshot of page 104-105, highlight options ABCD to signify restrictions to those 4
choices.

Fiedlers Contingency Theory: Effective leadership is contingent/dependent on

the situation that he is leading.
Provides a framework for matching the leader to the situation. Insert table from
page 112.

Cons: Leads to situational-engineering, changing situations to fit the leader.

Limitations of study:
Due to physical limitations, our experiment is merely that of one in our minds and

has not been tested in the real world. Similar to the Plancks constant, not
everything in our experiment seem to affect the overall outlook, and if the Chaos
Theory is to be factored in as well, it is the minute of things that can cause a totally
different outcome from the one that is expected.
When it comes to quantum levels of leadership theory, most variables dont even
have a systematic method measurement and thus a lot remains ambiguous and
seem inconclusive. For instance, from our proposed experiment we cannot exactly
quantify greed, and other variables such as family and cultural background, that
directly affect a persons thought process of making decisions and doing what they
do.
Furthermore it is these unquantifiable variables that vary significantly from person
to person depending on the situation of the person. If the economy is doing well and
people are satisfied with their living, then greed or necessity to steal automatically
moves to the back of our minds. However, if the economy is in turmoil and people
arent assured of their earnings, the choice of pocketing those extra dollars
suddenly seems more lucrative. Its these tiny details that seem crystal clear in our
minds that we cannot measure even up to a reasonable extent, without prying into
the private lives of people and in the end remain uncertain about them.
Unfortunately to make matters worse, this being a thought experiment has its own
limitations just by definition. The experiment proposed might not remotely
represent what we are trying to establish nor can it guarantee productive results
even if we were to follow through with it.

The Trait Approach was one of the very first systematic approach to study leadership. Its
goal is to find a fixed set of characteristics common in all leaders. The first half of the 20th
century saw the rise of Great Man Theories. It was called that because they focused on innate
qualities and characteristics of great politicians, religious leaders, and army leaders. It was
believed that people were born with these characteristics and only the great people possessed
them. This theory was later challenged by Dr. Ralph Melvin Stogdill in 1948 when he stated that
A person does not become a leader by virtue of the possession of some combination of traits in
his famous survey about the studies of the first half of the century. Just like Stogdill, other
theorists followed with their set of traits, a brief summary of their findings can be seen in the
following table:
Stogdill(1948)

Intelligence, Alertness, Insight, Responsibility, Iniative, Persistence, Self Confidence, Sociability

Mann (1959)

Intelligence, Masculinity, Dominance, Adjustment, Extroversion, Conservatism

Stogdill(1974)

Achievement, Persistence, Insight, Initiative, Self-confidence, Responsibility, Cooperativeness,

tolerance, Influence, Sociability

Lord, DeVader,
and Alliger (1986)

Intelligence, Masculinity, Dominance

Kirkpatrick and
Locke(1991)

Drive, Motivation, Integrity, Confidence, Cognitive, Ability, Task Knowledge

Zaccaro, Kemp And

Bader(2004)

Cognitive Ability, Extroversion, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness, Agreeableness,

Motivation, Social

The biggest issue with the Trait Approach is that it fails to provide a definitive list of
leadership traits. Despite the large number of studies done, the list remains equivocal and too
broad. Stogdill once mentioned that no consistent set of traits differentiated leaders from nonleaders across various situations. Another problem is that this approach is not useful for training
new leaders. Just by definition, the traits are innate. These traits are essentially fixed
psychological structures and thereby limits the value of teaching and leadership training.
Contrary to the Trait Approach, the Skills Approach focuses on skills and abilities that
can be learned and developed rather than personal characteristics which are innate and fixed. The
underlying notion being that leaders can be made. However, one thing remains in common with
the Trait Approach; the leader is at the center, as its main purpose. The development of this
approach can be split in to 2 parts. First, Robert Katz proposed that there are three administrative
skills needed to be a leader: technical, human, and conceptual. The higher someone was in the
organization, the less technical skills were required to fill the position, in the same manner more
conceptual skills are required. On the other hand, the lower the position in the organization more
technical skills and less conceptual skills were required. A very interesting observation from the
diagram is that human skills are always required no matter the level or the position in the
organization. Second, Mumford and colleagues used findings from that research and proposed a

new model of skills a leader should have. This model has 3 components, and they are: Individual
Attributes, Competencies, Leadership Outcomes, Career Experiences and Environmental
Influences. However, as with the previous theory, there are some criticisms. The Skills Model is
weak in predictive value. It says that social judgement skills and problem solving skills affect
performance but does not state how. In other words, in does not explain how skills lead to
effective leadership performance. Furthermore, despite the fact that it claims not to be similar to
the Trait Approach, the Individual Attribute component is very similar to it. This alone shifts the
model away from being strictly a skills approach to leadership. Finally, the entire model was
constructed using a large sample of military personnel and observation of their performance in
the armed service. Therefore this model might not be appropriately applied to other contexts of
leadership.
The Style Approach looks at the behavior of the leader. Leadership style is the
combination of traits, skills, and behaviors leaders use as they interact with followers. (Lussier,
2004) A consistent pattern of behavior is what characterizes a leader. In shifting the study of
leadership to leader style or behaviors, the style approach expanded the study of leadership to
include the actions of the leader toward subordinates in various contexts. (Northouse, 2004).
Researchers studying the style approach concluded that leadership is composed of two general
kinds of behaviors: task behaviors (which facilitates goal achievement), and relationship
behaviors (which aids group members feel comfortable with themselves, with each other, and
with the situation in which they find themselves). The sole purpose of this approach is to explain
how leaders combine these two kinds of behaviors to influence subordinates in their efforts to
reach a goal. Many studies have been done to investigate this approach. Most notable ones are
done by Ohio State University studies, University of Michigan studies and Blake and Moutons
Managerial Grid. The biggest problem with this approach is that it asks for a (9,9) leader all the
time. However this cannot be appropriate for all situations. Sometimes an all-task focused is
needed with little regard for interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, the research has not
adequately shown how leaders styles are associated with performance outcomes. Along with the
the approach has failed to find a universal style of leadership that could be effective in roughly
all situations.
The Situational Approach focuses on leadership in situations, the deeper meaning being
that different situations demand different kinds of leadership. Thereby an effective leader must
adapt his style to the demands of different situations. The theory states that leadership is
composed of directive and supportive dimension, and each has to be applied according to the
situation and maturity level of subordinates. Leadership style progresses from: directing,
coaching, supporting, and delegating.
The biggest drawback of Situational Leadership is that the approach does not fully
address the issue of one-to-one versus group leadership scenarios. Blanchard and his colleagues
suggested that the leader should match his style to that of the entire group, but how would that
affect subordinates whose maturity levels are entirely different from that of the groups? Another
drawback is that questionnaires are used to assess the situation, and employees are forced to
respond to various hypothetical situations in terms of specific parameters, hence the assessment
is entirely biased towards situational leadership and does not show whether another leadership
approach wouldve been more appropriate.
Fred E. Fiedler's contingency theory centers on the belief that there is no best way for
managers to lead. Different situations create different leadership style requirements for
managers. The style that works in one environment may not work in another. Although Fieldler

provides a framework for matching the leader with the situation, he fails to provide information
about what to do when there is a mismatch between them. Furthermore he also fails to state why
leaders are successful in the situations they are and why they fail in others.