WEEK 2:

Module 2: Theories and Models of Leadership

Module 2 examines some of the major theories and models which seek to
explain what effective leadership looks like and can be practiced.

All learning content for this module can be found on this page. Please use
the quick links in the list below or in the left hand menu, which can be
opened via the menu button, to jump to the relevant section.

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Theories and models of leadership

 How to approach theories about leadership

2.3 Trait theories

 Trait theories: origins and history

 Trait theories: modern Approaches

2.4 Situational leadership

 - Development and application

2.5 New leadership

 Transformational leadership
 Criticisms of transformational leadership
 Pseudotransformational leadership
 Servant leadership
 Authentic leadership

2.6 Evaluating new leadership

 Leaders vs Managers?
2.7 Applying theories about leadership

2.8 Conclusion

2.2 Theories and models of leadership

“Never before has so much attention been paid to leadership, and

the fundamental question we must ask is, what do we know and

what should we know about leaders and leadership?”Avolio et al.,

2009, p. 423.

Theories provide us with a set of ideas, of hypotheses, that provide

generalised statements about the phenomenon or ‘essential property’ of a

phenomenon. Leadership theories and definitions therefore provide us with

a language for talking about leadership, so we can make sure that we’re all

talking about the same thing. This, in turn, helps us to share, test and

develop our understanding of leadership and inform leadership ‘models’, or

practical applications of a theory for a particular case. A successful model

of leadership can, therefore, help us to develop our own leadership skills,

and improve our own practice.

Most of these theories and models of leadership focus on identifying and

improving leadership within the workplace. Much of the ongoing research
into organisational leadership therefore seeks to test and refine these
theories and address gaps in existing knowledge with the aim of being able
to better predict, recruit and promote effective leaders. Suze Wilson
estimates that somewhere between 80 and 90% of contemporary
leadership research comes from within this perspective or relies upon it
(Wilson 2016, 21).
As a consequence, most of the research into leadership has focused on:

 behavioural approaches (or ‘leadership as process’/what do leaders

do).
 trait approaches (or ‘leadership as person’/ who leaders are)

But why are there so many different theories and models of leadership?

Robin Martin, Professor of Organisational Psychology with the Alliance
Manchester Business School, According to Professor Martin, one of the
reasons there are so many theories of leadership is that the nature of
leadership changes over time. This echoes Suze Wilson’s explanation for
why leadership is a complex and contested notion: “a whole bunch of
people who've been researching leadership for a long time have argued for
a whole different number of definitions”. Therefore, the way we define
leadership “is going to be shaped by our own values, our own perspective,
the times that we live in and the kinds of cultural norms that influence us”
(see Module 1.1).

- How to approach theories about leadership

We hope that, by the end of this unit you will have evolved your own
definition of leadership and will be able to draw on leadership theories, and
real-world case studies to inform and support your perspective.

As you learn more about each leadership theory, try to maintain your
critical perspective and approach these theories analytically. You may also
find it helpful to test out these theories for yourself. This might be by
applying them to examples of leadership with which you are familiar, or to
the various examples of leadership in the case studies you’ll encounter in
later modules. To get you started Robin Martin and Suze Wilson give you a
few pointers on some of the things to think about.

Suze Wilson and Robin Martin give different kinds of advice. Professor
Martin focuses on the validity and utility of the models - how accurate they
are and whether they work in the real world. Suze Wilson suggests you
treat them like a buffet and pick the morsels that most appeal to your taste
or circumstances. Also, you might have noticed that in a previous film
Robin Martin used the terms ‘management’ and ‘leadership’ somewhat
interchangeably. As you learn more about some of the main leadership
theories, pay attention to how much, or how little, they differentiate between
‘leadership’ and ‘management’.

2.3 Trait theories

- Trait theories: origins and history

Early attempts to analyse leadership systematically focused on trying to

identify the definitive sets of heritable traits, or characteristics, that set
leaders apart. Often referred to as the 'Great Man' theory, looking at mainly
white male leaders, early trait theories were rooted in the idea that
leaders are born, not made. Many trait studies were produced detailing
long lists of characteristics to identify traits associated with great leaders.

The earliest attempt to identify a coherent set of leadership traits was

conducted by Ralph Stogdill who analysed 124 trait studies conducted
between 1904 and 1947 for his PhD in 1948. He followed this up with
analysis of trait studies published between 1949 and 1970, which was
published in his Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and
Research (1974).

However, far from providing an integrated understanding of leadership trait

studies, Stogdill's research led to confusion about what constituted
leadership. Not only did he find no consistent traits to be common among
the leaders studied and that no trait on its own could be correlated with
high leadership effectiveness, he also identified that the importance of traits
varied depending on the situation.

Stogdill (1948) concluded:“A person does not become a leader by

virtue of the possession of some combination of traits.”
- Trait theories: modern approaches and applications

In spite of the limitations identified by Stogdill, research into leadership

traits has continued, but with more sophisticated methods and different
emphases. Some studies have focused on situations, others more on
behaviours. Some have emphasised traits which distinguish leaders from
non-leaders.

Trait Categories

Intelligence: Intelligence includes verbal, perceptual and reasoning

abilities. However, Northouse notes that leaders with high intellectual
abilities can have difficulty in communicating their ideas to their followers.
Example: Kathrin Jansen – vice-president and head of vaccine
development at Pfizer

Self confidence: The ability to be certain about one’s own competencies

and skills. Self-confident leaders have a sense of self-esteem and self-
assurance. They believe that they can make a difference. Example: Elon
Musk – CEO of Tesla and SpaceX

Determination: The desire to get the job done, using initiative, persistence,

dominance, drive. Such leaders are willing to assert themselves, be
proactive and will persevere in difficult situations. Example: Ursula von der
Leyen – president of the European commission

Integrity: Integrity is the quality of honesty and trustworthiness. Such

leaders inspire confidence because they can be trusted to do what they say
they will do. Example: Nelson Mandela – first president of South Africa

Sociability: The tendency to seek out pleasant social relationships. Social

leaders are friendly, outgoing and diplomatic. They are sensitive to others’
needs and well-being. Example: Jacinda Arden – prime minister of New
Zealand

Trait theory and its application is probably most closely related to selection,
training and recruitment. The assumption is that, by identifying the
attributes, the skills and the knowledge of successful leaders, organisations
can then design leader recruitment processes, training and development.
For example, some recruitment assessments and interview questions are
designed to identify characteristics the organisation expects to find in their
future leaders.

Arguably, leadership theories that focus on identifying the traits of

successful leaders are intuitively appealing and speak to a need to view
leaders as naturally gifted. How often have you heard someone described
as ‘a born leader’?

However, as we've seen, trait theories have failed to produce a definitive

list of leadership traits, and also fail to take situations into account.
Moreover, research into leadership traits tends not to be very good at
providing data that proves how such traits have positively affected
outcomes (Northouse 2022, 31). Also, while they might provide for some a
handy set of benchmarks for what to look for when recruiting ‘future
leaders’ the identification of such traits can be highly subjective and, as a
consequence, open to bias (Ibid). Finally, in common with many other
theories about leadership they also focus exclusively on the role of the
leader, and don’t analyse the interaction between leaders and followers in
depth.

2.4 Situational Leadership

The premise of situational theories is that different situations demand

different styles of leadership. Situational approaches to understanding
effective leadership don't rely on the traits leaders possess, but focus
instead on the behaviours of effective leaders, what leaders do.

Implicit in such approaches to thinking about leadership is the assumption

that, if a leader can understand the context, the situation, they can change
their behaviours towards followers accordingly. Such approaches imply
that leadership can be learned.
- Development and application

Developed in the 1960's by Hersey & Blanchard, situational theory

suggests that it’s the interaction of 3 elements – relationship, task, and
situation – which determines success (Hersey & Blanchard 1963;
Northouse 2022, Chapter 5).

 What works is different in different situations.

 Leadership style depends on the 'maturity' of the followers – are they
new to the job, or are they experienced?

This was a big leap forward in thinking about leadership: being a leader
means behaving differently depending on who you’re working with.

2.5 New Leadership

In the 1970s, James M. Burns and his collaborators were interested in

answering the question of follower motivation. Their ‘transformational’
models of leadership were the first and most well-known of the ‘New
Leadership’ theories, which argue that effective leaders need to be
‘visionary’, ‘charismatic’, ‘transformational’ and, more recently, ‘authentic’.

Transformational Leadership

As Suze Wilson explains the first of the New Leadership theories, and the
concept of ‘transformational leadership’, emerged from the work of historian
and political scientist James McGregor Burns. In his classic 1978 book
‘Leadership’, which focused on political and community leadership, Burns
distinguished between two types of leadership: transactional or
transformational.

Transactional leadership is closely associated with management and

focuses on the exchanges that take place between leaders and followers.
According to this model, followers are motivated by rewards such as
payment, promotion or positive feedback. Leaders provide these rewards in
exchange for a job well done. (Northouse 2022: 186, Burns 1978).
Transformational Leadership, in contrast, is the kind of leadership that
involves emotional and motivational connections between leaders and
followers. Transformational leaders offer a vision of, and a route to, a
preferred future that inspires people to act, to follow (Ibid). In other
words:"The transformational leader emphasises what you can do for
your country; the transactional leader, on what your country can do
for you."

Burns' argument (1978) was that ‘leadership’ was quite different from
‘power’. Leadership, he argued, is inseparable from followers’ needs.
Transformational leaders are those who meet those needs through:

 developing, inspiring and challenging the intellect of their followers

 using compelling vision and personal examples
 having an ambitious, clear vision
 using language and symbolism that inspires

Around the same time, in 1976, R. J. House published his theory of

‘charismatic leadership’ which espoused the importance of personality
characteristics such as being dominant, having a strong desire to influence
others, being self-confident and having a strong sense of one's own moral
values (Northouse 2019, 166).

According to these theories, transformational or charismatic leadership

results in followers who:

 have an emotional attachment to the leader

 will push to achieve the vision and goals they share with the leader
 will go beyond their own self-interest to do so

So transformational leadership, along with the many ‘new leadership’

theories that followed, is considered by many leadership researchers and
organisational psychologists as a powerful form of leadership, because it is
a process that can change and transform people and organisations.
- Criticisms of transformational leadership

Transformational leadership has shaped the last few decades of leadership

research, and has influenced how many people today conceptualise what
leadership is. However, this approach to thinking about leadership has
several weaknesses:

 As a concept it can be quite vague and hard to define (it describes a

wide range of activities and characteristics)
 It focuses on the individual as leader (doesn't explain the influence of
followers)
 It's hard to measure (short/medium/long term success)
 Charisma is part of transformational leadership, suggesting that
leadership can't be learnt (treats leadership as a personality trait)

(Northouse, 2022: 205-208)

We might also ask whether being a transformative leader is enough... As

Mark suggests, a key criticism of transformational leadership is that, while
potentially effective in the short term, over a longer time period,
transformational leadership can damage or destroy an organisation.
Emotional attachments can lead to people continuing to follow a leader
blindly even as that leader makes mistakes.

- Pseudotransformational leadership

Think back to Northouse's definition of leadership:

"Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group

of individuals to achieve a common goal."

We noted that Northouse's definition does not assume that leadership is

moral.
Burns' original theory of transformational leadership (1978) does include a
moral dimension. He distinguishes between moral and immoral leadership.
To Burns, 'authentic transformational leadership' is morally uplifting.
Leaders and followers might emerge from such a process of transformation
with a stronger and higher set of moral values (Northouse 2022: 204-5).

The term used by Burns for leaders who were transformational in a

negative way, i.e. not motivated by a higher moral purpose, was 'pseudo
transformational'. Such leaders act primarily in their own self-interest,
are motivated by power, may be exploitative, and have warped moral
values.

“Pseudo transformational leadership is considered personalised

leadership, which focuses on the leader's own interests rather than

the interests of others . . .” Bass & Steidlmeier,1999

“. . . Authentic transformational leadership is socialised leadership,

which is concerned with the collective good.” Northouse, 2016: 187

Hitler is certainly one of the most well-known and easily identifiable pseudo

transformational leaders.

  Servant Leadership

At the opposite end of that scale to leader-centric approaches (such as

situational and transformational leadership) are the follower-centric
approaches. The most well-known of which are servant and authentic
leadership theories. These theories focus on the needs and the desires of
the people that are led or managed. The servant approach to leadership
suggests that effective leadership demands that leaders ‘serve’ others by:

 being attentive to the concerns of their followers

 putting followers first
  nurturing followers and helping them develop
 being ethical and serving the greater good

Consequently, just as Burns characterised authentic transformational

leadership as morally uplifting, the concept of servant leadership also
includes an ethical dimension. (https://youtu.be/vZ0gave2WJc)

 Authentic Leadership

While servant leadership theories have been circulating since the 1970s,
authentic leadership theories, which focus on how genuine or real leaders
are, are a more recent development. They emerged in the first decade of
the 21st century in response, Northouse suggests, to social upheavals
such as 9/11 and the rise of ‘fake news’ (Northouse 2022, 221).

Attribute Example

Self- i.e. being honest about one's own strengths, weaknesses and preferences and impacts on
awareness,

An i.e. applying one’s own moral values over and above those of the group, organisation or so
internalised
moral
perspective,

Balanced i.e. the objective evaluation of information before making a decision, including encouraging
processing to question or challenge one's value

Relational i.e. being true to one's values, thoughts and feelings and sharing these openly with others
transparency

Within authentic leadership models, effective leaders are purposeful, value

centred, relational, self-disciplined and compassionate (e.g. George, 2003).
They also argue that the associated insights and attributes can be
developed over a leader’s lifetime. Such attributes include:

2.6 Evaluating New Leadership

“‘New leadership’ theories, which emphasize a leader’s ‘visionary’,

‘transformational’ and ‘charismatic’ qualities and behaviours, have

achieved widespread acceptance amongst mainstream leadership

scholars as being fundamentally sound, desirable and valid. The

sheer ‘monotony’ of this discourse, of this way of thinking about

leadership, however, makes it particularly worthy of critical

scrutiny.”Wilson, 2016: 22.

Suze Wilson suggests that, rather than putting the leader on a pedestal, we
might instead focus on what it is that different parties contribute to meeting
group objectives and on the relationships between them.

 Derek Sivers ’s Dancing Guy provides a different perspective on

leadership and followership. He suggested that leaders on their own are
ineffective but as soon as someone, courageously, decides to follow, and
shows others how to follow, then a movement begins. This implies that:

 a leader without followers is just someone on their own, 'a lone nut'
 it takes people to want to follow, to work with, to become part of a
collective, for someone to be a leader in the first place
 it's virtually impossible to divorce the practice of leadership from
followership

Sivers’ point is borne out by research on the Royal Marines that has found
evidence that people who identify as followers are actually more likely to be
perceived as a leader by their peers (see Peters and Haslam, 2018).
https://youtu.be/fW8amMCVAJQ

 Leaders vs Managers?

Finally, you may have noticed that the expert contributors in this module
use the terms leadership and management somewhat interchangeably.
New Leadership theories tend to differentiate between ‘leaders’ and
‘managers’, but also often use the terms interchangeably.

As Mark pointed out earlier, good leaders are both manager and leader,
and we can find people who act in a management role but who can be
inspiring. He also made the point that it is impossible to be a leader without
also providing followers with the means to do their jobs.

See, for example, the reasons given in the film below by Professor Andy
Westwood for choosing former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair as the political
leader he finds most interesting.

2.7 Applying theories about leadership

Leadership theories and models present us with idealized ideas about

leadership and its practice. These are models which can, arguably, be
tested and also be used to inform the practice of leadership. Indeed, as
we’ve seen, leaders and managers can fruitfully draw on these theories to
inform their approach to leadership and to explain their preferred ways of
leading to others.

In answering this question, Mark argues that, just as there is no one best
way of leading, it's not possible to say whether one theory is better than
another, and there's little evidence to prove, or disprove, many leadership
theories.

Mats Alvesson, Professor of Organisational Studies at Lund University,

goes so far as to argue that the level of scholarship in leadership studies is
often substandard, both methodologically and theoretically, stating:
“...it is hard to see the intellectual and scientific reasons for the

current ‘leadership craze’, not only in society but also in academia.

The expansion is mainly a matter of ideological appeal and its

capacity to boost the self-esteem of managers and legitimize their

work through turning managerial work into ‘leadership’”Alvesson,

2019: 27

Mark also makes the point that different approaches to leadership are
relevant to different individuals and in different situations.

Mark goes on to suggest that:

 each person has their own mental model of what a leader is and
should be ('constructed leadership')

such mental models can be culturally contingent (they might vary according
to nationality or background)