Question

TYPED essay of 800 word discussing the Approaches to Leadership • Trait Approaches of Leadership • Behavioral Approaches of Leadership • Situational Approaches of Leadership • Reciprocal Approaches of Leadership

Answer 1

Leadership is considered as a research as well as a practical skill explaining about the ability of an individual or any organization to guide other individual or team or the organization. studies relating to leadership involve various approaches and theories which helps to explain different faces of leadership. Some of these approaches include Trait, Behavioral, Situational and Reciprocal approaches of leadership.

a) Trait Approaches of Leadership

According to trait approach,good leaders follow both their mind and heart. It states " leaders are born and not made".Trait theory of leadership differentiates leaders from non leaders by focusing on personal qualities and characteristics. This theory sought personality, physical, social and intellectual traits. Mainly there are 2 types of trait theories.

• Stogdill's trait theory -  According to various studies made by Ralph Stogdill , leaders possess traits like intelligence, physical features such as height, weight, appearance, health etc, inner motivation drive, vision and foresight, maturity, acceptance and responsibility,open mind and adaptability, self confidence, fairness of objective and human relation attitude.
• Ghiselli's Personal traits - According to the research made by Edwin Ghiselli , the personality and motivational traits of an individual have a great impact in making the leadership effective. It include six traits that plays a crucial role in making the leadership effective which includes supervisory ability, need for occupational achievement, intelligence, decisiveness, initiatives, self assurance.

b) Behavioral Approaches of Leadership

According to behavioral approach of leadership, specific, learned behaviors can differentiate leaders from non leaders or successful leaders from unsuccessful leaders. A leader is defined according to their behavior. Mainly there are 4 types of behavior theories;

• Managerial grid

According to R.R Blake, "leadership style of an individual is greatly influenced by the task oriented and relation oriented behavior of that individual. It provides concern for people and concern for production.

• Likert's four system of leadership

This includes four systems namely Exploitative Authoritative( there is little communication and no teamwork), Benevolent Authoritative(little communication involving upward communication), Consultative, Participative (both upward and downward communication).

• Ohio state university studies

It identifies several forms of leader behavior but tended to focus on the 2 most common ones that is initiating structure, consideration structure.

• Michigan studies

It is a behavioral leadership theory that conducted in the institute for social research at the university of Michigan, an empirical studies to identify styles of leader behavior that results in higher performance and satisfaction of a group. It includes employee centered behavior and production centered behavior.

C) Situational Approaches of leadership

According to situational theory, the circumstances responsible for the emergence of a leader and the situations in which he performs his job have a great influence in making leadership effective. Here, a good leader always tries to understand the requirement of the situation and takes step accordingly. The 3 components of this theory are:

• Leadership style
• Situational variables
• Relation between leadership style and situational variable

This theory includes other models like Vroom -Yetton Contigency model, Path goal theory, Hershey- Blanchard situational leadership theory.

d) Reciprocal Approaches of leadership

This theory emphasizes on mutual goals and motivates on leaders and followers. Focused on relational nature of leader-follower interaction. Reciprocal leadership promotes a more hierarchy state where leaders are not the overlook of work, but partners in the creation. This theory is based on the work of self-leadership. The skills needed involves vision creation, building relationship and making influence on others. The five elements involved with this theory include :

• Ownership
• Time
• Resources
• Personnel
• Credit