Introduction
The exertion of social influence or authority over a group in a given direction to achieve specified objectives constitutes leadership. Different leadership theories explain how leaders apply their skills in management. Numerous research papers have defined, analyzed, and explored several theories of leadership and their applications in daily life. Growth in the rapidly demanding socio-economic and political environment has unconditionally informed research on leadership. As Yammarino (2009) posits, an organization’s success or failure depends on leadership. More than ever before, contemporary society calls for a completely new ball game in approach to leadership. As a society, we need leaders with informed abilities to transform our organizations and shape the world to where it should be. Great leaders inform the vision and lead their followers into action to achieve the set goals. In any endeavor, Austin (2002) observes that leaders should have the ability to ignite passion and inspire those they lead to produce their best. The 21st generational leadership is experiencing a rapid wave of change never witnessed before.
Rapid technological advances have further expanded the quantity and quality of work that employees are capable of undertaking thereby necessitating increased tutelage and research in leadership. It is painful that in the 21st century, we are well provided with a highly informed workforce, yet we are still faced with diminishing returns and an ever-growing demand for productivity. To be successful in navigating these socio-economic challenges leaders must nurture the necessary skills to motivate their followers, effectively communicate the organization’s vision, and fine-tune the emergent critical thinking skills, as well as taking charge in partnership leverage and building. Future leaders, according to Zaccaro and Klimoski (2001), must also be visionary and possess the capacity to identify the market trends with the ability for innovation. Being technically adept in a single area of expertise can no longer be sufficient in leadership. In response to these concerns, leadership research must dictate the leadership paradigms that leaders and executives of organizations must possess. Various leadership qualities and key competencies have to be developed upon extensive research on the attributes of successful approaches of leadership in both public and the private sectors. Successful leadership must be informed by leadership theories that represent the cumulative thinking of an organization’s psychologists and human resources capacities.
Research on Leadership
Leadership is arguably one of the most multifaceted and demanding human behaviors of the time (Austin 2002). It is sensible to report that there is certainly no globally agreed standardization approach to gauge leadership. Research on leadership has shown that for individuals to qualify as effective leaders, such individuals must find it necessary to study and adopt more than one leadership theory and style. Within the leadership research, competencies project individuals in leadership capacities against theories and styles of leadership. The popular notion that specific behaviors in individuals make them more effective leaders by way of being participative or authoritative are elements of learning and imitation. Other works have analyzed correlation behaviors, which focus on building respect, confidence, and good employee rapport.
Research on leadership generally offers a newly developing classification of behavior change-oriented tasks. However, some findings suggest that there are grim weaknesses in most of the behavioral studies that inform leadership research conducted in recent years (Austin 2002). While scrutinizing the universality of leadership theories that would explain the effectiveness of leadership style in every situation, observers opine that there exists a tendency among the people tasked with leadership research assignments to seek simple answers against complex questions (Zaccaro & Klimoski 2001). However, research on leadership has turned out to be somewhat inconclusive, although the overall result patterns suggest that effective leadership must use a pattern of behavioral consistency that is appropriate to a situation and mirrors a greater obligation for task objectives as well as an augmented concern for relationships (Austin 2002). Research on leadership now more typically focuses on the recognition of complexities, rather than inferences, which cannot offer amicable results. These understandings reflect more ambient models, including the theories of leadership and styles of leadership.
Review of Leadership Research
His work systematically reviews many leadership fundamentals and theories that leadership research specialists have developed over the years. While numerous literature documents the relationship between staffs’ organizational commitment and managerial leadership, little is understood about the nature of this relationship even as various industries, organizations, and education institutions study this relationship from different perspectives (Zaccaro & Klimoski 2001). Adopting an appropriate leadership style is an essential element for most business managers. In choosing a leadership style that will be successful in managing an organization, various aspects influence the entire process. The first aspect that determines leadership style is personality. Personal characteristics influence the adoption and success of management style in an organization. For instance, a charming person will easily adopt a charismatic leadership style, as he/she will bring subordinates close to him/her. However, those prone to following protocols will adopt the supervisory leadership style in which employees are trained to abide by the company’s conservative policies. Belief system also affects the style of leadership in affirm. For instance, a person who believes in supervising employees to ensure that they meet the set objectives will often opt for an autocratic or supervisory leadership style. Other people believe in personal development, growth, and behavior influence hence will adopt the transformational leadership style.
The authors note that such a leader is capable of helping followers realize immense personal and organizational level achievements. Findings from a descriptive correlational study by Zaccaro and Klimoski, (2001) revealed that employees individually rated themselves high on transformational leadership as compared to employees indicating a high self-perception among organizational leaders of being highly transformational. These findings support the concept that while some leaders perceive themselves as having certain leadership characteristics, many of their followers do not share this perception. Yammarino (2009) notes that in instances where leadership styles are recognized through self-assessment instead of observations, little is presumable from the self-examination and its relationship to the organizational commitment of others. The study findings of Austin (2002) suggest that the environment affects the abilities of leaders to exercise transformational leadership traits successfully. In addition, managers may be strong transformational theory proponents but may be unable to demonstrate the characteristics of this leadership style in practice.
Leadership Theories
Trait Theory
Leadership trait theory delves much on a leader’s beliefs, values, and personality. Leadership research on trait theory focuses on the need for achievement, orientation to power, personality, both mental and physical capabilities, as well as emotional aspects. Under these considerations, people with “right” traits would make the best leaders. However, identifying the ‘right’ traits for good leaders remains a great puzzle. Research on these puzzles occasioned the birth of further theories of leadership. Perhaps the behavioral theory is just another idea that informed the new thinking about leadership (Watson 1996).
Behavioral Theory
While trait theory holds that individuals are born with certain traits that make them exemplary leaders, the behavioral theory contends that individuals can learn to be good leaders given that leadership is not caste in inborn abilities. Leadership styles based on behavioral theory stimulated research on power and leadership against the influences to undertake tasks and attain results. This consideration offers several openings through which we view leadership. Moving from this viewpoint, it is worthy to note that researchers have come up with several other suitable models that shape leadership (Watson 1996).
Leadership Styles
Leaders have their ways of ruling; they can successfully realize their goals when in one place but fails to do so in another environment. This can occur even if one applies any leadership style. Leadership does not necessarily imply exercising authority on followers; it has to take into concern the behaviors of the followers, the mood of the leader, and the situation at hand. Environmental factors can affect the outcomes of leadership; for instance, societal culture and practices can be a source of an impediment to the success of organizational leadership (Yammarino 2009). According to the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Research Program (GLOBE), cultural differences between a leader and the followers can hinder or aid the effectiveness and success of leadership
Transformational Leadership
Leadership expert and renowned historian, James MacGregor Burns, formally coined the idea of transformational leadership. A transformational leadership style involves inspiring subordinates to think and perform like their leaders. It involves the total engagement of every team member to improve productivity. Transformational managers focus on ideas that add value to their work. Transactional leadership involves compensating employees for their loyalty, compliance, and effort. In this style, a manager has a right to penalize an employee for not meeting the required standard This leadership style according to Watson (1996) normally focuses on the “bigger picture” and concerns for individuals and their emergent needs.
Transactional Leadership
According to Watson (1996), transactional (TRL) leadership complements other leadership styles; it enhances the leadership outcomes of transformational leadership. Contingent reward (CR) is a key TRL leadership outcome that greatly focuses on rewards to employees for their work. To motivate employees, strategies such as financial incentives, public recognition, and verbal praise are aligned to CR. Novice employees are more comfortable with the TRL leadership while expert-novice employees frequently utilize TFL leadership and are more versatile with the different leadership styles to use in specific circumstances (Watson 1996). Despite the numerous references to first-line nursing leadership, the relationship between leadership outcomes and the leadership styles on leadership satisfaction, and leadership effectiveness has not been explored extensively.
Laissez-faire Leadership
Laissez-faire is a non-transactional leadership style that lacks a purposeful interaction between leaders and followers. The leaders avoid making decisions, do not utilize their authority, and abdicate responsibility. A study by Zaccaro and Klimoski (2001) evaluating the perceptions of leadership styles by leaders and their employees demonstrated that supervisors’ behaviors exhibit influences on supervisee satisfaction with leadership. Mainly, the hands-off laissez-faire approach has an inverse relation with the overall satisfaction with leadership styles. In addition, various authors have documented that Laissez-faire leadership indicates a lack of leadership (Watson 1996). The authors argue that literally, nothing happens when this style of leadership is utilized in an organization. This position by numerous authors and the lack of up-to-date literature has implications for in-depth research focusing on the laissez-faire leadership impacts on employees.
Contingency Theory and Situational Leadership Styles
Contingency theory holds that what works for an individual in a given situation may not necessarily work in another. It attempts to explore why an individual who is prosperous in a given situation may fail when subjected to another (The Five Keys to Successful Leadership Development n.d.). The situation is a key factor to successful leadership; therefore, leaders must change their behaviors and styles of leadership to fit the environment. Therefore, if one matches the organizational settings with the leadership styles, the proper function becomes an automatic assurance. The key constraint to different leadership styles is the personality which is a fixed parameter in all individuals.
Conclusion
For a leadership style to be effective, it must deliver on the objectives of an organization. This implies that the style must have a direct impact on the organization’s achievements such that it offers maximum self-satisfaction and leaves memorable images to other stakeholders. Boldness is a key element in taking an organization upwards since it brings confidence in management. According to Watson (1996), a bold leader will be visionary and will speak out his/her mind at any time. Moreover, a leadership style is deemed effective if it recognizes the roles of employees in the company. Many people cling to the notion that only one way exists to lead people in organizations. Practice and research, on the contrary, show that this does not hold. Effective leadership knows no one particular way of managing people. Organizational leaders seeking to improve their capacity to lead employees to greater levels of success need to moderate their styles of leadership to match the developmental paradigms of their organizations. A proven approach will be that which leads people and their organizations to their greatest performance.
References
Austin, D. M 2002, Human services management organizational leadership in social work practice, Columbia University Press, New York.
The Five Keys to Successful Leadership Development n.d., Web.
Watson, T. J 1996, ‘Motivation: That’s Maslow, isn’t it?’, Management Learning, vol. 27. no.4, pp. 447-463.
Yammarino, F. J 2009, Multi-level issues in organizational behavior and leadership, JAI, Bingley.
Zaccaro, S. J & Klimoski, R. J 2001, The nature of organizational leadership understanding the performance imperatives confronting today’s leaders, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.