Leadership Theory Taxonomy Paper Outline

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I have used the standard 8 theories as the base and consolidated it into the newer 3 categories as suggested by Yukl, Gordon, and Taylor in 2002. I did not use Hoffman within the paper as a specific reference or the dissertation, but you should look at them to focus your thoughts and use them to support those.

Historical research of leadership has focused on sets of traits or qualities that a leader possesses. These traits help to encourage the participation, development and commitment of others in an organization (Badshah, 2012). The theories and research is often unclear due to the use of different terms and perspectives of the researcher. Like the theories, the study of leadership are cyclical in nature, sometimes garnering a lot of attention, others times with lower interest.

As stated before, terminology is eclectic and often terms are varied for the same behavior or trait. For example, a charismatic leader can also be a transformational leader. The various researchers also change the basic theory names to suit their own perspective of the theories and their own importance in the research field. Meta categories help people to adjust the placement of the theories based on what the leader is doing.

The basis for the Yukl, Gordon, Taylor (2002) research was to help narrow down the categories based on relationship behaviors, task behaviors, and change oriented behaviors.. The relationship behaviors and task behaviors in previous studies had shown some correlations with job satisfaction and performance, but not all were consistent or strong. Their development of the meta category of change leadership helped to clarify distinctions among those task oriented and relationship oriented behaviors along with the change oriented behaviors that emerged.

The basic theories include those that are in simple terminology, situational, behaviorial, participative, management, relationship, trait and great man, and contingency theories. Within these ...