Leadership Theories and Personal Style

Solution Preview

---

Hi,

Interesting topic! One approach to help you with a paper like this one is to provide informaiton of several leadership theories, which you can draw on for your final copy, pointing out some of the pros and cons listed in the literature. I also attached two resource, one an excellent APA resource for your final copy.

RESPONSE:

1. You are the supervisor of the clerical support assistant for the department. You have never had formal leadership responsibilities before, and you wish to maximize the possibility that you will be successful with this new responsibility. On your own (not at the direction of your supervisor), you investigate major leadership theories and models. Develop a Pro and Con list involving these theories/models.

See four theories below (assumptions, brief description of the theory and some of the reported pros/cons).

2. Reflect on each theory and comment on how the theory fits with your own personal style. For example - with a contingency style of leadership, perhaps this would not fit with someone's style if that person believes that all subordinates should be treated identically.

You will need to do this section based on your relfections of your perosnal style of leadership and then include a section at the end about the results of these reflections e.g. What leadership style best fits you're your personal style and why?

Now, let's look at the four theories. There are also other links for other theories for you to consider

1. Behavioral:

Advantages (Pros) are linked to the theoretical assumptions:
· Leaders can be made, rather than are born.
· Successful leadership is based in definable, learnable behavior.
· Behavioral theories of leadership do not seek inborn traits or capabilities. Rather, they look at what leaders actually do. If success can be defined in terms of describable actions, then it should be relatively easy for other people to act in the same way. This is easier to teach and learn then to adopt the more ephemeral 'traits' or 'capabilities'. http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/theories/behavioral_theory.htm

Disadvantages (Cons):

2. Fiedler's Contingency model

Fiedler's model assumes that group performance depends on:
· Leadership style, described in terms of task motivation and relationship motivation.

· Situational favorableness, determined by three factors:

1. Leader-member relations - Degree to which a leader is accepted and supported by the group members.
2. Task structure - Extent to which the task is structured and defined, with clear goals and procedures.
3. Position power - The ability of a leader to control subordinates through reward and punishment.

Advantage (Pros):

· Allows nabagment to match a leader to the specific situation e..g, if the situation calls for relaitonship-motivated, would the person's leadership style of your personal style fit well with this situation? And so on...

· For exmaple, high levels of these three factors give the most favorable situation, low levels, the least favorable. Relationship-motivated leaders are most effective in moderately favorable situations. Task-motivated leaders are most effective at either end of the scale. Fiedler suggests that it may be easier for leaders to change their situation to achieve effectiveness, rather than change their leadership style. http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/MENG/ME96/index.html?http://oldeee.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/MENG/ME96/index.html

Disadvantages: (Cons)

· ...