Leadership is a significant practice that helps to ensure that people work towards the achievement of a common goal. In leadership, practical skills and qualities of the leaders play a vital role in providing guidance. Leaders must have key leadership skills such as communication, innovation, and honesty, which are vital in impacting other people in any given environment if they wish to capitalize on the effectiveness of the leadership process (Dansereau, Seitz, Chiu, Shaughnessy, & Yammarino, 2013). Over the years, leadership has been an important factor that helped to capitalize on the achievement of goals in teams, organizations, and from a global perspective. An increase in the complexities and diversities have played a significant role in changing from the traditional leadership strategies into modern strategies (Vecchiotti, 2018). For one to understand the changes experienced in the leadership strategies, it is essential to focus on advanced leadership research that purposes to identify differences between traditional and modern leadership. Leadership research focuses on the analysis of attitudes and behaviors of the leaders from different perspectives.
Critique of Traditional Body of Leadership Literature
Evaluation of the traditional body of literature focusing on leadership shows a clear sense of understanding of how researchers perceived leadership. Traditionally, leadership emphasized supervisory control over employees, with the view being that leaders ought to determine what is wrong or right for their employees (Roof, 2014; Management Research Group, 2012). Ruben & Gigliotti (2019) indicate that traditional leadership embraced a wide array of theories, such as “great man” theory that highlighted the need for leaders to embrace characteristics of leaders that lived in the past. From this perspective, it was clear that leaders were only considered as being effective depending on their personal characteristics. Northhouse (2010) argues that some of the personal features the “innate qualities and characteristics possessed by great social, political, and military leaders such as Ghandi, Lincoln, and Bonaparte” (p.15). This notion of leadership reflected on the fundamental understanding that leaders are born with the innate characters that would define their position in leadership.
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The traditional understanding of leadership also reflected on the fact that leaders were expected to behave in a manner that would define the level of authority that they held. The behavioral leadership model focused on three main leadership styles, which were autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. Van Velsor (2006) highlighted that the leadership style that a leader was expected to embrace depended solely on the level of readiness of the follower. Readiness is considered as the ability for followers to set high but attainable goals while taking necessary responsibility that would help reach them (Maseti & Gumede, 2011). Leaders were expected to play a critical role in defining the extent to which followers would embrace their attainable goals. The expectation was that this would help determine the possibilities of success, with the view being that this would help create a front for exceptional commitment. Leaders had a key role in promoting commitment on the part of the followers; thus, advancing the notion of success.
Comparison of Traditional and Contemporary Perspectives of Leadership
On the one hand, the traditional and contemporary leadership presents major similarities that help to understand the specific objectives of leadership in each perspective. The analogy is based on the main aspect goal of leadership. In traditional leadership, the main objective involved the achievement of a common goal, which is similar to the objective of the contemporary perspective of leadership. Leaders in the traditional and modern leadership purposed to guide individuals, teams, and organizations toward the achievement of a common goal (Tng, 2009). The second similarity involves the leadership qualities and skills of the leaders. In traditional leadership, the skills and qualities of the leaders played a vital role in promoting the success of the leadership process. Similarly, the leadership skills and qualities are essential aspects of contemporary leadership as they help in ensuring that the leaders have a major impact on other people.
On the other hand, a comparison of traditional and contemporary perspectives of leadership shows a significant difference in the way leadership models are structured. Bryman (2004) indicates that contemporary perspectives of leadership place emphasis on charismatic, transformational, and transactional leadership, which are considered as being rather effective in building efficiency. The leadership models embraced by leaders today go beyond those that were embraced by leaders, traditionally, considering that leadership environments have changed significantly. Perkins (2009) takes note of the fact that rapid increase of complexity, increased demand for leadership, and technological advancements are some of the factors that have contributed to differentiated perspectives of leadership. Currently, leaders are facing environments taking into account some of the factors identified, which has been of great value towards defining expected shifts towards contemporary leadership.
Conclusion
Leadership is seen as one of the critical factors that define success or failure, with the expectation being that a leader should always be at the forefront in establishing a vision that would advance the possibility of achieving set goals. A traditional view of leadership shows that the most significant models that leaders embraced were autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. However, this has changed significantly in contemporary leadership, as leaders are shifting towards charismatic, transformational, and transactional leadership. Another key aspect to note is that traditional leaders were able to exert their authority depending on the level of leadership, which was seen as a key approach to influencing followers towards a specific goal. The contemporary understanding of leadership reflects on the fact that leaders should always work towards connecting with their followers at a much deeper level as a way of achieving efficiency in leadership.
References
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Dansereau, F., Seitz, S. R., Chiu, C. Y., Shaughnessy, B., & Yammarino, F. J. (2013). What makes leadership, leadership? Using self-expansion theory to integrate traditional and contemporary approaches. The Leadership Quarterly , 24 (6), 798-821.
Management Research Group. (2012). Research News on Leadership and Organizational Development: Management Research Group [Video File]. YouTube . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgO7a9t6zv8
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Tng, C. S. (2009). An educational leadership framework based on traditional and contemporary leadership theories. E-Leader Kuala Lumpur , 1-7.
Van Velsor, E. (2006). Methodological issues in the comparison of leadership experience data from unique groups . Powerpoint presentation. Center for Creative Leadership.
Vecchiotti, R. (2018). Contemporary Leadership: The Perspective of a Practitioner. Journal of Leadership Studies , 12 (2), 40-45.
