Leadership is among the key research subjects in both the academic and corporate segment and has made terrific progress in unearthing several of the persistent mysteries linked to leadership. In the approaching years, the exploration of leadership would be most prevailing in human history. Medics and researchers have established a belief that leadership is a flexible developmental practice and with continuous development in the research area, it has occasionally differed which was consequential prior to it. These include the question of whether a leader is made or born; the manner in which followers have affected the effective leaders; and whether a charismatic leader can be a game-changer by destroying and building a society.
Leadership Theories
Numerous leadership theories such as Contingency theory, Transformational theory, Trait theory, Great Man theory, Transactional theory, Behavioral theory, Situational leadership theory and Participative leadership theory have been investigated over the decades. Presently companies are exploring Strategic and Positive Servant Leadership. Great-Man Theory explores the determination put to studies for shared characteristics of leadership that have been persisted for years as most communities require a leader to shape their accomplishments and to rationalize their failures (Amanchukwu, Stanley & Ololube, 2015). Reyes et al. (2019) disapproved “Great-Man Theory” that a leader is born and a man who is gifted with heroic abilities could become a leader. The reliability of this theory was confronted by the consequent proceedings that leadership was ethically faulty in connection with Hitler, Napoleon, and the like since these brilliant men becoming insignificant and therefore the organizations’ growth restrained (Reyes et al., 2019).
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Nawaz and Khan (2016) argue that the trait theory states how a leader is distinct from his/her followers due to his/her confidence, physical features, social characteristics and personality attributes. Trait theory overlooked the point of whether leadership traits are acquired or genetic. Traits were identified as emergent traits (reliant upon genetics- like self-confidence height, attractiveness, and intelligence) and efficiency traits (grounded in learning or experience), as an essential element of leadership (Nawaz & Khan, 2016). According to the theory, persons born with particular traits like idealism, intelligence, confidence and determination tend to become a leader. Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube (2015) consider Trait theory a failure because it was hard to identify the shared traits of all effective leaders and in the 1940s, the scholars revealed the significance of some traits developing at given periods while exploring the leaders’ traits from civilian and military. Thus, it did not produce consistency in the result and occasionally deteriorated into irrational speculation.
Reyes et al. (2019) assert that behavioral theory grounded in behavior pattern visibly distinguishes between followers and leaders. According to this theory, the leaders who display job-oriented behavior are attentive to the followers’ activities by concentrating largely on performance and ensure they observe practices and procedures, while the leaders who engage in worker-oriented behavior focus on establishing a unified work team towards worker gratification. The two styles were alleged to be at contrasting ends of a sole facet and were understood to show just a single style and not both (Nawaz & Khan, 2016).
In the year 1964, Blake and Mouton developed Managerial grid, which is a framework for investigating leadership types (Miao, Humphrey & Qian, 2018). The Managerial grid comprises two dimensions, i.e., concern for people and concern for production. The grid drew much attention from scholars but the major weakness was exposed with advanced research. Nonetheless, while attempting to explore a particular set of conduct in all situations, the model ignored the complexities of distinct behavior in business, in which a dissimilar method was required to explore the complexity of leadership; therefore, contingency theory was developed for this reason.
What is more, in the year 1967, Fried Fiedler presented the contingency model of leadership, that states that effectiveness of leadership rest on the circumstance and thus leaders’ influence vary with the situations (can be effective in a circumstance but not in another) (Reyes et al., 2019). The model clarifies why inconsistency arises and ascertains leader-situation matches which lead to effective performance and a leader’s effectiveness relies on his situation and personality. The model is more developed than the prior leadership styles due to its explicit deliberation towards situations in a company as well as its role in successful leadership.
In the year 1977, Hersy and Blanchard introduced Situational theory, which is grounded in the idea that behavior of a leader rests on maturity (accountability, motivation, competence) of the followers (Nawaz & Khan, 2016). As the maturity of the follower rises from low level to high level, a leader should move progressively from high job-focused behavior to low job-focus behavior. According to Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube (2015), situational style of leadership employs two leadership dimensions concerning task as well as relationship behaviors that Fiedler pinpointed but Blanchard and Hersy progressed by regarding each as high or low and joining them into 4 definite leadership behaviors (delegating, telling, participating and selling). Miao, Humphrey and Qian (2018) contend that this inside consistency issue with the model is worsened by conceptual vagueness linked to the job-related maturity theory as it is applied in the normative concept with problems in the relations-behavior variable since it is functioning zed in the model.
On the word of Reyes et al. (2019), charismatic leadership theory maintains that charisma is a distinct quality of the leader. Charisma is a kind of interpersonal attraction which stimulates acceptance and supports from the followers. This tends to make the charismatic leaders more effective in swaying the behavior of follower. Also, charismatic leadership theory proposes the behavior and traits of a charismatic leader and its impact is its aptitude to expound charismatic leadership in regard to testable suggestions.
Leadership Development
Of late, leadership has turned into one of the greatest explored themes in the management field and numerous scholars have surveyed leadership development in order to comprehend the underlying factor of the human conduct towards the team as well as their effectiveness. According to Daniëls, Hondeghem and Dochy (2019), leadership development is turning out to be strategic and critical for companies in the present business scenario. Leadership development is a vital aspect of the competitive realm of today, to upsurge the ability of persons to acquire a competitive advantage. It is being implemented and considered in companies to upsurge human ability and to absorb competitive advantage. According to Frich et al. (2015), these developments may be executed with ordinary work duties for organizational growth and individual development. These developments could be employed to develop managerial and leadership skills in accordance with present work requirements and could also be applied to develop, execute and undertake new assignments athwart functions. Miao, Humphrey and Qian (2018) argue that development interventions are crucial and perform an essential role in developing organizational and individual performance and similarly motivate workers.
Daniëls, Hondeghem and Dochy (2019) pointed out that performance is a vital aspect of a company’s growth and development. Therefore, development initiatives could be useful in managing and identifying groups, guiding the administrators to adopt and learn the qualities essential for the work for efficiently performing his duty towards organizational development. According to Frich et al. (2015), the process of leadership development intends to develop leaders and also seeks to boost the general development of the company by incorporating organizational values and culture to realize organizational goals.
Study on leadership development is broad nonetheless the literature regarding leadership development has grown in a minor manner. The literature regarding managerial leadership development is scarce and a majority of the surveys aren’t empirical (Reyes et al., 2019). Miao, Humphrey and Qian (2018) argue that although leadership development programs are amply discussed, research shows that businesses are spending miniature time to assess the efficiency of their initiatives and more precisely, assess if the interventions are boosting the performance of the organization. Managerial leadership development ought not to be mistaken for leadership education since it entails an individual’s profession in their lifespan and not a temporary incident towards development and learning.
Daniëls, Hondeghem and Dochy (2019) maintain that leadership development is a work in progress. Therefore, the unceasing effort ought to be practiced in order to be effective in the workstation. Frich et al. (2015) recommend that companies should explore longstanding development methods and should form a culture of development and learning to further advance the approach to developing leaders.
As evidenced throughout the paper, there has been considerable effort made by practitioners and researchers to categorize various leadership dimensions, consequently generating an effect amongst social and organizational researchers to study and comprehend organized exploration on leadership. This is to comprehend leadership theories on styles, trait, development and behavior of leaders. The leadership theory history began with leadership qualities, which influences the leaders’ approach and functioning towards their followers. The trait approach ruled study up to the later phase of the 1940s. Nonetheless, further studies have demonstrated that traits don’t all the time foretell leadership success. Thus scholars have moved to explore the style, behavior, as well as development of a leader plus its success. This implies that leadership literature shows that over time, practitioners and researchers have refined and modified the theories and none of them is irrelevant.
However, there is a gap in literature on how the participants are implementing the leadership models in order to get the preferred results. In order to prove the success of the leadership program, future research should associate the leadership models with particular results and build confidence in partakers to develop better leader effectiveness.
References
Amanchukwu, R. N., Stanley, G. J., & Ololube, N. P. (2015). A review of leadership theories, principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management , 5 (1), 6-14.
Daniëls, E., Hondeghem, A., & Dochy, F. (2019). A review on leadership and leadership development in educational settings. Educational Research Review .
Frich, J. C., Brewster, A. L., Cherlin, E. J., & Bradley, E. H. (2015). Leadership development programs for physicians: a systematic review. Journal of general internal medicine , 30 (5), 656-674.
Miao, C., Humphrey, R. H., & Qian, S. (2018). A cross-cultural meta-analysis of how leader emotional intelligence influences subordinate task performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Journal of World Business , 53 (4), 463-474.
Nawaz, Z. A. K. D. A., & Khan_ PhD, I. (2016). Leadership theories and styles: A literature review. Leadership , 16 (1), 1-7.
Reyes, D. L., Dinh, J., Lacerenza, C. N., Marlow, S. L., Joseph, D. L., & Salas, E. (2019). The state of higher education leadership development program evaluation: A meta-analysis, critical review, and recommendations. The Leadership Quarterly , 30 (5), 101311.
