The Leadership- Member Exchange (LMX) theory purports that a leader forms individual relationships with followers as opposed to having a common relationship for all subordinates. One of the strengths of LMX is its use of dyadic relationship that other leadership theories do not use. This allows the leader to identify specific skills and assign resources depending on performance and skills. The second strength of LMX is its focus on communication as a significant part of leadership, allowing for better development, trust, growth, and respect among subordinates and leaders (Cote, 2017).
LMX also has its weakness, which is biasness. While other leaderships focus on ensuring fairness, LMX allows leaders to favor the in-group subordinates, a factor that raises issues of fairness within the organization as some employees are seen to gain favors (Cote, 2017). Another weakness of LMX theory is the lack of fully developed ideas considering there is limited literature on its efficacy in comparison to other models (Cote, 2017). The main impact of this strengths and weaknesses is fostering development of in-group members at the risk of neglecting the out-group. Because of favors and support that in-group members receive, they develop better skills and perform highly compared to those in the out-group.
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In comparison to transformational leadership, LMX can foster change through developing the in-group members and inspiring them. Another characteristic different in both approaches is communication between leaders and subordinates. Transformational leadership makes use of communication to inspire change while LMX uses communication to develop a dyadic relationship between leaders and subordinates (Cote, 2017). An example of a good leader who used communication and fostered individual relationships is Phil Jackson, who coached a basketball team. He developed each player depending on their strengths to reach their full potential.
References
Cote, R. (2017). A Comparison of Leadership Theories in an Organizational Environment. International Journal of Business Administration, 8 (5), 28-35.
